Daycare costs more than a mortgage payment in most cities, so plenty of parents lean hard on grandma and grandpa. Is that a normal part of family life, or free labor disguised as love? Say what you really think.
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Add your commentI feel so guilty reading this thread. My parents have been watching my twins every Friday for two years and I've never even really sat down and asked them if it's too much. Going to call my mom tonight.
okay I'm crying a little because my grandpa watched me every single day after school for six years and he died last spring and I would give literally anything to sit in his kitchen again eating saltines while he watched Wheel of Fortune. money never entered our minds. not once. some things just aren't about money.
i am 71 years old and i watch my granddaughter every friday and some mondays. do i want money? no. do i want my son to call me on days i'm NOT babysitting just to say hi? more than he knows.
I'm a grandpa. I watch my granddaughter every Tuesday and Thursday. Do I want gas money? Sure. Do I want my daughter to feel guilty about it? Absolutely not. We work it out like a family. Novel concept.
I actually tried to pay my mom. She took the envelope, looked at me, handed it right back, and said 'don't insult me.' Some families just work differently and thats okay.
I'm a grandmother of five and I watch three of them regularly. My daughter offers to pay me every month. I decline every month. But the OFFER matters. It tells me she sees my time as valuable even if I choose not to take it. Parents, offer. Grandparents, decide.
My mother watched my kids three days a week for four years. Never asked for a dime. When I tried to offer her money she literally got offended. Some people WANT to do this. Stop projecting market economics onto everything.
My mother watches my two kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We fill her gas tank, bring groceries every week, and paid for her new patio furniture without her asking. She's never seen a dollar from us for childcare specifically, but she has absolutely been compensated. People act like the only options are cash payment or straight exploitation. There's a third way and most functional families already live it.
watch my grandkids twice a week. im not doing it because i feel obligated. im doing it because every tuesday i get to be the most important person in a four year olds entire world and nothing in my retirement account compares to that
i watch my grandkids and honestly it keeps me young. i am 68 and i can still get on the floor and play trains for an hour. would i do it five days a week? no. twice a week? yes happily and please don't pay me, it would feel weird.
I work in elder law. The number of grandparents I've seen who sacrificed their own health and retirement security to provide free childcare is genuinely alarming. They're often left with no savings, no time to recover, and then the adult kids wonder why they're resentful. Have the conversation before it's too late.
The real issue is that American daycare costs are a national scandal and grandparents are being used to paper over a massive policy failure. We shouldn't be asking whether grandma should charge — we should be asking why Congress hasn't fixed this.
My grandparents raised four kids and then turned around and were primary caretakers for seven grandchildren across our family. They never got a dime and never asked for one. Also never got a real retirement. Also my grandfather had a stroke at 71 that his doctor said was partly stress-related. I love them more than anything. I also think we took advantage of them and just didn't know it at the time.
Grandparents babysitting for free is literally how human civilizations survived for thousands of years. The nuclear family isolated from extended kin is the weird experiment, not the multigenerational caregiving model.
Hot take: grandparents who babysit for free and then mention it constantly are actually charging MORE than any daycare ever would. The emotional invoice is brutal.
My parents immigrated here and worked themselves half to death so my sister and I could have opportunities. Watching our kids is NOT a burden to them — it is the POINT. The whole thing was always about building something for the family. Some of you have really lost the thread.
My answer is: grandparents should babysit for free if and only if they want to. Revolutionary concept I know.
my grandparents raised me completely. not babysat. raised. while my mom got her life together. for free. out of love. and I would not be the person I am without that. some of y'all reduce everything to transactions and it shows.
Speaking as a grandparent who said yes when I wanted to say no: the word 'should' in this question is doing a LOT of work. Should implies obligation. The moment it becomes obligation it poisons everything. My son never asked me directly, he just assumed, and that assumption cost us two years of resentment before we finally talked about it.
Counterpoint: grandparents who babysit get something money can't buy. Time with their grandkids. The relationship they build is the compensation. My dad cried at my son's first birthday because he felt like he actually KNEW him. That doesn't happen if you drop the kid at a stranger's facility five days a week.
Why is no one talking about the fact that grandmothers are disproportionately the ones expected to do this? Grandfathers get to 'help out' while grandmothers get scheduled. Same gender dynamics, different generation.
My husband and I have been on both sides of this. When our kids were small, his mom watched them twice a week and we paid her. Not a lot, but something. Now our son has a baby and we watch her and won't take a cent. Funny how your perspective changes when you're the grandparent.
My ex's parents watched our kids and then used it as leverage in every single argument for years. 'We do SO much for this family.' Toxic. Sometimes paying a professional stranger is worth every penny for your sanity.
the cutest thing is when grandparents say they don't want money and then you see their faces absolutely light up when you show up with groceries or fix something around their house. compensation takes many forms and sometimes the non-cash kind lands better
I'll tell you exactly what happened in my family. My sister got free childcare from our mom for four years. Now my mom is 74 with knee problems and my sister still expects the same availability. There's a version of this that starts as love and slides into something else entirely when nobody checks in along the way.
When my kids were little we paid for daycare and my mother visited on weekends for FUN. Those visits were joyful. My sister used her mother-in-law as full-time unpaid childcare and by year two they hated each other. Connection matters. Obligation destroys it.
here's what I don't get. people will pay $1800 a month to strangers to raise their kids but feel weird paying grandma $300. the math isn't mathing
The deeper issue nobody wants to touch: when grandparents provide free childcare, they often lose legal standing to object to parenting decisions they genuinely disagree with. I've seen this dynamic play out in court. Grandparent provides years of free labor, parents decide to move across the country, grandparent has zero recourse. The power imbalance runs in both directions and it's complicated.
My mom charges us $400 a month which is way below market and we are GRATEFUL. She gets her nails done and takes a trip every year with that money. Everybody wins. Why do people act like this arrangement can't be negotiated??
I asked my in-laws to watch the kids one Saturday and got a two week guilt trip about their 'plans.' But they post on Facebook every week about how much they miss the grandkids. I genuinely cannot figure these people out.
Honestly the answer is: compensate them in ways they'll actually accept. Maybe it's money. Maybe it's you mowing their lawn, handling their taxes, taking them to doctor's appointments. Compensation doesn't have to be a check. Just don't take it for granted.
Honestly? Pay them. Not because it's required or because love needs a price tag but because money is a form of communication in this culture and it says: I see what you're doing, I don't take it for granted, you have options. Even if they hand it back. The gesture matters.
my mom literally babysat for my sister for three years and my sister never once said a simple thank you. not on mother's day. not on her birthday. nothing. my mother finally stopped and my sister acted shocked. the entitlement was wild to witness
At the end of the day if grandma wants to do it let her. If she doesn't, she should feel empowered to say no. The problem isn't money, it's that we've built a culture where saying no to family is taboo and that's what needs to change.
ok but nobody asks if the grandparents actually WANT to do it. my in-laws said yes because they felt guilty saying no. that's not love, that's pressure.
Both my wife's parents and mine live out of state so this whole debate is theoretical for us. We pay $3,100 a month for two kids in daycare in Austin. I'm not bitter, I'm just tired. So tired.
If grandparents are providing regular structured childcare — specific days, specific hours, picking up from school — that is a JOB. Call it love all you want. It deserves compensation.
My father in law insisted on babysitting for free and then told us we owed him when it came time for a family disagreement about holidays. I would've rather paid him and had a clean ledger. Invisible debts are the worst kind.
the assumption buried in this question is that grandparents are automatically available, healthy, interested, and local. my mom is 64 and still working full time because she has no retirement savings. my dad lives in Phoenix. my in-laws are dealing with health issues. who exactly is this free childcare army people keep referencing
The framing of this entire debate bothers me. We've so thoroughly commodified human relationships that caring for your own grandchild now requires a compensation discussion. What does that say about us as a society? I'm genuinely asking.
Hard disagree with the 'it's just family' crowd. My parents retired and have a full life. They travel, they volunteer, they have hobbies. Expecting them to rearrange all of that because I decided to have children is MY problem, not theirs.
The answer is wildly dependent on the grandparent's financial situation. A retired grandparent with a pension and no debt? Different story than a 62 year old who still works and has credit card bills. Stop trying to make one rule for every family.
absolutely unhinged that we live in a country where people have to negotiate with their own family members to survive economically. this isnt a parenting debate this is a policy failure and we keep having the wrong argument
My dad watched my son for two years and now has early Alzheimer's. I keep wondering if the stress of it contributed. We never paid him. I feel like garbage about that now and I can't fix it.
Fun fact: grandparents who regularly babysit live longer on average. Lower depression rates. Stronger sense of purpose. So before you cash-ify this relationship, consider that you might actually be doing them a favor. (Source: a 2017 study out of Berlin, look it up.)
The fact that we're debating this at all is an indictment of American childcare policy. In countries with subsidized daycare this whole argument doesn't exist because parents aren't desperate enough to lean on relatives out of financial necessity. We built this problem ourselves.
this debate always gets framed around the grandparents' sacrifice but can we talk about quality for a second. my kids came home from my mother-in-law's having watched six hours of Fox News and eating nothing but Oreos. i would have PAID for daycare to avoid that curriculum
The question is loaded because it implies grandparents are doing parents a favor. Another framing: parents are giving grandparents ACCESS to their grandchildren. That access is not guaranteed. It's a gift too. The value flows both ways.
This whole debate assumes grandparents are some kind of infinite resource. My mom has rheumatoid arthritis and a part time job. She physically cannot do this. And she feels TERRIBLE about it. The guilt trip from entitled parents is real.
i googled it once and average daycare in San Francisco is like $2,500 a month PER KID. per kid! that's not a childcare crisis that's a hostage situation. of course parents are turning to family. what choice do they have
ok real talk - the parents who expect free childcare AND leave detailed instructions AND call constantly to check in AND then criticize how grandma does things... those are the ones who need a reality check. if you're picky about it, pay a professional.
As someone who studies family systems: the healthiest arrangements I've seen are when expectations are made EXPLICIT regardless of whether money changes hands. Resentment grows in the gap between what's assumed and what's actually agreed to.
my kids are 8 and 11 now so we're past the heavy childcare years. looking back: my parents watched the kids probably twice a month and we treated every single one like a gift, brought them dinner after, wrote actual thank-you notes, included them in every holiday, called just to talk not just when we needed something. you want to know what they said last Christmas? that watching those grandkids were some of the best memories of their lives. respect the arrangement and it pays dividends you can't measure.
I think the answer depends entirely on whether the grandparents are retired or still working, whether they're healthy, whether they actually enjoy it, and what the family's financial situation is. There is no universal answer here and anyone who pretends there is hasn't met many actual families.
Seven dollars. That's how much my mother-in-law charged per hour and honestly it was the best arrangement we ever made. Just enough that it felt fair, not so much it broke us. Sometimes a small symbolic payment changes the whole dynamic.
Grew up in a Filipino household. The concept of paying your parents to watch their grandchildren would have caused a full family breakdown. My lola would have packed her bags. Different cultures have different operating systems and the American individualism lens doesn't apply universally.
Can we stop calling it 'free' labor when love is literally the motivation? If I cook dinner for my friend because I love them did I provide 'free restaurant labor'? Language shapes how we see things and the transactional framing of family is doing real damage to how people relate to each other.
Free labor disguised as love? Come on. My grandmother babysat every grandchild in our family and called it the best years of her retirement. She organized her whole schedule around it. Projecting capitalist frameworks onto genuine family bonds is a very online thing to do.
can we acknowledge that this debate plays out completely differently across racial and ethnic communities. in mine you literally do not charge family for care. the idea would cause a family scandal. cultural context matters here
counterpoint to everyone saying grandparents deserve compensation: some grandparents are genuinely terrible at boundaries and babysitting gives them access they exploit. my mother used it as an opportunity to undermine literally every parenting decision we made. 'free' childcare almost cost us our marriage. i know that's not everyone but it's real.
Legally speaking, in some states if a grandparent watches a child regularly and something happens — an accident, an injury — the liability situation is genuinely murky. People treat this like it's simple but there are real complications nobody discusses.
I'll be the bad guy and say it: some grandparents use free babysitting as a control mechanism. 'I watch the kids so I get a vote in how they're raised.' No ma'am. That's not how it works.
Studies show children raised with significant grandparent involvement have better emotional regulation and stronger sense of identity. So the 'free labor' framing completely ignores the developmental benefits flowing in the OTHER direction.
The premise that daycare costs justify leaning on grandparents is backwards logic. The solution to broken public policy isn't exploiting your elderly relatives. The solution is fixing the policy. Universal childcare or bust.
Hard disagree with the person upthread who said this is just capitalist framing. Time is finite. A grandparent giving you 20 hours a week is giving you 20 hours they will never get back. Acknowledging that isn't cold, it's honest.
Paying grandma might actually make her feel disrespected depending on your family culture. My grandmother would've walked out the door if we offered cash. Different families, different values. Stop trying to make one rule for everyone.
The economic framing drives me a little crazy because it implies the relationship is zero-sum. When my mom watches my kids she also gets to be with my kids. That's not nothing. That's actually everything to her. She was going to spend that Friday alone watching TV. Now she's teaching my six-year-old to make tamales. Who's getting the better end of that deal, honestly.
unpopular opinion but grandparents who insist on doing everything their old-school way and then also expect gratitude for free childcare are asking for a lot. you don't get to override every parenting decision AND be celebrated for your sacrifice
should parents pay their kids for doing chores? should siblings charge each other for rides to the airport? some things in a family just ARE. yall are too transactional
The question should really be 'should parents expect free childcare from grandparents' and phrased that way the answer is obviously no. No one should expect anything. Ask. Appreciate. Offer something back. Repeat.
that berlin study only applies if its voluntary and occasional NOT five days a week mandatory childcare. people always misuse that stat
nobody is entitled to free childcare from their parents. full stop. your decision to have kids is YOUR decision. the grandparents already raised their family. they're done. let them live.
the entitlement of some parents man. had a coworker complain her mother in law wouldnt watch the baby on saturdays. lady, saturday is not a favor, thats a whole day off someone is owed
respectfully disagree with whoever said grandparents 'already raised their family and they're done.' that logic would mean parents owe children nothing once they hit 18. family doesn't have an expiration date
nope. grandparents did their job. they raised YOU. now its YOUR turn. expecting them to clock in five days a week because you chose to have kids is honestly kind of selfish and i will die on this hill
are we forgetting that some grandparents are in their 40s and 50s and still have full careers? my mom is 51 and a surgeon. the expectation that she would drop everything to babysit for free would be absurd. age is just a number people
Why are we only talking about the grandparents' side? What about grandparents who WANT to babysit more than the parents want them to? My in-laws basically campaigned for the job. Turned it down and they took it personally. This goes every direction.
Should they? No absolute should about it. Will they? Depends entirely on the family. Does the American childcare system force this question in ways that aren't fair to anyone involved? Yes obviously and that's the actual scandal here but good luck getting Congress to care.
grew up poor. grandma raised us while mom worked doubles at the hospital. didnt cost nobody nothing and we all turned out fine. maybe this is just a middle class problem lol
This is a both/and situation not either/or. Grandparents CAN babysit for free AND parents should acknowledge the gift. What's hard about that
I hate how transactional this conversation has gotten. Not everything in a family has to be negotiated like a labor contract. Sometimes people do things because they love each other. That used to be normal.
confidently stating that babysitting IS free labor and grandparents deserve minimum wage. the math: 10 hours a week, 50 weeks, federal minimum wage $7.25 = $3,625 a year. you telling me your parents aren't worth even that much on paper?
lol my grandmother watched eight grandchildren across three households and never once considered it 'labor.' she considered it her life. different generation different values I guess
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