Grandparents and boundaries: help that comes with an opinion

At five you arrive at your mother’s to collect your son. He is sitting in front of the television with his second chocolate egg in his hand; dinner is in an hour. “It’s only a little something sweet,” your mother says before you have asked anything. “You ate everything at his age and you grew up fine.” You say thank you, because you truly are grateful. In the car, though, you grip the steering wheel and wonder why, after every afternoon of childcare, you feel twelve years old again.

A great deal has been written about mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law. Less is said about what it is like when the opinion comes from your own parents, and when it arrives together with something you badly need: childcare, a cooked lunch, money, or the flat on the upper floor. At such moments it feels as though you have no right to set a boundary. Who are you to lay down conditions for someone who rescues your afternoon three times a week?

In this post I look at grandparents and boundaries through the lens of family systems thinking: who has which task in a family, where the tasks get mixed up, and how to stay grateful without handing over your role as a parent along the way.

The help without which the week does not add up

First, a fact: in Europe, grandparents are one of the main pillars of childcare. Using data from the large European SHARE survey in ten countries, Karsten Hank and Isabella Buber showed that 58 per cent of grandmothers and 49 per cent of grandfathers had looked after a grandchild under sixteen at least occasionally in the previous year. These are not exceptions; this is most grandmothers and almost half of grandfathers.

Slovenia was not included in that first wave of the survey, but the picture is familiar even without a number. Nursery closes, work does not end, the child is ill for the third time in a month. Many families live in the same house as their parents or a few streets away, and “granny service” is a phrase everyone understands. This help is real, precious and mostly given out of love.

That is exactly why the subject is hard. If grandparents were merely a nuisance, the solution would be simple. But because they are at once indispensable and loved, every remark about sweets carries the weight of the whole relationship.

Why it is so hard to say anything

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, one of the pioneers of family therapy, described family relationships with the image of a ledger. In every family there is an unwritten record of who has given what to whom and who owes what to whom. Children owe their parents simply for having been raised by them, and that debt is never really repaid. It is settled forwards: through what you give to your own children.

When your parents also help with the grandchildren, a new entry is made in that ledger. And with it often comes an unspoken expectation: whoever gives may also have a say. The mother who minds your child feels she has earned the right to an opinion about his coat, his sleep and his screens. And you feel that by accepting the help you have lost the right to object.

This is where gratitude quietly turns into debt. The difference matters. Gratitude is a feeling that brings you closer to a person. Debt is an obligation that shuts your mouth. Where healthy gratitude ends is the subject of Gratitude: what the research shows and where it ends, and the concept itself is explained in the knowledge base under gratitude. For our topic one sentence is essential: you can be sincerely grateful and still disagree with something. The one does not rule out the other.

Three generations, two boundaries

Salvador Minuchin, the founder of structural family therapy, described the family as a set of subsystems. The parents are one subsystem, the children another, the grandparents a third. Each has its own tasks, and boundaries run between them. A good boundary, for Minuchin, is not a wall. It is clear and at the same time permeable: love, help and information pass through it, but decision-making does not.

On this view, problems do not arise because the generations are close. They arise when the tasks are swapped. When Grandma decides whether the child sees a speech therapist. When Grandad says in front of his grandchild, “Your mum is overreacting.” Or when the parents, exhausted and grateful, hand over the deciding themselves because it is easier, and are then angry that nobody takes them into account.

The boundary between the generations does not protect only you. It also protects the child, who needs to know who makes the decisions in their world. And it protects the grandparents from carrying, in later life, a responsibility that is no longer theirs. You will find more on this concept in the knowledge base under boundaries within a family.

When the remark is not about the child but about you

Why does the sentence “we put you all to sleep on your tummies and you’re all alive” sting so much? Because you do not hear it as an adult discussing infant sleep with your mother. You hear it as her child. In an instant you are once again the one being told how things are done, and all your effort to be a competent parent collapses into a single question: does she see me as a grown-up at all?

The same applies in the other direction, which we tend to overlook. When you tell your mother, “We don’t threaten him with punishment,” she does not hear a piece of information about your parenting. She hears a verdict on hers. Every rule of yours that differs from hers can be read as a quiet accusation: you did it wrong. Many a sharp remark from a grandparent is really a defence against that feeling.

Differences in upbringing between the generations are therefore rarely just differences of opinion. They are a conversation about the past, conducted in the language of chocolate and winter coats. Knowing this makes it easier to decide which remarks are worth answering at all. How adulthood in relation to your parents is built gradually is described in Between 20 and 35: why this is the key time for becoming independent from your parents.

Triangles and coalitions: the child in the middle

Murray Bowen noticed that tension between two people quickly seeks out a third. He called this a triangle. Across three generations the third is most often the child, and in ways that look innocent.

“Don’t tell Mummy you had an ice cream.” The sentence is said with a smile and good intentions. Yet with it grandmother and grandchild form a small alliance against the parent, and the child is given a job that is not theirs: keeping a secret from the people responsible for them. The reverse happens when a parent asks the child, “And what did Grandma say about me?” In both cases the child becomes a messenger between adults who are not talking to each other directly. The concept is explained in the knowledge base under triangulation.

The second triangle runs through your partner. If you only talk about your parents at home when you are angry, sooner or later your partner will start defending you against them or them against you. I have written about how two families of origin enter a couple’s relationship, and who should talk to whom when it comes to a mother-in-law or father-in-law, in In-laws and boundaries: families of origin in a relationship, so I will not repeat it here. The same basic rule holds for childcare: you talk to your parents, your partner talks to theirs. And before that, the two of you agree on the rules.

A rule or a style?

Most conflicts arise because parents expect grandparents to raise the child exactly as they do. The expectation is understandable, but it is not achievable and for the most part not necessary either. Children generally grasp quickly that different houses have different habits. At Grandma’s you eat on the sofa; at home you do not. This does not confuse them, as long as the adults do not turn the differences into a contest.

It therefore helps to separate two kinds of things. The first are rules that apply everywhere, because they concern the child’s safety, health or dignity. The second is style: everything that simply happens differently at Grandma’s, that does the child no harm and mostly just irritates you.

Exactly where the line runs is for each family to decide. For a child with an allergy or diabetes, food is a safety matter, not a style. For most other children, a chocolate egg before dinner is something they survive without consequences. A question that helps with the sorting: will this still matter in a year? If not, it probably belongs in the right-hand column.

Letting style go is not a defeat. It is an acknowledgement that the child has a relationship of their own with their grandparents, one that is not a copy of their relationship with you. In a review article, the evolutionary psychologists David Coall and Ralph Hertwig showed that grandparents’ involvement is often linked to grandchildren’s wellbeing, especially when a family is under strain. They add, however, that the findings are less clear-cut in modern affluent societies than in traditional ones, so this should not be read as a guarantee. Part of what grandparents give probably lies precisely in their being different from the parents.

How this sounds in conversation

A boundary is not set in the doorway, with a bag in one hand and a tired child in the other. It is set at a calm moment, in advance and briefly. A conversation like that might sound as follows (composed, not a real person):

“Mum, I’d like to ask you something. I couldn’t have got through this year without you, and I mean that.”
“But?”
“But when you say in front of Maja that I’m overreacting, she doesn’t listen to me at home afterwards. If you disagree with something, tell me, not her.”
“So I’m not allowed to say anything any more.”
“You are. To me, when it’s just the two of us. And cartoons and biscuits at your place are yours to run your own way; I won’t interfere with that.”

There are three things in this conversation worth copying. The gratitude is spoken first, and it is not a run-up to an attack. There is a single, concrete request: not in front of the child. And the daughter also lets something go, explicitly leaving Grandma her own territory. The mother’s reply, “so I’m not allowed to say anything any more”, is to be expected. Hurt feelings at a first boundary do not yet mean the boundary was wrong. You will find more ready-made sentences among the tools in the knowledge base: sentences for setting boundaries.

If your stomach tightens at the very thought of such a conversation, you are not the only one. Why the guilt around a boundary is so strong precisely with the people we love is explained in Setting boundaries: why it feels selfish even though healthy relationships depend on it.

Grandparents have boundaries too

The other side is often overlooked in conversations about this subject. A grandmother who provides childcare three times a week also has a body that tires, friends she does not get to see, and perhaps a husband who would like to go to the seaside. Many a grandparent cannot refuse to help for the very reason you cannot object: they fear it would put the relationship at risk.

Research on grandparents’ health shows a two-sided picture. Using European data, Giorgio Di Gessa and his colleagues found that looking after grandchildren was associated with better health among grandmothers, even after their earlier state of health was taken into account. This is an association and not proof that childcare heals, but it does suggest that caring for grandchildren is generally not a burden on grandparents. The picture changes where the care is not a choice but a necessity with no respite.

So it is worth asking from time to time: “Is this still all right for you? Would you like one day fewer?” A boundary that holds in both directions is far more readily accepted than one set only by the younger generation. And when the help also includes money or housing, the ledger becomes more tangled still; that is the subject of Money as love and control: parents and adult children.

An exercise: three lists

For this exercise you need twenty minutes, a sheet of paper and, if you have a partner, them as well. Do it before you discuss anything with your parents.

1. Write down everything that bothers you. Uncensored and in no particular order: sweets, television, remarks about your job, unannounced visits. Let the list be long; it is meant only for you.
2. Sort each item. The first column is for the child’s safety, health and dignity. The second is for style. The third is for whatever is not really about the child, but about you and your parents.
3. Cut the first column down to five rules at most. Write each as one short, positive sentence: “In the car he is always strapped into his seat.” If you have a partner, the two of you agree on these five first.
4. Cross out the second column. Deliberately, by hand. These are the things you are letting go. Not because you do not care, but because you have decided to.
5. Keep the third column for yourself. It is not a topic for a conversation about childcare. It is a topic for you: what would you like your mother or father finally to see in you? Simply separating it from the chocolate makes the conversation about chocolate a good deal easier.

Finally, choose a day when nobody is rushing anywhere and tell your parents the first column. Begin with what you are grateful to them for, and end with what you are leaving to them.

Where this approach does not apply

Everything above assumes grandparents who are basically well-meaning, and a relationship that can bear an honest sentence. That is not always the case, and then “let the style go” is not good advice.

If a grandparent hits the child, humiliates them, drinks while looking after them, or drives without a car seat despite an agreement, that is not a difference in upbringing but a question of safety. The right thing then is to stop the childcare or limit it to times when you are present, even if that means an expensive and exhausting week of finding alternatives. The same applies when the help is conditional: “As long as you live under my roof, it will be done my way.” That is no longer help with an opinion attached, but control, and it is described in When others keep you in guilt: recognising emotional blackmail.

The second limit of this post is more uncomfortable: sometimes the grandparents are right. Thirty years of experience with children is not nothing, and the remark that infuriates you may be accurate. A boundary does not mean you need not listen. It means that after listening, you decide.

And the third: some families simply cannot afford a choice. Someone who is alone with a child and has no other childcare will accept a good deal they would not accept if they had options. That is not weakness; it is circumstance. Even then, the first column remains: safety is not up for negotiation.

How therapy can help

When the same argument about childcare repeats for months, it is usually no longer about childcare. It is about who you are in relation to your parents now that you are a parent yourself, and how you and your partner have come to terms on that. Relational family therapy, in which I am training, sees such tangles as patterns handed down from one generation to the next: the way your parents accepted help from their own parents often determines what seems self-evident today.

You can come to therapy alone or with your partner; when the sticking point is mainly between the two of you, it makes sense to start together. If you are curious about the wider picture, that is, how care, help and the say in upbringing were shared out across the generations in your two families, the longer, 90-minute genogram session A Look into the Past is designed for that. Sessions take place in person in Ljubljana, and I also work with English-speaking clients.

What to remember

• Help from grandparents is the rule in Europe, not the exception: according to SHARE survey data, most grandmothers and almost half of grandfathers look after grandchildren at least occasionally.
• Gratitude and a boundary do not rule each other out. It becomes hard when gratitude turns into a debt that shuts your mouth.
• Grandparents support, parents decide, the child is a child. Problems arise when these tasks are swapped or when the child becomes a messenger between adults.
• Separate rules from style: a short list of what applies everywhere, and a deliberate letting go of everything else.
• Talk about the boundary in advance, calmly, and with your own parents yourself. Where the child’s safety is concerned, there is no negotiating.