We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the overbearing grandparent—usually a grandmother. She has no boundaries. She insists on being present at the delivery. She wants the grandchild named after her, and her name is “Janice Denise”. She shows up uninvited. She flagrantly strays from the beige and terracotta registry, buying a plethora of fuchsia Minnie Mouse themed baby swings with obnoxious songs and lights. She gifts you an ancient crib from 1992 that has since been recalled after multiple infant deaths, and cries when you say you will be using the Halo Bassinest instead. We have all heard stories about this woman. And while she definitely exists, I’m here to look at the flip side: the grandparents who are just…sort of “meh” on their grandkids.
I’m not talking about abusive grandparents, or grandparents who are estranged or dangerous or for some other reason are not permitted to have access to their grandkids. I’m talking about grandparents whose kids would love a close relationship, who are invited to visit, asked to babysit, and who repeatedly say: No <3
I asked my Twitter followers about these grandparents and received many stories via replies and DM:
“My in-laws enjoy their grandkids’ company, but are completely unwilling to change anything about their routine to accommodate the fact that there are now small children in the family. As a result, they don’t see the grandkids all that much.”
“My first born was ignored by my in-laws. I asked an in-law to change a nappy as we were busy, got flat refusal.”
“They’ve not visited us for 6-7 years now.”
“They are only ‘interested’ when it suits them.”
“My parents are ALWAYS on their phones when I visit with them. A huge lack of engagement but they love seeing the kid. It’s a contradiction that has annoyed me to no end.”
“I asked my parents if they wanted to visit my 5-month-old son more often and she said, ‘well, at this age they aren’t very interesting or do much. So maybe when he is older I’ll be around more.’”
“We have never once been invited over. If I try to text to arrange plans, no answer.”
“My mom has disappointed me so much since having my daughter. She only helps if it suits her, doesn’t interact much around her, and is very unreliable.”
“In-laws have asked my son’s birthday multiple times. He’s not even three.”
“My parents have only met my kids once or twice. My in-laws just don’t make an effort to come see then, I’d have to bring them over.”
“My mom has never offered to help or give us a break (babysit, date night, etc) unprompted. And then she complains that she’s not the preferred grandparent.”
“They ended up visiting us ONCE when she was four months old but showed up hours late because they visited a nudist beach.”
So…why is this happening? Isn’t the best part of the “golden years” the adorable grandkids who you can play with, spoil, and cuddle? (Without having to deal with any guilt, discipline, or annoying things that make parenting less fun?) Why would a grandparent essentially pass on their grandkids?
There are several factors I think are at play here.
First, now more than ever, there is a larger gap between the day that a couple becomes empty nesters and the day they become grandparents. Boomers had fewer kids than elderly folks in the ‘80s, and their kids (millennials) had kids later in life. This means that a lot of boomers became empty nesters around forty-five or fifty, but don’t become grandparents until their late sixties or early seventies. They learned to fill this 15-20 year span with other things: hobbies, travel, friends, and given that many of them are divorced (divorce rates peaked during the years that boomers were getting married) a great deal of baby boomers have remarried, or busied themselves with dating.
This is obviously a good thing—we want older folks to have full engaging lives! We don’t want them to sit around in a rocking chair knitting solemnly until they are called upon to change diapers again. But the flip side is that if an elderly couple has twenty years to go to Santorini and yoga retreats, changing that lifestyle to care for an infant again could seem really unappealing.
The fact that boomers are becoming grandparents at older ages than their predecessors also means they have less energy for grandkids. There is a big difference between becoming a grandparent at fifty-five versus seventy-five. There are many people with chronic medical conditions that worsen with age, without good access to healthcare, who might have been capable of wrestling a toddler in their fifties, but do not have the stamina for it twenty years later.
And then—covid. While some grandparents might avoid their grandkids out of a fear of catching covid, I am not seeing any stories about that in 2024. In fact, all of the grandparents in my family were eager to see us long before we felt safe doing so, and if anything, thought we were being kind of crazy. What I am seeing, however, are stories about grandparents who reasonably isolated in 2020, maybe 2021, and became so comfortable being alone (and being on their phones!) that they forgot how to interact with other people, especially children. There is no reason that covid isolation would affect young people but not elderly people (and I’m not talking about enforced lockdowns, I’m talking about voluntary isolation, so don’t come at me about how “you’re being dramatic, we didn’t really lock down”.) Covid got us all on our phones, and for many baby boomers, phones went from “that annoying thing all the kids are doing” to “my absolute favorite thing in the fucking world.”
But let’s zoom out. There’s another root cause, which I think is also the root cause of many other social problems today, and it’s the “I don’t owe anyone anything” mentality. You’ve probably seen it on Reddit threads, where the OP is chastised for expecting their bridesmaids to wear a color they don’t like, or advised to go no-contact with a cousin who voted for Eric Adams. There are some good things about this mentality—we should not be excessively loyal to employers who would replace us in a heartbeat, and we should not put up with abusive behavior. But this mindset extends into a belief that if something isn’t legally required of you, you’re not an asshole for refusing to do it. Only one problem: agreeing to do things we aren’t legally required to do is basically the only thing upholding any kind of communal society or family life.
Even mothers are given the “you don’t owe anyone anything” option. Moms are frequently told to cut contact with “toxic” relatives who have “violated our boundaries.” Sometimes this is reasonable, like when a parent has a drinking problem and can’t be trusted around the kids, but sometimes it’s not. On a mom group, I saw a post about a grandmother who had momentarily forgotten the “don’t kiss the baby” rule and had immediately apologized after realizing what she had done. The verdict: go no-contact. She will never see the grandchild again. She could have killed the baby, and she probably wanted to. She will strike again if she is given the opportunity.
This goes the other way, however. Moms on my mom group also complained that their own mothers or mother-in-laws were refusing to care for their older child while they were in the hospital giving birth, or had not come over to help with the newborn despite living a few blocks away. Exhausted moms, often taking care of newborns and older children while their spouses worked, unable to afford a nanny and with a baby too young for daycare. They asked, “Why can’t my mom come over to cook a meal or hold the baby so I can shower?” The verdict: well, that sucks, but you can’t expect everyone to be your own personal assistant! If you couldn’t afford hired help you shouldn’t have had kids! Your mom doesn’t owe you anything! Don’t you have any friends who can help? (Note: these friends also don’t owe you anything.)
Let’s also not forget that maternity leave being fairly shoddy in the US, and childcare costs being fairly high, contribute to the problem. But it’s important to note that maternity leave is improving (when I started my career, six weeks was standard in my industry—now most companies offer sixteen) and in most cultures it’s assumed that grandparents take on the role of childcare helper. So I don’t want to say something idiot like “if it weren’t for capitalism, everyone would have a private nanny and Grandma could go to the paint and sip event every night.”
There’s something to be said for a compromise here. It’s great that grandparents have lives outside their grandchildren, but they could maybe prioritize family above the latest Carnival cruise, at least most of the time. On the other hand, parents who want help from grandparents have to be reasonable about what they ask for.
While being a grandparent is fun in many ways, it’s not fun all the time. Even if grandparents aren’t expected to discipline the grandkids, they might be expected to adhere to an increasingly long, neurotic list of guidelines that range from the reasonable (put baby to sleep on their back in a crib with no blankets) to the peculiar (only feed baby organic fresh food that was lightly steamed and cut into vertical strips but NOT pureed.) I personally believe that being a grandparent implies that if you’re physically capable, you should jump at the opportunity to help and agree to the parents’ boundaries within reason. But of course, I said within reason. Parents who have laundry lists of absurd rules and restrictions can’t very well expect grandparents to play along, especially older ones who think Montessori is a type of pasta. All this crazy stuff might be somewhat doable if you’re visiting once a month, but becomes completely unmanageable if you are also the full-time unpaid nanny.
Put simply: if you would reprimand a grandparent for buying a plastic light-up toy, or a cringey gendered onesie that says “Daddy’s Little Princess,” then no, the grandparents don’t owe you anything. But if you’re a grandparent, and the parents aren’t asking anything unreasonable of you, it’s time to step up and be part of the village that it supposedly takes to raise a child.
I'm so sorry to read this! I'm a boomer (68) and had fine but not-fuzzy relationships with my aged grandparents in the 60s, 70s, and 80s (by which time they had all passed on). My mom was amazing (her memory and the things she did with and for them are still fresh in my adult kids' minds) and my dad and the in-laws were enthusiastic, if not as demonstrative as Mom.
I now have ONE grandchild -- and this may be all I get :/ but I will do as much as I possibly can for my daughter and her little family. Yes, they have some very different expectations than I'm used to; yes, they live 1100 miles away; yes, it can be difficult at times for numerous reasons -- but here's a little human who needs attention and here are his parents who need a breath once in a while and here we are, loving our people.
I feel really sad for the self-centered people of the world (they're not just grandparents) and would love to show them what they're missing out on. As commenters have said, you'll have the trips and the diversions and the time for stuff --but you won't have an 18-month-old or a 3-year-old or a 15-year-old who's looking for a buddy once that day passes. They keep you young! Love your people!
Such an important post! I’d like to offer a related perspective, that of the grandchild of uninterested grandparents. My maternal grandparents were young, healthy, and would have been fully capable of being involved in my life and that of my brother and cousins, but they were not interested at all. We would see them for quick visits a few times a year for holiday dinners, but otherwise not. Even when they did come, they always showed up late and stayed just long enough to bolt their dinners and take a group photo they could show off to friends back home. They’d usually take off after only 90 minutes or so. My mom always insisted that they loved us, and that the only reason they never saw us was because they were “busy with work,” but we were not fooled. I was always polite to them, of course, but you get out what you put in: I didn’t particularly love or respect them.
Now I am the mom of adult children, and I have watched my kids grow up basking in the unconditional love and indulgent attention of their grandparents. My kids love their grandparents to infinity and beyond, and the feeling is mutual. In fact, my daughter is spending her spring break with my parents right now, and my son lives a few blocks away from my mother-in-law and sees her at least once a week. What a blessing it has been for all of them!
Those indifferent grandparents out there who would rather play pickleball or hang out with friends than spend time with their grandkids, should remember that leisure and hobbies will always be there, but if you don’t build relationships with your grandchildren, you could lose the opportunity forever. And no one ever said on their deathbed, “I regret having so many people in my life who love me.”