7 Truths that Every Working Woman Should Know Before Having a Child -- Part VI
Okay, the time has come for me to write about my six myth in this series and that is that grandparents (your parents/in-laws) will come to the rescue. The truth is, the promise to post about this has been hanging over my very busy head for weeks now as I've tried to think of something witty, funny, sincere or even surprising to write about this topic. In fact, I don't have anything earth-shattering to say except to pass along that you may be surprised to find out that grandparental-help is not the answer to the work/life balancing act issues that many of us face.
Growing up my grandparents did not really help raise me and my siblings. However, my mom was a stay-at-home super woman for most of my childhood and probably never asked for their help. For my spouse, on the other-hand, he was pretty much raised by his grandparents. They lived next door, took him to school, practice, work, etc. Needless to say we both have very different expectations of what role the kids' grandparents would play in their upbringing. As it has turned out, neither of us got it quite right.
The point of this myth-busting post is to say that you may need to really think about what role other potential caregivers can play in the lives and caretaking of your children. Grandparents may not be a good solution for a number of reasons. They may not want to; they may not have time to as Americans work full time longer these days; they may be retired but still too busy travelling and going to book club meetings; they may have childrearing habits and beliefs that clash with yours in ways that make it unattractive to use them for childcare; etc etc.
As to the last item in that list above... I have found that people's opinions change about raising children when they have some of their own. Things that you did growing up yet "you turned out just fine" may not, in fact, be okay for your own kids. Examples of this that I can think of include obvious things like using car seats and bicycle helmets (things that some grandparents do not appreciate) to other things like drinking Kool-aid and playing video games. It may be a real battle, on a personal level, to convince your parents/in-laws that you are not okay with somethings when it comes to your kids. For me, personally, I swore that my kids would go to public school just as my husband and I did for our entire educations. However, once my kids approached school age and I sat down to evaluate the local public schools, I did a 180, and the kids now go to private school and I intend that they will continue to through high school. This has been a subject of great strife between my mother-in-law and I, so much so that I think it is a big reason why she is not more involved in the kids' lives.
I can't tell you how many young women I have met over the years that plan to rely heavily on their parents or in-laws. Often these women express problems with the idea of taking a child to a childcare center or hiring a nanny. They swear to me that they can have it all because their mom is there to help. Surely, for some of these women it has turned out just as they planned. However, it is also likely that some of them were surprised by just how much they were on their own when it came down to it.
Part V Part VII (forthcoming)
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Comments
Talk to your folks!
I for one have been told in no uncertain terms that I should not rely on my mom to be there for my kids when I cannot be. The topic came up because a friend's mom is her full-tim babysitter - a deal I thought was pretty fantastic. Well good thing I mentioned how awesome it was to my mom because it turns out it didn't sound so awesome to her :-)
Thanks for that
Jessie, thanks for that comment -- so true.
Also, I was thinking more about this post after I wrote it and I think I should add something here about my point about parenting choices.
I have found (with my mother-in-law) that she is very put off by my parenting choices. I have tried to be nothing but patient and flexible when it comes to our difference in opinions about raising children. However, I am certain that she feels that I am judging her (and this is due in no small part to the way that my husband handles conflicts with her.) This has, in part, to do with the public school vs. private school riff that I mentioned in my post but also has to do with other parenting decisions that may be based on generational, cultural, or socio-economic factors.
When it comes to grandparents, I like many people I know, let the kids "get away with" a little. For example, they play more mindless video games at grandma's house than I am comfortable with. They also eat more sweets and get to jump on her guest bed. However, there are also things that I am really firm about. Examples of this include a strict prohibition against watching adult television (eg. stuff that shows weapons, violence, sex, foul language, and even very adult concepts) as well as a strict prohibition against hard candy, soda, and not using car seats. You get the picture. Well, I think that my mother-in-law feels like she needs to be on pins and needles with me because her parental instincts are such that she would allow things that I would outlaw. This clash of "values", if you will, has made the relationship strained and makes it hard for me to ask her to watch the kids sometimes and, I am sure, hard for her to say yes sometimes.
What are the other options?
Peggy, thanks for this great and incredibly informative series. I am also in the situation that grandparents (on both sides) would not be able to help with childcare, seeing as how they live across the country from my husband and I. So what are the other options? What did you do when your kids were young? Nanny? Teenage babysitter? It sounds - from the mention of private school - that you are in a good financial situation, but what about us attorneys who aren't doing quite as well, and may not be able to afford a nanny? Not all of us work in Biglaw, of course!
Thanks!
-LS
don't assume your parents are close-minded fogeys
My mother in law came to stay when I had my first child. We were crammed into a 1 bedroom apartment with her and the new baby and all our ineptitude of those first 10 weeks. I knew things about her parenting of her own kids that made me uneasy - she believed in letting kids do their own thing where my mother and I believed in constant supervision. She believed in letting kids cry it out and my mother and I didn't. She believed in putting kids on a schedule and not feeding them on demand if that meant cluster feeds or feeding every 45 mins (as it did with my son for months). She believed you didn't have to put your hand behind the baby's head as much as I wanted.
But she is an intelligent woman. She was a recently retired professional and while I hardly think that the latest pediatric research was her bedtime reading she knew I'd have read up on things. When I asked her to always put her hand behind the baby's head, or said no we're not starting cereal at 6 weeks like they did in the 70s, or no I'm intending to breastfeed for over a year and cluster feed and feed on demand, she just nodded and sighed "the advice has changed since my day" and got on with helping us do what we had to do.
Even though she thought we could get more sleep by not feeding so often, using a bottle earlier etc etc, she jumped in to help us by taking on the 5-7am shift (she's a natural early riser but still 5am was a kind gesture!). She would rock the baby and let us sleep then we'd wake up to breakfast and a happy awake baby. She looked after US rather than took over the baby tasks she knew we'd want to do differently. And apart from sharing her experience she did not push it.
I would hope that every intelligent mother and mother in law out there would do the same. I don't expect the state of the art advice to be the same in 30 years when I have grandchildren, and I don't think that most of our parents think that way either.
There will always be the outlying cases of course, but I think a lot is in how we frame it to our parents "they found out later that that raised risks of x, though obviously we were lucky that didn't happen to us", or "now they know that this works better/is safer so that's what we do now". The one time my mother in law looked like she might be insistent on her view I just said "well remember back when we were babies they hadn't discovered antiseptics and thought that leeches were good for you!". She laughed and realized that to expect times NOT to change.
Grandparents who are giving enough to help you out and intelligent enough to know that medical advice has changed are the best asset we've got in my opinion (having had both experiences, with and without my mother and mother-in-law).
Ultimately, whether they agree on everything with you matters a lot less than the fact they will love the child to bits and probably feel more protective of them than you do even - which no nanny or daycare will ever do. It would have to be a really ridiculously stupid grandparent for me not to think they are better than any stranger.
For the record
So, for the record I consider both my own mother and my mother in law to be both giving and intelligent. (I really do think that intelligent people can differ on the value of a public vs. private school for example) Even so, they are different parents than I am. I think readers who are not yet mothers themselves should not assume that all giving and intelligent people will see things their way when it comes to raising their kids.
So true
This is such a great series! My mother told me she didn't intend to help out with my son as a regular babysitter. She has helped, but as a pinch hitter. Honestly, we need her, but I haven't been able to count on her help on a regular basis and, as my son gets older and more rambunctious, he really is too much work, even though she's not that old. He's got a lot of energy and she has a busy full-time job, too. The last thig she wants to do after a long day at work is deal with a four year-old climbing the walls. Finding quality childcare that works with your schedule is such a difficult part of having children. It is definitely something to think about well in advance of having kids.
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