I’m a grandfather who doesn’t want to do childcare – it’s incredibly boring

When Adrian’s* adult daughter asked her parents to do three days of childcare per week, his wife didn’t hesitate to agree. But he remembers feeling trapped by the question. “For me the timing was terrible. It came at precisely the point when I had imagined that, after raising our children, my wife and I might be able to return to being a couple in our own right.” In addition, Adrian, a 65-year-old retiree from Exeter, says that he finds looking after infants unenjoyable – even his own grandchildren. “I find very small children incredibly boring as well as impossibly fragile and demanding. I’ve never been very confident about caring for [them]. I try to engage but my mind wanders when I’m reading the same book for the umpteenth time. I can change a nappy if I have to, but not willingly.” Adrian’s daughter had to go back to work three months after her first child because her partner earned so little. There was no way they could afford professional childcare. “My wife adored the baby from the minute she first held her in her arms, and her natural instinct was to do whatever she could to help and nurture both the baby and our daughter. I saw the whole situation very differently. “I did not want to do any childcare, I wanted to be free of childcare and children.” Shorts Until recently, looking after grandchildren was regarded more as grandmothers’ work. But as the “new” dads of the 1980s and 1990s morph into new and involved grandads it’s increasingly common to see a grandfather doing the school pick-up or pushing a toddler on the swings. One 2013 study of childcare across Europe found that 42 per cent of men help look after their grandchildren occasionally or regularly, compared to 44 per cent of grandmothers. They’re a significant part of the UK’s nine million strong grandparent army. But what’s less common is for grandfathers to be in sole charge. They’re more likely to look after the grandchildren with their wives, and to go along with a childcare arrangement that’s been set up by the women in the family. As one grandmother tells me: “I suspect that quite a few of the grandfathers I know don’t want to do childcare, or at least don’t want the full responsibility of it, but they would never admit it. I absolutely relish looking after my two [grandchildren] every Tuesday, while my husband comes along with me and enjoys it and he’s involved but not in the way I am. I see that sort of model replicated time and again among our friends.” Anthony, a retired infants’ school teacher from Nottingham, feels that his reluctance to look after his baby granddaughter bucks the trend. “All my male friends are busy looking after their grandchildren and they’re knackered because of it! In my cycling group we often start a bit late to accommodate school drop-offs or whatever, and that’s fine.” Anthony’s wife, by contrast, is keen to see the baby as often as she can, and to look after her a day a week when her daughter goes back to work. Anthony says: “I’m not up for doing childcare, so we’re very much divided along gendered lines. I suppose I’m a bit selfish; I’m enjoying what I’m doing. And it’s a lot to do with my age. At 73, I feel I haven’t got that much time left! I’m carrying on doing as much as I can – I cycle about 75 miles a week and go for long walks in the Peaks – but I still don’t think I’m up to carrying a child and putting her in a car seat and playing giddy up. I don’t think it would be safe. “So I think I’d resent doing childcare, and I’d resent my daughter and her partner if they expected me to. I have told them that I’d rather pay for another day’s nursery. I think my daughter understands – she just laughs about it. I think my wife just thinks I’m useless!” There are many reasons why men refuse a regular childcare commitment. Old-school grandfathers just don’t see domestic stuff as their remit. They weren’t hands-on with their own kids, and certainly don’t want to be now. Lack of experience makes some men lack confidence, and that can create a vicious circle with babies who won’t stop crying if they sense they’re in nervous arms. In any case, many blokes happily admit they find babies a bit boring. Anthony says: “The baby’s not as interesting to me as she is to my wife. She always cries when I pick her up whereas my wife’s got a natural way with her. I don’t know if it’s my smell, or that she can sense that I’m not as confident as my wife, but the baby calms down quite quickly with her. “My bonding with the baby is yet to be developed. I’m not worried about it at all. I’ll be more interested when I can read to her and she can laugh at my jokes! I prefer children when they’re a bit older. I’ve already bought a cycle trailer for the back of my bike, which she can go in when she’s about three.” Both sides can feel resentful when couples disagree about childcare: grandmothers who are left with the exhausting responsibility of looking after grandchildren on their own, and grandfathers who had their hearts set on spending quality time with their partners when they retire and the kids fly the nest. When it turns out their wives want something very different they can feel cheated. A childcare commitment gets in the way of other dreams. And it’s not just about the actual time spent doing childcare; it drains energy and attention for other things and other people. Adrian remembers: “My granddaughter used to insist on an adult lying with her while she was going to sleep. I would often find myself sitting downstairs at 11 pm waiting while my wife tried to do that. It certainly affected us as a couple; it drove a bit of a wedge between us. My wife and I used to argue about it, but I wasn’t clear in my own mind about all the issues it brought up for me. “But everything started to improve when my granddaughter got to about three or four, and being with her got really interesting and fun. She’s five now. So having perhaps been a bit rubbish and resentful as a grandfather when she was a baby, I have a really great relationship with her now.” Anthony is resigned to the prospect of his wife taking on regular childcare when their daughter goes back to work next year: “My wife knows what I’m like and she knows my views. I’m happy to be back-up, but not regularly. She already assumes I don’t want to come. If I really wanted to go with her I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, although I might just be in the way! “I don’t worry too much about how it will affect us as a couple, although I might if my wife was getting really tired or anxious about the baby – she’s already more anxious than I am. Hopefully we’ll still spend plenty of time together, and our relationship is pretty healthy because we’re not together all the time.” Celia Dodd’s new book Grand Expectations: The Joys and Dilemmas of Being a Grandparent is out now *Some names have been changed