The rising cost and lack of accessibility to child care is driving more and more parents to turn to their children’s grandparents to ease the burden.
Grandparents are now the most popular form of child care in Australia, putting in up to 50 hours a week of work – almost always unpaid.
Many parents see grandparents as the ‘next best thing’ to parental care, offering flexibility and fostering inter-generational family relationships that can benefit grandparents and grandkids alike. And most grandparents agree – looking after grandchildren can be a significant source of satisfaction, by taking on a nurturing, caretaking role with less responsibility.
But how much should be expected of grandparents when it comes to raising the kids?
Filling a gap
Balancing childcare costs and full-time work led Meetu and Ritesh Rajput to ask Ritesh’s parents to fly from India to Canberra to look after their two children.
“It took us a while to convince them,” admits Ritesh.
For grandparents Virender and Rekha Rajput, both in their sixties, it’s provided an opportunity to pass their language and culture onto their grandchildren – but at a cost.
“We left our social life behind. Here we have a language problem … here our social life is looking after our grandchildren,” says Virender.
The pair enjoy taking their grandkids to the park, where they go on the swings and run around together. “If we meet some Indians there, we can have a conversation … generally, where we live in Canberra, there are not many Indians there, so we are not able to have much conversation with anybody,” Virender says through an interpreter.
For some families, grandparenting can help fill a gap – for either side of the equation.
I never got to know my parents, or my grandparents, so it was important to me that when my grandchildren came along they knew their culture, identity, and the language we use.
Ngarrindjeri great-grandmother Maxine Risk-Sumner looks after her grandchildren and great-grandchildren whenever required. Being part of the stolen generation, she sees her greatest role as providing guidance for the future.
“I never got to know my parents, or my grandparents, so it was important to me that when my grandchildren came along they knew their culture, identity, and the language we use,” Maxine tells Jenny Brockie.
Maxine says she provides for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren financially and emotionally, wanting to give them direction and support she didn’t have growing up.
“I see my role as a grandparent as so significant … if they’re there and they fall off the track, I gently put them back on the track.”
Like a growing number of grandparents, Elizabeth Vescio retired five years ago so she could help look after her four grandchildren.
“I started to look after the first one, and still kept working part-time,” she says. “Then I actually started enjoying it.” As more grandchildren came along, Elizabeth cut back her work hours.
Eventually, balancing work and her grandkids got “a bit much,” she says. She started working only one day a week, and then gave up work altogether.
“It was a choice,” she says. “I love it. My mother looked after my children … it kept her young, and I think it’s what it does to me.”
Intergenerational conflict
When it comes to grandparents pitching in, not everyone agrees about discipline and parenting methods.
When Suganya Chandra asked her parents and parents-in-law to look after her two children, they also came out from India to help.
“I’m thankful they came, because I wouldn’t have managed without them, but it wasn’t without arguments,” says Suganya, who faced unexpected clashes over daily issues and disagreements about her parenting, like getting her older son ready for school, and the use of disposable nappies. “They felt that … I was using them for my convenience, and I was torturing the baby.”
Suganya says she lost confidence in herself as a mother, but was still dependent on their help. “I stopped telling them what was going on with the baby,” she says. “I didn’t expect this to happen.”
Intergenerational tension can affect grandchildren, too.
Cassie moved in with her grandparents at 16, after her relationship with her parents broke down.
“I just rocked up. It was like, yeah I’m moving in, and they’re like ‘okay,’” she says. She now moves between her two sets of grandparents each week.
Her grandparents helped her through a difficult time, pushing her to get up early, showing her how to cook and teaching her to save money. “I honestly don’t think I’d be here today if it wasn’t for them,” she says.
But when her step-dad told her grandparents she was gay, their relationships became strained.
“My grandma … told me how disgusting it was,” she says. “She was disappointed. She told me that I can’t bring people home and she doesn’t want to know.”
“It’s hard, because you can’t really talk about relationships.”
Taking over
For others, the stakes of looking after their grandchildren are much higher. There’s a growing army of grandparents taking over full-time caring roles of their grandkids – easing the strain on the welfare system, but making plenty of personal sacrifices.
Deb was planning to live in America with her new girlfriend when she became a stay-at-home, single grandmother raising her three grandchildren under the age of six.
"It was a no-brainer. They’re my flesh and blood and I can’t see how I would allow anyone else to bring them up,” she says.
But Deb admits it’s not the life she’d imagined for herself. “I always told my daughter I wanted lots of grandchildren, but I never, ever thought for a moment that I was going to be bringing them up," she says.
Deb has used all her superannuation to pay her mortgage and raise her grandchildren, and worries about her employment prospects as a 61-year-old when she has to go back to work.
Charlotte, 15, has been raised by her single grandfather John, 67, since she was a toddler.
“I don’t know what I’d do without him,” says Charlotte. “I can just lean all my problems onto him, and he can take it, he’s fine about it.”
John offered to take on raising Charlotte when her mother wasn’t able to. “At times I’ve wondered why I ever volunteered to do it,” he admits.
“At the time I was the best person available to do it … I’m a civil engineer, I race motor bikes, bringing up a kid shouldn’t be a problem,” he says. “Yeah, well, lesson I’ve learnt, you know?”
John and Charlotte Source: Insight
Together, they’ve navigated anxiety and depression, periods and bra shopping, and now the awkwardness of dating. John insists any suitors ride their push-bike to his hobby farm to have a chat before taking his granddaughter out.
With more and more grandparents stepping in or taking over the parental duties, this week on Insight, we hear from grandparents, parents and grandchildren on the highs and lows of grandparents looking after the kids.
Catch up on Insight's episode Granny Nanny here:
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