I’ve been told my idea of addressing Australia’s fertility decline – through the physical and emotional labour of grandparents – is ‘quite mad’.
There is one quick fix for the fertility crisis. Of course, it’s about love. But it’s also about money. Money – usually – fixes everything.
Here’s what you can do to help. You are still living in your multiple bedroom house, and you’ve lived in it since your own kids were babies. They’ve moved out leaving all their crap behind. Now you are complaining to your friends that your kids aren’t delivering you your rightful grandchildren.
So, invite your kids to move in. You don’t charge them rent because, with any luck, you are not paying a modern mortgage (average nearly three-quarters of a million bucks). And suddenly, the financial pressure is off. Maybe you have kids who are thinking about having kids but are wary of the financial and care hurdles in front of them, or you have kids who really want kids, this is the perfect way to help make it happen (nah, bullying them won’t work. Not everyone wants children).
And just a quick point before everyone starts jumping up and down about this not being an option for everyone. Myra Hamilton, sociologist and associate professor at the University of Sydney who focuses on gender, work and care research, says it’s not just wealthy grandparents who are pitching in. It’s also grandparents on low incomes, transferring resources of all kinds, including providing unpaid child care.
It is true that too many women around my age still have a mortgage. More Australians are entering their pre-retirement years (broadly 55 to 64) significantly mortgaged. The ABS Survey of Income and Housing shows that in 1996, about 20 per cent of that age group had a mortgage. Now it’s more than 50 per cent. Also, truckloads of women my age are still working because of that mortgage. In 2003, by the age of 64, nearly 70 per cent of women had retired. Twenty years later, it’s now just over 40 per cent, maybe because of that mortgage.
None of that means you can’t step up if you really want grandkids. Once the kids are born, you can step up again. There is nothing more delicious (and exhausting) than looking after babies and toddlers when you are in your fifties, sixties and seventies.
University of Sydney’s Hamilton tells me, politely, that my idea of addressing the fertility crisis through the physical and emotional labour of grandparents is quite mad.
She says the idea that older women can solve the nation’s fertility crisis relies way too much on the individual responsibility of women.
“In fact, what we need is ambitious structural reform, such as universal accessible childcare and flexible labour markets so it is easier for parents to combine work and care and housing reform,” Hamilton says.
“And what a cross to bear if your adult children only have children because you have committed to provide childcare and other resources, and something changes.”
We’ve all been brainwashed to think we should live in separate houses and have separate lives
Good point. I don’t care though. Sorry Dr Hamilton. Too many women and men my age are whining about a lack of grandies. This is a clear solution for those who have the means to provide it. We know that Australia has 13 million empty bedrooms – and a housing shortage. Inviting your kids to share your home makes sense. Takes the pressure off.
We’ve all been brainwashed to think we should live in separate houses and have separate lives. We are also ambushed by this idea that you can’t grow up if you live with your parents – or you can’t have peace if you live with your children. Meanwhile, entire centuries of people lived and grew happily in multi-generational households. Lived and grew and had much less financial stress. Are there moments of stress? Damn straight! Do we all survive? Hell yes.
So many Australian families are already doing this and next Census night, August 11, we will know how many more. In 2019, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed an increase of just over 20 per cent in the number of three-generation households, from 275,000 in 2016 to 335,000 in 2021 – and that was before the current cost-of-living crisis. My prediction? A far bigger increase this time.
In my view, a burden shared is a burden decimated – and that’s not just the money. It’s the cooking, the clearing, the laundry. I have to confess I learned a lot about washing clothes from one of my children’s partners, a person whose capacity to deliver wrinkle-free clothes neatly folded into drawers is impressive – and that’s quite apart from other wonderful qualities.
When you live with your kids and their kids, it is just lovely watching your children do a better job than you ever did as a parent. It’s also good for the grandkids. As Alun Francis, chair of the UK’s Social Mobility Commission puts it in its latest report: “Beyond the immediate household, wider social networks and the support of the extended family, particularly the role of grandparents, provide the critical framework of stability and resilience that children need to thrive.”
Also at least one of you is happy to play Beyblades until Dark Bull comes home.
We are good for them. And grandchildren are very good for us. We become more playful, more engaged with the world around us. We have a higher level of happiness. Less cognitive decline. Imagine how good grandkids would be for you if you lived with them the whole time.
Could grandparents help solve the financial fertility crisis? A long shot. But can we step up and support our kids who want kids? One hundred per cent. Is all of us living together always easy? No. But I’m not sure that anything fun is ever all that easy. I reckon the mess of love beats the easiness of ease any time.
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