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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. To end the show today, we're going to talk about grandparenting. If you're on social media, maybe you've seen all the flak that American grandparents are getting lately from the criticisms, it can seem like the older generation is self-involved, jetting off to far-flung vacations and retirement, or maybe you've heard parents griping about not having a village to help raise their kids.

Even Vice President J.D. Vance last year opined that maybe grandparents should "help out a little bit more," when asked how he would address the problem of increasing childcare costs. The truth is, America is in an age of "peak grandparenting". That's according to a new article out in The Atlantic. The piece cites this stat: nearly 60% of grandparents, mostly grandmothers, provided care for their grandkids in 2022. A 2023 Harris poll found that more than 40% of working parents relied on their kids' grandparents for child care.

Faith Hill is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her latest article explores the pressure on grandparents to forego a traditional retirement, sometimes even working to provide financial support in order to help their families out. She joins us now. Hey, Faith, welcome to WNYC.

Faith Hill: Hi, Brigid. Thanks for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Any grandparents out there listening that have been taking on an increasingly active role taking care of your grandkids? I know it's spring break this week, so I'm sure some of you are out there listening. Anyone out there feel like they are actually maybe even co-parenting their grandkids? Help us report this story. How did your family come to this decision?

We know grandparenting can be a joy, but have there been some challenges that maybe a lot of people don't know about that you want to share? Have you tried to set some boundaries with your children, and how did that go? Give us a call now. The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number. Faith, you write such statistics might not sound jaw-dropping if you assume that in decades past, most grandparents were living with their grandkids and cheerily providing care all the time. Even though grandparents were living with their grandkids, they weren't necessarily caregivers. How are they viewed instead?

Faith Hill: That changed through history, but as you're saying, there's a lot of roles that grandparents took over time, but they were rarely seen as caregivers. In early American history, people tended to have more kids over a longer period of time. A lot of people would become grandparents while they were still parenting younger kids. Their dominant role was still a parent and not a grandparent.

Often, older kids would move out when they had their own kids, and so grandparents would be seen as authority figures. They were respected, and maybe they would give discipline, and they would be around, but they weren't necessarily doing the messy, tedious work of actual child care for their grandkids. Multi-generational living was just not as common as we sometimes assume. Eventually, there was a period where it did become more common because the Great Depression forced families together.

Brigid Bergin: Sure.

Faith Hill: At that point, grandparents were seen more as burdens. Often, a widow would move in with her adult child because her husband had died, and she might help out with child care in that situation, but it was not really a position of power, and it wasn't a very happy situation. Then, eventually, with pensions and Social Security, more older adults were able to move out of family homes. That was often seen as a victory both for parents and grandparents. That's how we got this classic idea of the loving, fun grandparent who swoops in to take their grandkid to the park or get ice cream. Though that was like an image of a doting grandparent became popular. It wasn't necessarily anything like co-parenting.

Brigid Bergin: There's been a shift, as you've been describing there, in the expectations of grandparents. Recently, states have adopted some safety and support nets for parents, but can you talk a little bit about the American welfare state and how it's created a different expectation for American grandparents?

Faith Hill: Yes, absolutely. I think there are just a ton of struggling parents right now. Over time, America has seen a rise in single parents and working mothers of young kids, and the cost of childcare just keeps climbing. I talk to a lot of families where they don't think of themselves as living in poverty or struggling in many other ways, but childcare is just so expensive, and there are wait lists for so many sources of daycare and childcare.

Just so many people found themselves in this impossible situation where parents realized they needed to turn to their own parents, and they hadn't necessarily even thought that they would be doing that so much, but they just really needed help. There's grandparents moving across the country to live closer to their kids so they could help out in these dire situations. As you mentioned, US federal law doesn't guarantee paid parental leave or paid sick leave. I think there's an impression that grandparents aren't helping out enough, but what's actually going on in many situations is just that the need is so huge, and the government is not helping out, and there's a hole.

Brigid Bergin: Well, we have a lot of callers who want to share some of their experiences, and so we're going to try to get as many in as we can. We're going to start with Linda in Manhattan. Linda, we're going to ask you to keep your story brief because we want to get as many of our listeners on as possible. Linda, go ahead.

Linda: Okay. Hi. I love what you had to say. My daughter, when she got pregnant and told me she had to go back to work after five months, I said that I would step in because not only are childcare-- its like $3,000 a month for childcare in Manhattan, but I believe in having somebody who's close to the child raising the child, helping to raise the child. I stepped in even before she went back to work. I would go over and help them out, and it's been very rewarding.

We work like a well-oiled machine. If I need to do something, they work with me. If I have jury duty on Tuesday, they're working with me. She's going to work from home, my daughter. My son in law, he's been phenomenal. I'm very proud of him that he's just a step-up dad. My daughter's doing a great job, but without me-- The other grandparents live in South Carolina, so I'm the only one that can do this stuff. I worked at night to raise my daughter during the day. I don't believe in daycare. It's a necessity, but it's just terrible that women can't raise their children or the fathers can't raise their children, and they need us. They really do need us now.

Brigid Bergin: Linda, thank you so much for that story and for that experience. Faith, as I said, we've got a bunch of callers. I'm going to get to Joel in Union, New Jersey. Joel, briefly tell us your Story.

Joel: I never had grandparents in my childhood. Also, I grew up, and I was not as present a father as I should have been for my daughter. It took us over 20 years to work this out. Meanwhile, she had two sons, and I resolved to redeem myself by being active in the lives of them, and especially one of them who's my protege. My daughter's divorced, so she needs extra parenting. I pick him up from school every Wednesday, and I'm there on weekends and her weekends. I do a lot with them, and it's extremely fulfilling. I feel like I've made up for my neglect as a younger person, as a father.

Brigid Bergin: Joel, thank you so much for that story. We appreciate you sharing. Faith, we have another listener who writes, "I have two grandchildren, ages four and six months. They go to daycare, and I help out when they are sick, daycare is closed, et cetera. I don't have the stamina or desire to take care of them full time. I worked when my kids were growing up, and my mother did for me what I do for my daughter."

I know in your piece, you look at the shifting role of grandparents. That text that I just shared, the story that you've heard from our callers, how much of the change in the expectations for grandparents is something that is modern, or is it just something that maybe more people are talking about now, because, as you said, childcare is so expensive? There's so many gaps in what would normally support families.

Faith Hill: I think there have always been grandparents who are very involved. None of this is completely new, but there are changes both in the number of parents who need to lean on their own parents for help because of some of the holes in welfare that I was talking about, but also just in what modern parenting involves.

It used to be much more accepted for kids to be able to roam around by themselves, and that, in a lot of cases, meant just less work for parents. Now the norm has shifted to intensive parenting that involves watching kids around the clock and shuttling them to extracurriculars and tutoring them, and cultivating them as well as keeping them safe. I think that has changed grandparenting, too. Intensive parenting means intensive grandparenting a lot of the time. It's changed what the role of a grandparent even entails.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Peggy in Englewood, New Jersey. Peggy, you have about a minute. I think you can speak to some of the tension here, some of the challenges grandparents face.

Peggy: Absolutely. I'm a new grandparent about three months, and we're ecstatic. Out of the seven grandparents that are connected to our granddaughter, we're the closest ones. We're the only ones in State, and we are the only ones who work. It's a hard balance because we want to help, and we have offered to help, but we can't be on call. We have things that we need to do, and we had plans of things we're trying to do, and it's been difficult.

My son is definitely feeling some type of way about the fact that we're not willing to give up all of our free time in order to facilitate their daycare needs. They have to step it up a little bit here. It's not what it was when we were growing up or when he was growing up. Our grandparents were around a lot more, but it's a different time, and so we have to work out the logistics. It's a struggle. I'm not going to lie. It's definitely a struggle.

Brigid Bergin: Peggy, thanks so much for that call. We appreciate it. Faith, I think we know that people are working later in life and that grandparents aren't necessarily around in the same way. Any reaction to what you heard from Peggy there?

Faith Hill: Yes, absolutely. This is really common. Roughly 40% of grandparents today are working, and I think it's tricky because, as Peggy is saying, you can love and care for your family so much, and I think sometimes we romanticize the idea of childcare and caregiving, where we think if you are a family person who cares about your family, you will be there no matter what. The reality is much more complicated. People are working. They don't always want to be, and sometimes they are, and sometimes they do want to be working. There's just so many things going on. People can't be doing everything they want to be at once, and something has to give.

Brigid Bergin: We're going to have to leave it there for today. My guest has been Faith Hill, staff writer at The Atlantic. Her latest piece is titled Grandparents Are Reaching Their Limit. Faith, thank you so much for coming on today.

Faith Hill: Thank you so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: I want to thank the grandparents who are out there listening, including likely the grandparents of my own daughter, because I know they listen when I'm filling in. Shout out to all the grandparents. We thank you. The Brian Lehrer Show's producers are Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Our intern is Henry [unintelligible 00:13:59] Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz are at the studio controls. I'm Brigid Bergin. This is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

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