Forget Supernanny

By Kate Miller, The Scotsman 

United Kingdom

August 5, 2008

I dropped my 11-year-old daughter off at a friend's house the other day, knowing full well that the girl's mother was not at home. This is not as irresponsible as it sounds because the child's granny was in charge, as she is four days a week while the parents are at work. It was a godsend, because my own summer childcare plans – a complex system best described as a house of cards – had collapsed as spectacularly as my mother-in-law, who took a tumble off a pavement, sprained her ankle. 

And as I labour over the keyboard in my office at home, I can hear over the wall the shouts of three small children looked after every weekday by their seventysomething granny, who gamely fetches up at football camp and tennis lessons with her little troop in tow and provides, apparently effortlessly and with great good humour, enough fun and stimulation to fill the endless summer days. 

Such domestic scenarios are becoming more common. With household budgets stretched to breaking point, childcare costs soaring and growing parental paranoia, the older generation is increasingly being called upon to step into the breach. Pop down to any park this summer and the squealing charges bickering in the sandpit are as likely to be monitored by a bench-load of over-50s as by a gaggle of young mums. 

"Grandparents really do play such a tremendous role these days," says Irene Cordingley of the Grandparents Association, herself a granny. "They are called on to look after the children in emergencies, if the parents are ill, while the mum and dad go to work, holidays or all year round even. It is really hard to put into words what they do. They are relied on for all sorts of help." 

Last week, a study by Mintel found that the baby-boomer generation were not only supporting their children financially well into adulthood, but were also helping out with childcare, with one in four of the over-50s regularly babysitting when mum and dad are out for the night or at work. An earlier study, in May of this year, which was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families to see how government childcare strategy was working, found that it wasn't. There had been a drop in the number of families using formal childcare because of the often prohibitive cost, and 47 per cent of parents were relying instead on grandparents to mind the children. This despite the creation of half a million new nursery places and a promise of affordable childcare for all.

Money lies at the root of the trend. This year alone, the cost of summer holiday childcare has jumped by 10 per cent, with parents expected to shell out £550 per child when school is out, an average of about £90 for every week of the holiday. A nursery place, meanwhile, can cost thousands every year. A study by the Skipton Building Society last year found that for one in five women, only the assistance of grandparents could allow them to return to work.

That said, two-thirds of those questioned for the Skipton survey said they preferred grandparents to do the looking-after in their absence, knowing their child was with someone they loved and who loved them back. 

James McCoy of Mintel believes it can be a mutually beneficial situation, and is part of a wider trend to rely more on the older generation for financial and practical help, something that is not so very different from the way families were run just a few generations ago.

"What we are getting is people relying more on the family home. It's just going back to what we used to do many, many, many years ago," he says. "If you went back 100 years (you'd find] it was very common for families to live together for long periods. It has probably only been a blip in the past 50 or 60 years, when people were encouraged to grow up quickly and move out. We are seeing a return to what we saw many years ago – the extended family. 

"In a way, it's a win-win situation. For the parent it means both mum and dad can continue to work and not have to pay out huge sums in childcare, while for the grandparents it brings them closer to their grandchildren without the added burden of having to pay for everything and raise them. There is a growing trend for grandparents to get much, much more involved."

McCoy even goes so far as to suggest that many of those who pay for formal childcare only do so because they aren't lucky enough to have an able and willing grandparent to help them out.

Douglas McLelland, a policy adviser with Age Concern Scotland, spent a lot of time with his grandparents when he was growing up. "Both of my parents were working and it was also to give me a variation during the holidays." 

These days, he says, such ad hoc arrangements are becoming more formalised and happening sooner, largely because of economic pressures. "Now it is almost pre-birth."

As common as it has become, however, the trend of grannies being able to provide childcare is one that might not be able to continue. Women are having their families later; incomes are shrinking and people are working longer; diet and lifestyle issues may mean a change in life expectancy for future generations.

"It is going to be a harder thing to do," says McLelland. "More people will be working past the age of retirement, people are having children later in life … I don't think it's going to be sustainable in the longer term."

In the short term, he adds, it is crucial that grandparents' generosity is not abused. Recent research by Age Concern Scotland found discomfort among some elderly people that they might be expected by family members to carry the can.

"The presumption of free childcare and (a grandparent] meeting the cost of having the children is a form of elder abuse. Relationships can be abused. I think there can be an aspect of taking a liberty and forcing this upon grandparents. We would always hope that the relationship between parent and child is one of mutual trust and understanding and mutual respect in terms of upbringing. There should be no presumption."

It is a point not lost on Cordingley. Many of those who contact the Grandparents Association do so because they are being denied access to their grandchildren, often through family break-up. Those who do have access and help out with childcare do so out of love, she says. And, while they may not be specifically looking for any reward, a little more recognition would not go amiss – either from their own offspring or from the government, which should acknowledge the role they play in caring for the nation's children. "They should never be taken for granted," she says.

Copyright © Global Action on Aging
Terms of Use  |  Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us