Susan Glickman, a second-grade teacher, was among the first of her friends to be a grandparent. At 56, Ms. Glickman, of East Rockaway, N.Y., said she and her husband are “thrilled” about their daughter’s 8-month-old, Lilah, who lives less than an hour away, in Manhattan.
Thrilled, yes, but she has her limits.
“I will do anything to help, but I think everyone has to have their own life,” said Ms. Glickman. “I don’t want to commit to a certain day every week. I feel like I raised my children.”
Meet today’s grandparents, a combination of younger baby boomers and older Generation X’ers who are under 65 and not yet retired. This cohort, estimated to represent about half of all grandparents, is healthier and more physically active than grandparents of the past. They’re also finding themselves caught balancing their own plans and those of their adult children — who may need a babysitter
“Younger grandparents are very excited but may have work or other commitments or friends they want to see,” said Ellen Breslau, editor in chief of Grandparents.com. “They all have full lives now. They don’t just drop everything.”
To be sure, there are plenty of grandparents eager to spend time with their grandchildren. And with many young adults marrying later and waiting to have babies, there are many retired 70-somethings who can’t wait for grandchildren to dote on. But the working grandparents in the younger set are finding themselves caught between their own desires to take advantage of their empty nests and their adult millennial children who have different ideas about a grandparent’s role.
In a 2013 questionnaire, Grandparents.com heard from 13,270 of its readers. While not a scientific survey, the site captured hints of the struggle. When asked about their priorities, 65 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement: “I love being part of my grandchild’s life, but it’s not the center of my life.” Asked what’s stressful about being a grandparent, about one in five cited conflict with the grandchildren’s parents or difficulty juggling work and other time demands to be with grandchildren.
“Our culture views the grandparent relationship as positive, but the grounds-eye view is a little more complicated,” said Steven Mintz, a family historian at the University of Texas at Austin. “Sociological surveys suggest a fair amount of ambivalence on both sides. We live in a culture that sort of sentimentalizes family, regardless of the reality.”
Catherine Giordano, 52, became a grandparent in May. She also works full-time as an events manager for her husband’s party rental company in Brooklyn.
“I’m involved, but I’m not the parent,” said Ms. Giordano. “I’m looking forward to getting to be involved and not necessarily doing it all over again.”
Her daughter, Justine Quinlan, 29, said that she has other sources of support and doesn’t have to rely only on her mother for help with her son. “The first week he was born, she took off that week and she helped a lot, but otherwise, I don’t need her to take time off from work,” Ms. Quinlan said.
While living close to grandchildren makes it easier to see them, it can also breed conflict, Ms. Breslau said.
“There’s a whole conversation about adult children being annoyed that grandmother is not babysitting more. She’s busy. She’s got things to do,” Ms. Breslau said. “Many grandparents jump at the chance to babysit. It’s very important to them, but they also want it to fit into the rest of their life.”
At the same time, some parents complain that grandparents are too involved. “You’ve got adult children upset that parents are not around, and adult children upset that parents are around too much,” said Ms. Breslau.
While the last federal data on grandparent age came from the 2008 United States Census, Peter Francese, founder of American Demographics magazine, has used current population data and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to make updated projections. He estimates that the average age of first-time grandparents today is about 52.
Grandparents under the age of 65 now account for about half of all grandparents, he estimates, and a majority of them are still working. As a group, they’re the most affluent and highly educated grandparents in American history.
To be sure, there are still many traditional grandparents who are retired and who devote considerable time to caring for their grandchildren. And there are many grandparents, like Christe Roknich, of Dana Point, Calif., who live far from their grandchildren and long for more time to see them.
Last year Ms. Roknich, 52, made five trips to Virginia to see her 17-month-old granddaughter.
“When she was born, I said to my husband, ‘I am not going to be a once-a-year grandma,’” Ms. Roknich said. “I would go every month, but as great as it sounds, it’s two full days of travel.”
She and her husband, Mark, 58, both real estate agents, also remain busy with work and friends and keeping fit with daily exercise. He’s training for a 100-mile bike race in Colorado on Aug. 13.
She’s flown out twice to babysit at her daughter’s request, but went without her husband because “somebody had to stay and handle our business.”
While some of today’s grandparents may have less time for caregiving, many of them are investing money in their grandchildren. One reason is that grandparents today have far fewer grandchildren than their counterparts in earlier generations. A grandparent in 1900 might have had a dozen or more grandchildren, Dr. Mintz said, while today, the average is six. He expects it will dip to four soon.
A 2012 study by MetLife and the nonprofit organization Generations United called “Grandparents Investing in Grandchildren” found that 62 percent of grandparents have provided financial support or monetary gifts for grandchildren within the previous five years; of those, the average amount given totaled $8,289.
Similarly, Grandparents.com found that in addition to gifts, entertainment and education, 33 percent spent money to help with grandchildren’s living expenses; 16 percent spent money to help with medical or dental expenses. Of the 60 percent of grandparents who said they financially assisted their adult children in the previous year, 18 percent helped with the costs of day care.
Ms. Giordano, the Brooklyn grandmother and events manager, said the key for her family is to respect each other’s boundaries.
“The fact that we live so close together may make it harder to find the balance, but I think we can do that,” Ms. Giordano said. “They’re very respectful of our time, and I’m respectful of their choices.”