ÁREA DE ESTUDIO

As we saw in Chapter 3, some lone parents had undertaken negotiations with formal childcare providers over certain matters, for example over delaying payment while they waited for a WTC claim to come through. However, the evidence from the study was that such negotiations were strictly limited, and that parents were very rarely able to negotiate over key matters such as hours and times with formal childcare providers. Certainly, both nurseries and out-of-school clubs were perceived as being very inflexible with regard to children’s attendance, with some parents

complaining, for example, that they had not been able to negotiate part-time or half-day provision. Childminders were generally seen as slightly more flexible but, even here, a regular commitment for particular hours of care was the norm. For all these reasons, the most common and complex agreements between lone parents and childcare providers were negotiated with informal carers.

Grandparents

While parents’ expectations of balanced reciprocal relations with their employers bore some resemblance to the kinds of relationships they tended to have with friends who provided childcare, they contrasted starkly with parents’ expectations of some other informal childcare providers, particularly grandparents. It was rare for lone parents to talk in detail about the ways in which they negotiated childcare agreements with informal carers such as grandparents; rather, there was a sense in which they had ‘just happened’. Such agreements seemed typically to operate on an implicit level, and many lone parents had difficulty explaining them. Even so, it appeared that a number of different expectations were operating on both sides with regard to childcare support provided by grandparents.

Attitudes among lone parents towards receiving childcare support from grandparents showed some subtle differences. Some lone parents expected that grandparental support should be forthcoming, whilst others were more hesitant and hopeful that grandparents would offer it. Sometimes parents had high expectations regardless of the fact that grandparents were also facing barriers in providing care for the child. One parent we spoke to, for example, seemed to expect the grandparent to continue to provide free childcare, even though she was caring for a sick relative and working herself. In a similar case, the problems had been compounded by explicit differences between the expectations of the lone parent and the grandparents. Here, the lone mother expressed the view that her parents should look after her children, but described how she had been having lots of rows with them because they were now finding it ‘too much’ to look after her three children (they had provided childcare for nine years). They had asked her to give up work and look after the children herself; she refused to do this and did not seriously look for alternative formal childcare as she felt it was too expensive. Consequently, family relations had become strained. Clearly, this lone parent expected the grandparents to provide childcare irrespective of their own needs, although her ability to relieve them of this task was also restricted by the cost of formal childcare.

Both these examples illustrate a high degree of expectation among some lone parents that support should be provided by grandparents. Accordingly, among the lone parents we spoke to, it was common for grandparents to provide a substantial amount of childcare, in some cases to the extent that even very willing grandparents had begun to complain that it was becoming too much work. In contrast, however, other lone parents described how they did not want to be a burden to grandparents (expressed as not wanting ‘to put on’ grandparents) by asking them to provide significant amounts of childcare. These parents tended to limit the amount of care provided by only leaving the children with grandparents occasionally, or for short

periods of time. This was generally because the lone parents said grandparents were unwell or found it too demanding or ‘too hard’ to care for the children; they also expressed a desire to protect the grandparents and help maintain their health and well-being. Some parents who had strong concerns about ‘being a burden’ said they would not use any grandparental care at all; again, this was typically linked to the perception that grandparents did not have the capacity to provide it, either because they were unwell or disabled, because they were already caring for someone else (e.g. other grandchildren or sick spouses), or because they were in employment themselves. In some cases, grandparents themselves placed limits on the amount of childcare they were prepared to offer for the same kinds of reason.

Some lone parents had not asked for support from grandparents, but had instead waited for it to be offered, or had received an offer at an early stage, before the need to ask had arisen. This was described as ‘not asking’ grandparents for support, or as a situation in which the grandparents ‘just offered’, ‘just rallied round’ or offered support out of the ‘kindness of their heart’. In these circumstances, lone parents seemed to have been hopeful that support would be offered, rather than expecting that support should be given. It was also left up to the grandparents to decide to help or not and, when they did, lone parents typically appeared to accept that they were willing and able to do so.

Thus, the amount of support lone parents expected from grandparents varied widely, from parents who expected a great deal of support (e.g. the continual provision of substantial amounts of childcare, sometimes irrespective of grandparents’ needs) to parents who expected none at all (often linked with perceived reasons why grandparents would not be able to provide it, including grandparents’ own work commitments). In some cases, however, expectations were more balanced and reciprocal in nature. For example, one lone parent said she expected no support from the grandmother but qualified this by saying that, if the grandmother were to offer to provide childcare, she would pay her to do so. In this case, the expectation that childcare would not be offered appeared to be connected to the fact that the grandmother was relatively young and had a dependent child of her own: at the time of the interview, she and the lone parent were looking after one another’s children on an ad hoc basis, for purposes other than paid work, which may help explain why this parent’s expectations were lower than those of others. It may also have been related to a perception, echoed by some other parents, that grandparents should only provide childcare if and when they are genuinely willing to do so:

‘I think sometimes they [grandparents] feel obligated as well and that puts a strain on the relationship, like if you’re asking them to look after your child and then they don’t really want to, there’s somewhere else they really want to be but they don’t really want to say no to you at the same time’

(lone parent, focus group participant, worker)

It was uncommon for grandparents to be paid in any way for providing childcare Only one parent said she actually paid a grandmother for her time in cash, although there were other cases in which parents had offered money to grandparents and these offers had been declined. Other parents, however, made some effort to pay

grandparents back ‘in kind’, for example some said they ‘took their mother shopping’ occasionally or bought her flowers as a thank you. We will go on to consider the issue of paying informal childcare providers in greater detail in Chapters 5 and 6.

Other relatives and friends

Lone parents who used other relatives, besides grandparents, or friends for childcare were more likely to have offered payment of some kind or to have expressed a wish to offer payment, in order to make these arrangements and relationships more ‘business like’. However, it was also clear that the issue of payment was more likely to arise in relation to childcare provided regularly over long periods of time, and not to one-off or ad hoc arrangements. In general, parents offered gifts, childcare or other forms of support (rather than money) ‘in return’ to friends or extended family members. The phrase ‘in return’ suggested that these relationships operated on the basis that support from these sources should be reciprocated in fairly equal measure. As one parent described her relations with her sister-in-law:

‘Yeah, and I felt like cos it was my sister-in-law doing it and my sister couldn’t obviously she had like, she was doing a hairdressing course, I mean she was full-time, she was busy, and so I felt, yeah, I did, I felt like, you know, in return I had to put a lot of effort in making sure that my brothers were OK, do you know what I mean, like keeping everybody happy.’

(lone parent, focus group participant, worker)

So, in relationships with friends or extended family members, unlike those with grandparents, reciprocity was a feature and, in that regard, these relationships were more similar to agreements made with employers.

4.4

Conclusion

The coordination of work, care, education and travel is often taken for-granted as an invisible aspect of a working parent’s life. Talk about who is ‘picking up’ or ‘dropping off’ children tends to occur in a casual parlance that can consign such practical arrangements to the mundane and everyday. However, this study shows that, for lone parents, the coordination and management of work, education, childcare and travel is anything but a mundane or straightforward aspect of family life.