Stay at Home Grandparents (SAHG)

All this talk on Stay at Home Mothers (SAHM) got me thinking. Usually when you have a child, you either stay at home with your baby or you continue working and send your baby to daycare. However, there are a lot of children who care cared for during the day by other family members, including GRANDPARENTS. And I started to wonder if there were any on line communities dedicated to the Stay at Home Grandparent (SAHG).

I did a Google Search for "stay at home grandparents" and got 488,000 hits. When I hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button (just for the heck of it) I got sent to Faithful Grannies, which also happened to be the #1 hit when I did the regular search.

Work At Home Mom has an article on this very topic entitled "Stay-At-Home Grandparents: Caring for Your Children's Kids". (It is the second hit on the search) The author of that article has a website herself called Home Bodies, which is dedicated to SAHM's. I did find one blog: Raising Your Grandchildren.

According to the United States Census Bureau, over 3.7 million children under the age of 18 live with their grandparents full time with 1.48 million having no parents (mother or father) present in their lives.

An article in the Australian Herald Sun called "Grandparents as Child Carers highlights this situation talking about a study completed by the Australian Institute of Family Study which asked Grandparents about how they felt caring for their grandchildren. (Some loved it and some didn't is what it boils down to.) But isn't that true just being a parent? Sometimes you love it and sometimes you don't.

I can easily see where becoming the primary caregiver for your grandchild can be a lot like being a new mom. Overwhelming, tiring (heck, exhausting), and worth every minute.

When I was little I was cared for by my paternal grandmother while my mother and father worked. I had no idea until my mom mentioned it recently. The fact that I didn't remember this gave me many thoughts and questions. If I don't remember being cared for by my grandmother, would it have been different if my mom cared for me? But then I think that it would have been just as loving an environment with my grandmother, so not in the respect that I was loved when I was cared for. Does it then matter if I, personally, care for my daughter or if I place her in daycare if she isn't even going to remember her life very much prior to going to school as long as the environment is loving and nurturing? That leads me to wonder about personality development and temperament which leads me to a billion more questions whose answers will have to wait (especially if I want to get any sleep tonight) since they involve research and that takes me a while.

I didn't want family watching Willow because I wanted her time with them to be special and not associated with being cared for. Now I am wondering if it would have mattered. I mean, our situation works out the best the way we have it with her at daycare but my sister did offer to watch her and I considered it. I don't know. Every family is different and has a different situation that works for them. I don't think there is any right or wrong as long as your child grows up in a loving, stable environment. But then that's just my opinion.

So, I leave saying Kudos to SAHM's, SAHD's and SAHG's. You have the hardest job there is and you deserve much praise and admiration for it. And kudos to working parents as well. Just because you are working doesn't make parenting any easier.