Some grandparents are doing everything. Other older people would give anything to be needed.
That is one of the stranger paradoxes of modern family life. High housing costs, punishing childcare bills and demanding jobs are leaning hard on parents. At the same time, more people are having fewer children, having them later, or not having them at all.
These changes affect parents, of course. But they also reshape grandparenthood itself. For some, it is becoming overburdened. For others, it is slipping out of reach.
“Children’s children are a crown to the aged,” the Book of Proverbs tells us.
The crown is not status, but continuity. The joy of seeing life carry on beyond you, and of being seen by a generation that will inherit the world after you are gone.
I have felt, in my own life, the joy that grandparenting can bring. It is not only love, though there is plenty of that. It’s the intangible pleasure of seeing the world begin again through a child’s eyes. It is being valued in a way that is both ordinary and profound. It is belonging.
But I have also come to see how unevenly that joy, and that responsibility, is shared.
A 2023 SunLife survey of more than 2,000 grandparents found that 52% provide free childcare during the working week, with those who help giving an average of 22 hours a week. More than half do the school run, more than two-thirds provide care before and after school, and nearly two-thirds are called on when grandchildren are ill.
That can be a beautiful thing. It can also be too much.
The public debate often talks about grandparents as if they are all comfortably retired, asset-rich and endlessly available. Many are not. Some are still working. Some are caring for partners or elderly parents. Some are managing their own health problems or financial worries. Some simply do not have the physical or emotional capacity to become a second childcare system.
We should be able to celebrate grandparents who help, without making those who cannot feel guilty.
But the unevenness runs both ways. There is another side to this story we talk about even less: older people who would love to be valued in that way, but have no obvious route in. As families become smaller and more scattered, more people will grow old without ever becoming grandparents in the traditional sense.
The fertility rate in England and Wales fell by more than a quarter between 2010 and 2024 to the lowest level on record. And the Office for National Statistics estimates the number of women aged 80 without children in England and Wales will rise from 23,000 in 2019 to 66,000 by 2045.
That is not only a demographic fact. It is a huge social change.
The answer isn’t guilt, or to romanticise the past as though every family once lived happily around the corner from one another. Many families did not. Many still do not. Historical family structure was not always kind, especially to women, to single parents, to those who did not fit.
But the fact remains that this is a profound shift for our society to adapt to. Children require more than childcare. They need stories, patience, memory and adults who are not always rushing. Older people require more than physical care. They need purpose, company and the chance to matter.
As concern grows about the amount of childhood now spent on screens, that feels more relevant than ever. Children need time with people who can look up, listen properly and pass something on.
Christianity treats family as sacred, but not as narrow. We are told to honour our parents, to welcome children, and, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, to understand our neighbour not simply as the person who shares our blood, name or household, but as the person whose need is placed before us.
I interpret this as an expansive take on family values. A call to care for the young and the old, the related and the unrelated, the familiar and the stranger.
I have seen this myself in small, almost accidental ways. On holiday with my family, I found myself becoming something like a volunteer grandma at the kids’ club, helping with children who were not my own grandchildren.
It was not formal childcare. I was not replacing anyone. I was simply another older adult in the room, another pair of eyes, another encouraging voice, someone with time to notice.
It was an energising experience. And it made me wonder why we leave so much of this to chance.
We are surrounded by older people with love, patience, humour, practical wisdom and life experience to offer. We should not talk about them only as lonely people to be pitied. They are an incredible resource. And we are surrounded by children who would benefit from more trusted adults, more conversation, more intergenerational contact, more people who know how to listen.
The question is how to bring them together.
Part of the answer may already exist in places we too often overlook: churches and faith groups. At their best, they are one of the few remaining spaces where the young and old still meet naturally; where a struggling parent can find support, where an older person can offer wisdom and practical help, and where both can receive the company they need.
None of this is a substitute for proper childcare, decent pay, secure housing or support for parents. A volunteer grandma cannot fix a broken childcare market. But nor can government policy alone provide belonging.
A society that cares about children and older people must care about the relationships between them. That means creating more safe, safeguarded, trusted and ordinary routes for older people into children’s lives.
Family is not only something we inherit. It is something we build. It can include grandparents, neighbours, godparents, family friends, retired teachers, community volunteers and the older person down the road who would love to be useful but has never been asked.
We must broaden our understanding of grandparenthood, and churches have a role to play in bringing people together while potentially, at the same time, easing the strain on grandparents who feel they are already doing too much.
Kim Samuel is the founder of the Belonging Forum.
