Storey from the ABC today.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-12/grandparents-who-quit-work-to-care-full-time-for-grandkids/8685288

I found this disturbing. Is it really an increasing trend and if so why?

It is one thing for grandparents to visit occasionally and especially for special occasions. My wife went to the 'kids' place to care for a child if the parents had to work while there were school hols. This lasted for a week or two, at other times we met a grandchild at the airport who traveled unaccompanied to us for hols. This seems normal and everyone benefits from these visits. How proud the granddaughter was to be big enough to travel without mum.

However the above story is different as it refers to grandparents having the grandkid/s full time.

I was wondering is this becoming more prevelant now and the grandparents having to do the whole parenting thing again just to prevent the kids from going into care, or to ensure the kids are properly cared for, and do not the grandparents then get the financial assistance available. Or do the kids parents get to keep that for themselves. Do the grandparents have to go to court to become official carers.

Trust some posters with experience can relate the situation

Parents, not grandparents, are supposed to be raising their own kids; and if this means the mother has to stay home to do that, so be it. Working mothers have wrecked families, and the results are plain to see.

Some mothers & grannies don't have much choice ttbn.

A friend of my youngest a 25 years old discovered she was pregnant 4 months into the building of a new house. The husband was caught playing around on a 3 month interstate posting while she was pregnant, & overseeing the house building.

He's gone, & she has a 8 month old baby & a 7 month old house. She can just manage the mortgage, but the baby has a health problem & won't sleep. Granny is there 5 days & 4 nights a week helping.

The kid doesn't have much choice, have you seen how most on single parent benefit live?

Don't know what grand dad thinks of all this.

Not the actual subject, but only a slight twist on it. Pity we don't have any decent answers to all of it.

Dear Banjo,

Parents work for a variety of reasons. Many work because
nowadays it does take two incomes to support a family.
Also, childcare is so expensive. So its not easy.
If grandparents are willing to help out - that's great for
everyone. Not all can though. Those that do help - often
stay more active and possibly healthier as a result. It's
also good not only physically but mentally to have youngsters
around. Personally, I look after one set of grandchildren
two days a week and I love doing it. It's good for them and
its good for me. I remember my grandson asking me one,
"Baba, how come you know so much?" "It's because I'm so old."
I told him. To which he shook his head and told me, "No,
Baba, you're cool and fun!"

Makes it all worthwhile.

Ther are increasing numbers of seniors raising grandchildren permanently. I'm one of them. I have fully raised two and partially raised several others. My reason is similar to many other grandparents. A daughter who is unstable bipolar but had 6 kids that needed caring for. Unfortunately you can't force women to use birth control.
Other grandparents have grandkids because of drug issues with the parents, frequently these are single mothers with kids to multiple partners.
As far as money goes it depends on the circumstances. Some like me have a family agreement to have the kids without Child Protection involvement so we just get the same family tax benefit that parents get. Others have the children placed with them by Child Protection, as foster children. They receive a foster payment fortnightly as well as the Family Tax Benefit, so are much better off financially.
The one government benefit we all get is free child care, which was great whilst I was working and I also used it during school holiday time after I retired because it gave me a break from the kids as well as gave them more physical activities than I could manage at my age.
It's a growing problem due to too many girls/women having children they are unable to care for and grandparents are having to step up.
I still have a school aged child living with me, as well as two adult ones I raised.

With more remote aboriginal families, sometimes the grandmothers just take the kids to stop them being abused/ neglected but the mothers refuse to notify Centrelink to allow gran to get the Family Tax Benefit so the grandmother has to feed them out of her aged pension. If she complains the mother threatens to take the kids back into the same circumstances.
It's very hard for those old women, because they have the finincial issue on top of the physical strain.

Quote :
Parents, not grandparents, are supposed to be raising their own kids; and if this means the mother has to stay home to do that, so be it. Working mothers have wrecked families, and the results are plain to see.

Yes.

This nanny state has tasked itself with the responsibility of looking after all disadvantaged and we are taxed most heavily for the states' largess. If the mother cannot care for their children then let the state look after them do not appeal for even more cash from the state.

Sorry I have being away for a while over to see our friends and other peoples we all know.

About the grandparents looking after all the kids sometimes is OK I think. Not for reasons Foxy says to keep her young, but to teach and guide the kids, also with help of the parents, with the extra knowlege the Grandparents have because of their longer lifes.

Good parents plus good grandparents, makes a good example and mixture for the kids to follow and learn from I think. Thank you.

G'day there TTBN...

I've got to agree with HASBEEN on this one I'm afraid. I do understand what it is you're saying, ideally it would be good for mother to remain home and tend to the children, rather than seeking a career of her own.

Unfortunately, current fiscal events don't always permit the ideal family structure of the fifties, sixties and seventies to remain static, with Dad at work and Mum at home tending to the kids. I do believe there's a clear delineation between a 'working mother' as opposed to a mother with a well structured career? Dad's a decent sort of 'wood butcher' while Mum's a junior partner in a small suburban solicitor's practice. Dad has his job, Mum a career.

An ideal situation for the Grandparents to offer meaningful assistance as required where mum 'has' to work out of a true financial exigency. However where Mum has a career, perhaps it's Dad that needs to stop work and care full time for their kids? Rather than calling upon the good will of the poor Grandparents, to look after their grandchildren, despite their protestations to the contrary.

I have said this before but it is worth repeating.
In the case of where both parents are working, the problem is a Labour
government decision back in the 1960s or 1970s.
The government decreed that all lending for housing must consider the
income of both the husband and wife.
This enabled them to borrow more money.

What happens when you put twice as much money into any market ?
Surprise, surprise, the price of the product, including houses, rises
to match the available money !
If you borrow on two incomes, you need two incomes to pay the mortgage !
So why is everybody surprised ?

That of course makes it impossible in the case of failed marriages.

As an aside, a question was asked, why do people live so long after
their fertile years have ended ?
The answer was that grandparents are needed to support their own
childrens' families. It is a survival technique.

I could see this happening back in the 70's, when women started going back into the workforce in droves and the fight was on for daycare centres.

I myself never liked the idea of handing one of my own over to strangers to care for.
Although I understand that a lot of people without family backup and failed marriages have little choice. I am also not disparaging child care workers, as they do a good job
in a job that isn't easy or well paid.

I cared for the kids 3 or 4 days a week, when they were small, and still do the school run
now that they are all at school. In other cultures, it is probably common place for the Aunties and grandmothers to all care for the children.

Motherhood is a lifetime job. Fatherhood is too, but not quite as intensive. Unless the father has the mother role.

I always say, you hand your car over to a stranger to mind, but never your kids. But that's just me. I understand the practicalities of other people's predicaments.

That should be "I cared for the grandchildren" above.

I fixed it,, but then the drafted thing posted before I was ready.

One of todays problems is the ridiculous size our cities have grown to, & kids needing to go where work takes them.

We have 3 kids all with in the same general city. However one is 35Km away, one is 50Km & the youngest is 145Km away. Two are needing some help with kids at the moment, & my wife is doing about 1000Km a week running from one to the other.

I have told her that if she spends much more time away supporting the kids, she should not be surprised if I don't recognise her if she ever comes home.

I think it was cheaper when they lived at home.

Grandparents provide 40% of all childcare, according to the Productivity Commission. No financial help of course, unless they look after other people's kids.

We had 4 kids, I went back to work when my youngest was 4 as my younger sister came to live with us with her toddler after her husband was killed in a car accident. They were renting, no insurance and no-one's fault as he hit a huge roo coming home from footy practice in at 9pm in the dead of winter. Sad times but it all came good in the finish.

It all worked extremely well way back then, she was on the widow's pension as it was called back then and eventually married again 5 years down the track, but by then my youngest was nearly 10.

I worked at the steel mill in the office from 9am-3pm till the youngest was in high school, then went full time 9-5, and that is what casual work was all about in the beginning. Mostly work for mothers with school age kids.

We now have 9 grandsons and 2 grand-daughters between the ages of 1-24 and have had all of them over time for school holidays and they all went to daycare which broke my heart at the time but I was not willing to give up my job to be a full time carer and my children all needed to work to afford their houses..mind you we started off in a 2 bedroom miners cottage and they all started off in a macmansion pretty much. Maybe that's is part of what the difference is? and why the kids have to go to daycare nowadays?

As well as the best function of this app is that the images that http://snapchatonlinelogin.org Likewise, you could even tell your tales via video clips and

I don't know if it is becoming more prevalent. I suspect that extended family caring for young children was more common before the need for court orders and before Family Tax Benefit, which gave disinterested parents a reason to hang on to kids they didn't care about.

Grandparents can get family law court orders in their favour. They can also apply to become foster carers of grandchildren, but they have a stronger case if they have a close relationship with the kids. I know of a few grandparents who have cut all ties with adult children, which makes it hard for them to say they have a close relationship with those adult's children.