The Atlantic recently wrote a piece about how “grandparenting,” or specifically, “grandmothering” is on the rise. When they say this, what they mean is that active parenting by a grandparent, mostly a grandmother, is on the rise due to the shortage of reliable and affordable healthcare, soaring costs of living, and dual-income households in the U.S. This has made parents of the current generation apply more pressure on their parents to help raise their own children. This is most definitely something I see across most parents of a similar age to me: most of my friends with kids have a parent look after their child(ren) for at least 1-2 days a week, without them there. We have a friend whose in-laws not only pick up the kids from preschool at 2:50 every weekday, but even take them overnight two nights a week; those same grandparents take the two kids to Michigan where their other son and his children are for two months; that is two months that my friend doesn’t see (or have to parent) his own children, time he gets to himself and to himself plus his wife. These grandparents play an active role in their grandchildren’s upbringing, not just having fun with them and getting to know them inside out, but also being a second set of parents to them.

I was thinking about this today as I watched Chris’s parents struggle to wrangle Kaia around, whether it was on the sidewalk, on the street, or in stores. A couple times I told Chris’s dad to walk with Kaia, and as per usual, he would barely hear me and Kaia would run off on her own without him even noticing. In the end, I’d have to run off after her. In other cases, Chris’s mom struggled to run after her to keep up with her, and Kaia succeeded at keeping her grandma on her toes. When Kaia was in her diaper period, Chris’s dad wouldn’t even want to be in the room with a diaper change; Chris’s mom would only do it if Chris or I wasn’t there. During their very first visit when Kaia was about five months old, when I was working from home and Chris was at the office when they were meant to babysit while our nanny was on vacation, Chris’s mom would come into the room when I was working and announce that Kaia needed a diaper change. The implication here was that I needed to stop what I was doing to change her diaper since I was there (who cares that I was actually working… since I was, you know, at home?). Now that Kaia is potty trained (but still isn’t equipped to wipe herself or wash her hands without assistance), neither of them has offered to help with the potty visits, either during our visit to Australia in December, or now. Granted, they aren’t used to being around her all the time, definitely are not used to helping someone during potty time, or seeing exactly how much she loves to run around and be cheeky, but they could in no way keep up with her. I am positive that if they had to look after her for even one day a week on their own, they’d likely leave her in their own house so they wouldn’t have to worry about the threat of getting lost in a store or worse, getting hit by a car or bicyclist.

Chris’s mom always used to tell friends, family, and us that if we lived in Melbourne, she would have loved to be a full-time care taker to Kaia once we went back to work after family leave. But the thing is — you can certainly assume you want things in theory, but in practice, it’s never as simple or easy as it seems in your head. As we all get older, our physical and mental abilities get more limited. We tire more easily. We have less energy. And frankly, there just may be less stamina to run after a boisterous, rebellious little toddler than you had assumed.