During the school holidays it is not necessary To the children in daycare or hire a nanny; the grandparents like to be there. But the latter are sometimes excessively requested by young parents and increasingly express their dissatisfaction! Credentials.
Many French grandparents look after their grandchildren during school holidays, especially in summer. This is good for young parents who do not always have the means to use a childcare solution and often have little time to look after the children at home. Sometimes they also ask them to take the little ones to school on Wednesdays, pick them up or accompany them to sports and cultural activities. Result: Those who thought they would relax and travel in retirement often find themselves “forced” to follow a very specific calendar and schedule, even as they continue to enjoy watching their grandchildren grow up. Sometimes it feels like the latter Prisoners of this new role of “nanny”, They don't always know how to say no to their children.
If they generally readily agree to the exercise if she stays on time, trouble actually looms if this substitute nanny role ends up becoming too intrusive. Every now and then another Wednesday goes by. But every day, definitely not! That's exactly what Maryse, grandmother of two little boys, experiences. “When my daughter told me that she didn't have a nanny at the beginning of the school year, I immediately agreed to help her. But I thought it was.” “It may only be a month or two. And it ended up continuing until June,” she tells us. As a young retiree, Maryse hoped to use this new freedom to pursue her passions. But she quickly took on the role of the taxi. “In addition to looking after the youngest several afternoons a week, I also look after the oldest on Wednesdays and accompany him to his various activities…” This gives the grandmother the feeling that she is doing a job. Full time! And you only have to take a look at a sports club or a music college on Wednesday to see that there are a lot of gray heads.
For these modern grandparents, from now on it is no longer about picking up the children after school with a pain au chocolat, but about participating in their awakening every day, sometimes at the expense of their balance. Like Maryse, an Internet user complains about a situation in the Femmes Forum journal that she completely missed. “I can't take it anymore and my daughter doesn't want to hear anything. I'm no longer free from anything, I'm housebound and I'm going to pick her up from school, I'm exhausted…“. Where parents play a parenting role, grandparents play a role as transmitters, listeners and exchangers, but they are not “double parents” as we sometimes hear.
However, young parents who are overwhelmed by everyday life find it difficult to hear that they are asking too much of their own parents. Communication is then the key to avoiding conflicts and sustainably changing the relationships between the different family members.
These grandparents who care!
All of these grandparents have one thing in common: the unconditional love they have for their grandchildren… and for their children! Despite the tiredness, the tension and the hiccups, everyone is happy to share with their little ones these precious moments that give them a second youth. Everything is obviously a question of dosage! But for some, like Marie-Claire, a grandmother who was blessed with a six-and-a-half-year-old little girl, being a grandparent is such a joy that they wouldn't miss Wednesday's race for the world. “I love my independence and I value it. But Watching my little girl grow up is so precious that I always say “yes” when my son asks me to take care of her. These are forever irreplaceable moments for her and for me.”