Richard Hogan: 'My retirement is being ruined because I'm expected to mind seven grandchildren'

The balance in your life is not working. It is not selfishness to say you can’t manage the amount of responsibility being placed on you, that is selfcare. 

Richard Hogan. Picture: Moya Nolan

• This article is part of our Best of 2024 collection. It was originally published in February. Find more stories like this here.

Dear Richard, I am writing to you with the hope you might be able to help me with a problem myself and my husband are currently facing. I am 72 years old and my husband is 78 years old. While we are in reasonably good health, we don’t feel as strong as we once were. We have both retired and live near our children. 

We always hoped our children would not travel far from us so we could be close to each other. Our dream was to be with our grandchildren and watch them grow up. 

We are lucky to have had this dream fulfilled, but recently the demands put on us are too great for us and we feel stuck in a very tricky situation, if we say we can’t mind our grandchildren, as much as we have, I will offend my daughters and son. Together they have seven children, and we feel it is taking a toll on our health. We are expected to mind them at the weekend, when they go out for a meal or they drop them over during the weekdays when something comes up. 

They are also watching to see how much time we spend with each grandchild. I feel like we have put our retirement on hold, my husband feels the same but doesn’t want to talk about it. It has all become too much, please help us.

Thank you for your letter and being so honest about what has developed in your life. Grandparenting can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling relationships we have in our lives. You get to see a child develop again without all the stress and hassle of everything that comes with rearing a child in today’s busy world. 

Having said that, if that relationship between new parent and grandparent is not managed correctly it can be exactly what you are experiencing. Burnout.

 I think you have expressed a lived experience of so many grandparents in this country. And I think it is an unspoken experience, one that has stigma attached to it. There is no doubt about it, the modern world places incredible strain on new parents. 

They both, generally, have to work to meet the financial demands placed on the couple; there are mortgages, childminders and crèches to pay and if one child is sick, the cogs come off and the wheel stops turning. The couple can become easily derailed, this can cause them to rely heavily on their parents to take the flak. But that flak can be all-consuming if the boundary isn’t in place. I think you know what needs to be done. You have to have a conversation with your daughters and son and explain how you are both feeling. You have to tell them of the burden you feel and set out a new boundary of how you want the relationship to be. 

Your husband might not want to do this, because he might not want to present himself as struggling or vulnerable, but it really needs to happen. There is nothing vulnerable about expressing your feelings, that is strength.

Retirement is such a special time. You have both parented your three children, it is not fair for you to have to parent again in later life. 

You both need to firmly establish a healthier boundary. You are not saying you don’t want to see your grandchildren but you are saying, you will see them on your terms in a more ordered and less selfish way.

 It might be hard to hear that word, to think of your children as being selfish. But your children are being selfish, if they place too much burden on you both. 

I don’t know what your children are thinking, maybe they think you are both happy with how things are going? You haven’t expressed otherwise, so they probably feel everything is going well. When we don’t express our feelings, we become resentful of the people who place us in that position and we become resentful of ourselves. I’m sure it has caused arguments between you and your husband. But it all needs a hard reset. 

You both can’t keep going the way you are, your husband is moving towards 80, and you both deserve to enjoy your grandchildren and your retirement. The balance isn’t currently working. 

Remember, we teach people how to interact with us, and at the moment your children have unlimited access and it isn’t healthy. Why haven’t you brought in a boundary already? I think you feel it is being selfish or you have a fear your children will be annoyed with you. They very well may be.

 But you should be able to handle that. Like when you were parenting them and they wanted everything in the shop, you had to say ‘no’, and it was a hard ‘no’. They were not happy with you, but that’s okay!

The balance you have in your life currently is not working. It sounds like it is really stressing you both out. It is not selfishness, to say you can’t manage the amount of responsibility being placed on you. That is self care. 

Your children will have to figure it out like every other parent. Yes, they may be annoyed, but they will get over it, and you both can start to live again.

This article was first published on February 28, 2024