The website for grandparents

A new report says grandparents who are filling the ‘care gap’ in some of Britain’s most vulnerable families are risking hardship themselves. Called “Protect, Support, Provide” the report highlights that grandparents in families most at risk of poverty are under increasing pressure to take on a caring role.

It shows that working age, working class grandmothers on low incomes are most likely to be providing childcare and to have given up work or reduced their hours to care for grandchildren. This has an impact on household income and may have an effect on a grandparent’s pension rights as well as their health.
 
Grandparents Plus and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, authors of the report, are calling for the financial, emotional and practical support given by grandparents in low-income families to be factored into public policy. The families most at risk of poverty include single parent families, families where a child or parent has a disability, black and ethnic minority families and children who cannot live with their parents so are looked after by family or friends. 

So what do you think is the answer?  We should take into account that it is difficult to generalise - all families are very different and some grandparents have said that they would hate to receive payment whereas others really need the money or feel that they should be reimbursed for giving up their own job to help out.  And there is the worry about benefits loss or becoming an employee of your own child!

Please let us know if you have been in the position of holding the fort so that your adult children can work. Did you lose out by giving up work to be on hand? Are you feeling the pinch because of putting your family first?

AND What do you think we should be saying to government about this?

Poll

Take our poll and register your vote

Useful link

www.grandparentsplus.org.uk/reports.php