I LOVE MY GRANDKIDS … but I don’t always want to spend my holidays with them
THE call usually comes about April. “Mum, we’re thinking of hiring a gite in France/villa in Tuscany/ barn in Norfolk, for the holidays and… we’d love you to come too. It’s a chance for us all to get together and you can spend some time with the children because they don’t see enough of you.”
An invitation, soaked emotional blackmail.
Oh, the pressure! I can beat myself up quite well without my children’s help thank you, because, like many of my babyboomer generation, I have a double whammy of guilt. We were working mothers and now we’re working grandmothers.
But it’s not just work: my generation is often, not just the sandwich but the club sandwich generation, dealing not only with our children and grandchildren but our own parents, who could still be going strong – or not so strong – and needing our help and attention.
Today’s grannies as well as grandads lead lives just as busy as their children’s and if we go on holiday, we want to amble, browse, lounge and relax.
So few of us would book a holiday which was advertised as including intensive childcare, mopping up spattered babyfood and heavy lifting, on and off the loo. After all, we’ve done it all before with our own children.
But it appears that threequarters of families with young children are taking the grandparents on holiday with them.
They save on childcare and babysitting. But what’s in it for the grandparents? Because, let’s face it, while they obviously love you to bits, the main reason you’re included is for major childcare. And that’s exhausting.
I have four grandchildren: my daughter Lucy has Daisy, 18, and Jackson, 14; and my son Tom, who lives in Sydney, has Ruby, 11, and nine-year-old Ivy.
Iin HAVE to say my children are quite tentative when they ask me to go away with them, because they’ve grown up with working parents and now they’re in the same boat, they realise how tiring children can be.
I’ve been on holiday with both my son and my daughter’s families many times, most recently to a campsite in France. (No, I didn’t go under canvas. A smart chalet in the hills above St Tropez was as far as I was prepared to slum it.) But when planning a holiday for three generations it’s important to find something for everyone.
A theme park is fun but is there an interesting city nearby? Good walking? Perhaps a vineyard for those whose holiday highlights don’t include shrieking on a roller-coaster? Is the beach safe for children and are there cafés and shade nearby so that grandparents can retreat with a book and an iced tea?
And how easy is it for three generations to spend a week or two together without falling out?
I’d had both my children by the age of 24 and my mum was a grandmother at 45. But there is a reason why the possibility of motherhood stops at about 45 – because it is utterly exhausting looking after young children, especially when it has been a quarter of a century since you last did it.
But now the combined dictates of stretched family finances and fashion is delaying parenthood, sometimes by 20 years, until they’ve built a career, bought a house, trekked to Nepal, whatever. But older mothers mean much older grandparents. I have friends desperate to be grandparents but worried they’ll be too old to help when the baby finally arrives.
Comedian Shappi Khorsandi caught the mood when she observed: “I want to have a baby while my mum is still young enough to look after it.”
I know my generation thinks we can do anything but we have to accept that as the body ages, it takes time to recover. If you’re lifting babies and running around after toddlers every day, those aches and pains and that tiredness become chronic.
You have to build up your stamina to be a hands-on holiday grandparent. You’ll also need an engineering degree if you have to fit a car seat or collapse one of those fiendishly complicated pushchairs. And a word of advice from personal experience: don’t try doing star jumps on the trampoline unless you have thighs like Bradley Wiggins.
So for many grandparents the main concern for a holiday with the family is, “Am I up to it?”
Because we will definitely be expected to join in. Most modern grandparents are not just useful but fun to have around. Unlike previous generations of grannies and grandads, they’re unlikely to snooze in a deckchair with a knotted hankie on their heads.
Research shows that the 50-plus baby boomer generation is fit, adventurous, well travelled and more likely to be packing a bikini and snorkelling with their grandchildren than staying at home waiting for the postcards.
My son Tom lives in Australia and the beaches are packed with grandparents teaching their grandchildren to surf while the parents take a break.
But how do you say “No thanks” if you really want to go bird-watching in Costa Rica or take a Strictly Come Dancing cruise with your friends?
There’s particular pressure on the “lone” grandparent. I have friends who are widowed or divorced and one told me: “My daughter asked me to join them on holiday because I think she thought I was lonely.
“I hadn’t told her that I’d met a rather attractive man at Pilates and he suggested a sailing trip to Croatia. I just said, ‘It’s a lovely idea but I’ve got a bridge tournament that week.’
“I’ll just have to remember not to put my holiday photos on social media!” Daily Express Thursday July 19 2018
Firmly suggest that you spend a third of the time looking after the grandchildren; a third of the time all together as a family and have a third of the time to yourself. You don’t have to draw up a chart, it’s enough to make sure everyone knows that you’re on holiday as well. This is especially important if you’re on your own, when there’s occasionally an assumption that your time is their own.
Grandparents these days are as busy as their children – which is why they need a proper break, says JAN ETHERINGTON
Everyone needs space and privacy. Give them time on their own. Sometimes go to bed early with a book. This applies to the entire party, including children. Maybe