Grandmothers at Work

Juggling Families and Jobs

Madonna Harrington Meyer

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780814738870
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Ehe- & Familiensoziologie

Winner of the 2014 Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award presented by the Gerontological Society of America

Young working mothers are not the only ones who are struggling to balance family life and careers. Many middle-aged American women face this dilemma as they provide routine childcare for their grandchildren while pursuing careers and trying to make ends meet. Employment among middle-aged women is at an all-time high. In the same way that women who reduce employment hours when raising their young children experience reductions in salary, savings, and public and private pensions, the mothers of those same women, as grandmothers, are rearranging hours to take care of their grandchildren, experiencing additional loss of salary and reduced old age pension accumulation. Madonna Harrington Meyer’s Grandmothers at Work, based primarily on 48 in-depth interviews conducted in 2009-2012 with grandmothers who juggle working and minding their grandchildren, explores the strategies of, and impacts on, working grandmothers. While all of the grandmothers in Harrington Meyer’s book are pleased to spend time with their grandchildren, many are readjusting work schedules, using vacation and sick leave time, gutting retirement accounts, and postponing retirement to care for grandchildren. Some simply want to do this; others do it in part because they have more security and flexibility on the job than their daughters do at their relatively new jobs. Many are sequential grandmothers, caring for one grandchild after the other as they are born, in very intensive forms of grandmothering. Some also report that they are putting off retirement out of economic necessity, in part due to the amount of financial help they are providing their grandchildren. Finally, some are also caring for their frail older parents or ailing spouses just as intensively. Most expect to continue feeling the pinch of paid and unpaid work for many years before their retirement. Grandmothers at Work provides a unique perspective on a phenomenon faced by millions of women in America today.

1
Balancing Care and Work

Legions of working grandmothers across the United States are quietly, almost invisibly, caring for grandchildren so that parents can work or have a break from busy schedules. Deanne is one of 48 working grandmothers I interviewed who is balancing paid work and caring for grandchildren. A 57-year-old, white, married, well-educated, middle-class woman with two daughters, Deanne works full-time as an elected official in a small midwestern town. She also takes care of three of her six grandkids three or four days a week after work and often on weekends. She also checks in on her mother at the nursing home a few times a week. Though she is juggling so many responsibilities, and at times is very tired, she is positively gleeful when she talks about caring for her grandchildren, “Being a grandmother is the best job in the world. Love them, spoil them, and say goodbye.”

We tend to think of balancing work and family as something that only relatively young families contend with, yet many middle-aged grandmothers are employed and providing routine child care for their grandchildren. Grandmothers are prized daycare providers because often the quality is very high, the cost is very low, and the flexibility is maximal.¹ Grandmothers often have very special bonds with their grandchildren. Many young working families report that they feel that the best possible care providers for their children would be the grandmothers. Many grandmothers may agree.² One phone survey of adults ages 40 and older found that when grandparents live nearby, more than half provide some amount of child care every week, and one half of those provide more than 12 hours a week. Another study found that as many as 43 percent of grandmothers care for grandchildren regularly, and 20 percent of children with working mothers are regularly cared for by their grandmothers.³

But as the age at retirement increases, many grandparents may be feeling more of a pinch between paid and unpaid work.⁴ Any lingering images of grandmothers in aprons or rocking chairs are being replaced by grandmothers who need to set down their briefcases so they can bathe little ones. One-half of Americans are grandparents by age 50 and three-fourths of those in their early 50s are still employed.⁵ The average age at retirement has increased by two years for men and for women since the mid-1990s, with men now retiring at an average age of 64 and women at an average age of 62.⁶ Figure 1.1, based on 2010 US Census data, shows that about 70 percent of women in their early 50s, and nearly 65 percent of women in their late 50s, are employed. Studies show that working grandparents are just as likely to provide care as those who are retired, and one-third change their work schedules to accommodate grandchild care.⁷ Grandmothers may well be the most desirable source of child care, but increasingly women in that age group are themselves employed. This study analyzes how working grandmothers balance paid work and unpaid carework.

The numbers of single parents and of working women have risen steadily for decades, but neither the US government nor employers have responded with policies that would help working families balance work and family obligations. The US welfare state does not provide young working parents, or middle-aged working grandmas, with guaranteed paid time off for sick days, vacation days, family leaves, or flex time; universal health insurance; low-priced, high-quality daycare; or universal access to preschool programs. As a result, many families are turning to grandmas for help.

According to my analysis of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) 2010, of all the women ages 51–70 who are employed and who have grandkids, 46 percent are providing at least some hours of grandchild care per year.⁸ For this book, I conducted in-depth interviews with 48 working grandmothers who care for their grandchildren, and I learned that some watch the grandchildren occasionally, maybe once a week or once a month, while others care for them for several evenings a week and most weekends. Taking care of grandkids is a tremendous source of joy and provides many with a second chance for raising children without as many responsibilities and pressures as the first time around. Deanne, whose eyes fill with happy tears at the mere mention of her grandkids, says being a grandmother is better than being a mother because it is only part-time. You get to say goodbye. As a grandmother, Deanne can postpone housework to play with the grandkids because they do not come to stay every day.

Figure 1.1. Percent in the labor force by gender and age, 2010. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011a.

When you have your own kids you are busy with all the other things you have to do. But with your grandkids you can just sit. If the dishes get done the next day, who cares? I can take that walk.

Caring for grandchildren is fairly intense work. In fact, it appears that just as motherhood has intensified in the United States, becoming very centered on the strategic development or purposeful cultivation of children,⁹ so has grandmotherhood. For many grandmothers I interviewed, the work is very demanding. Deanne has been working and caring for grandchildren for 10 years. Currently she is focusing on her newly divorced daughter’s three sons, who live just a few minutes away. Deanne’s daughter is working full-time and attending night classes to earn a bachelor’s degree. Deanne said that she and her daughter both agreed that it was best for the daughter’s long-term earnings to complete the degree now. Nonetheless, that agreement means that Deanne provides many more hours of care to her grandchildren than she, or her husband, ever expected.

When my daughter was in college … I left work early and picked the grandkids up from school. Sometimes the boys walked here and waited in the office for me to finish. … I give them 55 cents for the candy machine. They have their treats, play on my computer, and then we head to their house, or maybe to my house to change and get toys. I would take them home and fix supper, play time, bath time, and to bed.

Deanne works daily from 8:00 to 4:00, then on three or four nights a week she takes the boys from 4:00 until 11:00. She dozes on the couch, waiting for her daughter to get home from her class. Like many of the grandmothers, Deanne feels she is constantly on call to provide ever more assistance for the grandchildren. Her work day is peppered with calls and requests about whether she can do more. Two calls came in during our one-hour interview.

I have lots of phone calls at work, daily, several a day, from my daughters. “Can you pick this one up, run this one over there?” Almost every day.

Many grandmothers frequently rearrange their work schedules to be readily available for the grandchildren and this may adversely affect earnings, savings, and private pensions and Social Security contributions. For some it is a matter of choice. But for many it is because their own jobs are more secure and flexible than their adult children’s jobs. Deanne explained that she has been at her job for years, but her recently divorced daughter’s new job situation is precarious. So Deanne changes her work schedule almost daily to care for her grandchildren. She comes in late, leaves early, takes days off, and minds the grandchildren while at her office. Her daughter has not yet built up any sick leave or vacation time, so Deanne has ramped up the amount of care she provides.

She started a new job last spring and doesn’t have much time built up for family time, so Grandma is here. She is an accountant, for less than one year. Once it is April she will have two weeks of vacation, but now she has nothing. Her old job was talking layoffs, and she could not risk being without a job, so now has a new job. … I am fortunate being an elected official; I am paid whether I am here or not. … But I don’t have a set schedule. I can come and go as I need to.

Deanne responds to nearly constant requests from her daughter for help. She nearly had to postpone our interview due to a last-minute request. She occasionally declines the requests, but more often she says yes and then returns to work later to complete her projects.

I nearly missed our interview today because I had to babysit. … My daughter just cannot risk missing work. … I sometimes have to tell my daughter … I am too busy at work. And sometimes I will take care of them and come back to work after, if the work really has to get done.

Many middle-aged women are also providing a substantial amount of financial support to their adult children and grandchildren, some because they want to spoil the grandkids and others because the grand-kids do not have basic necessities such as clothes, food, or diapers. Particularly if their adult children are single parents, grandmothers tend to provide a great deal of help with money. Deanne and her husband had nearly paid off their own home in preparation for their retirement. But when their daughter divorced and nearly lost her house, Deanne and her husband bought it. Deanne’s daughter is unable to make the monthly payments because she is trying to complete her college degree.

When my daughter divorced, they nearly lost the house to foreclosure, so I went on the loan and signed for them. But then they again nearly foreclosed, so my husband and I bought it.

Deanne’s husband is self-employed and disabled. The economy is bad for construction workers, so he is rarely working and earns very little in income. Additionally, Deanne and her husband took a second mortgage on their own home to further assist their daughter during the divorce. Given that her husband’s earnings have dwindled near zero, Deanne is now paying three mortgages: the first and second mortgage on her own home, as well as her daughter’s mortgage.

And my husband has such poor health that he has had to reduce his work. The construction business has taken a downslide in the last few years. There is almost no new construction. He is mainly just a handyman now. So now I have to make the payment on my own house and most of the payment on my daughter’s house, and that is hard, a bit tight. I hope she will be able to pay her share again soon. I think we will be alright when I retire. Our house will be almost paid for. But we had to get a second mortgage to help our daughter with some things.

Many grandmothers divert money from their savings and investments and, as a result, do not get to build up a nest egg. Some even take on new debt, including loans, second mortgages, and withdrawals from their 401Ks, to provide money to the younger generations. Deanne and her husband have done this and more. Deanne is optimistic that her daughter will eventually pay back this money and that she and her husband will be financially secure when they retire. But her husband is much less certain. Deanne says he feels taken advantage of and very worried about their finances.

I am hoping to get that money back from our daughter, to quell my husband’s sense that the kids are all just taking and no one is ever giving back. He sometimes feels used and abused. He is more worried about the money than I am. He thinks he will not get this money back. But I am the optimist. I like knowing that we helped her and that our grandsons had a nice roof over their heads.

Because so much of Deanne’s paycheck goes toward the mortgages, they are not saving for their retirement at this time. She had hoped to work for just one more four-year term in office before retiring. That plan will likely have to change because they will not have paid off their own, or their daughter’s, home by then. At a time when they are supposed to be accumulating a nest egg for their own retirement, Deanne and her husband, and many other grandparents, are accumulating debt.

Though every grandmother I interviewed talked about the joy she feels spending time with her grandchildren, some find ways to limit grandchild care either because they are overwhelmed or they resist gendered expectations that as women they should do this work and absorb the costs. Deanne is one of several grandmothers who are clear in stating that they need limits to the amount of grandchild care they are expected to provide. Like several others I interviewed, she uses her job to reduce her availability. Deanne likes having employment in part because she loves her job and her colleagues, and in part because the job helps to set some boundaries. She said she was concerned that if she was not working she would be asked to take care of the grandchildren even more.

I could not do full-time grandkids. I need the job, the adult connections. I would not want to do the child care full-time. Much as I love them. It is fun to have them come but fun to see them go.

Some grandmothers limit grandchild care because their partners are either unable or unwilling to help. Deanne’s husband does not help.

My husband does not take care of the grandkids, not his thing. He will help me a little bit. Normally he just stays away, and just goes to bed, and stays away. He avoids the whole situation.

Many grandmothers are also caring for frail older relatives, caught up in a new kind of sandwich generation in which they are providing support for their grandchildren, adult children, and parents. For some, working, caring for grandkids, and caring for a frail older parent is routine. For others it is utterly exhausting. Deanne is somewhere in the middle. In addition to full-time work and 15–20 hours of grandchild care a week, she cares for her 80-year-old mother. As the only child living nearby, she feels duty bound.

I also have responsibilities with my mom in the nursing home. I am the only child in town; I go to the nursing home three or four nights a week to check on her and visit with her. I have been doing this pace forever.

Many grandmas are providing more support than they ever intended, or in some cases wanted, to give. Though many feel well appreciated for all of the support they provide, some feel underappreciated. Deanne is one of many working grandmothers who feel their efforts are warmly appreciated. She says that her daughters say thank you constantly and often they repay her efforts in kind.

They always tell me, they hug and kiss. My daughter does so many nice things for me. She brings me garden produce, tomatoes and cucumbers, bakes, sends home dinner for me and my husband. At least once every other week she sends home supper. She just made stew the other night. They came over when we were on vacation and stripped my wallpaper and painted. They will do fun surprises; make sure I get nice things for my birthday. They call, ask what I am doing and how I am. They call and say thanks. I feel very appreciated. When we are in Florida for the month of March she does my mail, my bills.

But like some other grandmas, Deanne worries about sibling rivalry. Deanne helps her daughter who lives nearby, who has recently divorced, by paying the mortgage and sitting for the boys after school most days and weekends. She worries that her other daughter, who lives farther away and is married and needs little help, is getting short shrift. Deanne makes a point to visit for long weekends and had just returned from a weekend in which she watched the grandkids so the parents could rebuild a deck. She has not yet heard complaints that things are unfair but worries that she might.

Some grandmothers worry that they are providing entirely too much support and enabling their adult children to be irresponsible parents. Though I never raised the topic of enabling, fully one-third of the grandmas I interviewed did. Deanne does not worry that she is providing too much grandchild care or financial support, but her husband certainly does. She says that he resents her being gone so often to help with the grandk...