How Can Grandma Tell Parents She Can’t Continue to Babysit?

March 8, 2024 DeeDee Moore

Welcome to Grand Advice, where we answer questions from real grandparents. Today’s answer comes from Cynthia G. Kane, Founder, of It's Their Turn: Wisdom for Grandparents.

I watch my grandkids, ages 1 & 3, full time for my daughter & son in law. They pay me a very small amount. My daughter doesn’t want to put them in daycare because it’s costly, plus they can’t attend daycare because they are unvaccinated.

I love my grandbabies dearly, but I am a disabled person with mobility issues. The truth is I don’t want to be responsible for being a childcare provider. I’ve expressed myself to my daughter for a year now without things changing. How can I let my daughter know I don’t want to be a childcare provider without risking becoming estranged?

Thanks for reaching out to Grand Advice. I feel for you, and I think that many other grandparents who are exhausted looking after grandchildren are also wondering what to do.

It sounds like you have found yourself in a role that some researchers have termed intensive grandparenting. This is a structure that has been quite common in many cultures for generations. Intensive grandparents provide weekly, regular childcare for grandchildren, and may offer additional support such as housework, shopping for groceries, carpooling, and preparing meals. Intensive grandparenting differs from the more common situation where grandparents babysit now and then. Instead, intensive grandparents are in a committed role that allows parents to rely on them the way they would a hired caregiver.

When these caregiving arrangements are entered into voluntarily, the results can be joyous. The many hours that grandparents spend together with grandchildren can provide lifelong memories that are filled with love, and can actually have a demonstrable effect on reducing depression in some older adults.

On the other hand, the emotional effects of intensive caring on grandparents can be quite different when the care is provided by obligation. In families like yours, where the care of grandchildren is requested due to socioeconomic constraints, grandparents may find it nearly impossible to say No. The toll that this can take on a grandparent can result in both physical depletion and emotional distress. Sadly, “grandparent babysitting burnout” is not uncommon.

Even though you are being paid a small fee for your time, this is clearly not compensating for your efforts. When a family grows to include two children, one a baby and one a toddler, the demands on any sole caregiver, young or old, can be extremely tough. Having physical limitations that include mobility issues can make this situation not only exhausting, but perhaps even unsafe for both you and the children.

Steps you can take now:

Schedule an appointment with your healthcare provider and discuss whether providing full-time childcare for small children is safe for you and the children. It’s possible that a note from your clinician stating that your physical limitations make this unwise will carry weight with your daughter and son-in-law.
Find a quiet time to restate to your daughter and son-in-law that you desire some changes in the childcare arrangements that are now in place. During this conversation, make sure that you express your devotion to the family as a whole, your love for the grandchildren, and your appreciation for how hard the parents are working. If you have the financial ability, offer to help with childcare costs a bit.
Offer a buffer period such as a few weeks or a month where you will continue to care for the grandchildren while the parents locate another form of childcare. Find a mutually agreeable date for this period to end.
During this period, suggest that they find some way to reduce the hours that you are alone with the grandchildren. Perhaps there is a neighborhood teen or another retired friend who can spend time with you during the day.
Explore whether there are ways to make the hours that you’re with the grandchildren easier, such as having food already prepared, activities for the 3-year-old planned, baby bottles prepped, nap routines set, laundry done, etc.

The complication of the children being unvaccinated adds an additional layer of difficulty for you and your family. There are no easy answers to this part of the problem, and yet, like every other decision that affects your grandchildren, this is their parents’ choice.

There are consequences to the decision not to vaccinate children. Parents may truly believe that they are keeping their children safer this way, but the reality is that it will limit their options for childcare outside the home. It’s not fair that the burden of this decision seems to fall on you. However, I’ll bet that the young parents don’t recognize how difficult this has been for you. It may take time for your daughter and her husband to realize that there is a financial cost to their decision to keep their children unvaccinated.

From what I can see, you have acted with loving devotion to your children and grandchildren over the years. Your request that it may be time to change up the childcare arrangements for everyone’s well-being is quite reasonable, and it seems very unlikely that it will result in estrangement from your daughter and/or son-in-law. It can be scary, however, to be the one requesting a change, because you may feel deeply that you are letting the family down.

If you can find the words to express yourself with love and authenticity, and if you have the support of your healthcare provider, it is likely that your children will understand your needs. You may then find yourself more in the role of grandmother than childcare provider, and it sounds like this is just what you want.