As a grandmother, observes Constance, “the old stereotypes rebound and you may find yourself … expected to prioritize grandchildren and sacrifice hobbies and interests, and cut short your day in order to be a carer for your grandchildren”.
“I do get sorrowful looks from friends, all of whom have dozens of grandchildren, whenever the subject of grandchildren comes up,” says Mary, a Sydney-based 73-year-old retiree who loves writing and theatre.
“Our individualistic society has always undervalued care labor, and the monumental amount of unpaid care labor that women have done historically has been undercompensated and overlooked,” Darby Saxbe, an associate professor of psychology and director of the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for the Changing Family, has said.
In a 2020 podcast conversation, JD Vance agreed with host Eric Weinstein that the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to provide grandchild care, citing his own mother-in-law taking a sabbatical from her role as a biology professor at the University of California, San Diego, to help raise his kids.
But she’s noticed others projecting assumptions onto her – “expectations that every grandparent, grandmothers especially, should feel fulfilled [by] and dedicated to their grandchildren”, she says.
