How many of you know parents that just leave their kid(s) with their grandparents?
I know a few families that leave their kid(s) in Taiwan with their grandparents, leave off to another country for “work”, and visits their kid(s) only once during a long period of times (ranges in weeks, months, and 1 family in particular years).
I lived with my grandparents for years. I’m not Taiwanese, though. It’s no big deal.
I spent a lot of time with my granny as a kid, most of the summer holiday many years in fact…
I’m actually quite happy I did as she was a great woman and now when she’s passed away I actually wish I spent more time with her.
This doesn’t mean I imply that I think its right that parents should leave their kids with the grand parents to bring them up for years, that wasn’t at all my case even though she was a big part of my life until my early teens.
My parents and in laws really badly lovingly want to take care of my kids, they have even suggested that I give one kid to each set of parents. I am not doing that. But if I had to, say go to work or was ill or the schooling system in the country we lived in was not good enough, I would let my kids be raised by family. They’d do a better job than I am doing anyway 
My daughter has been spending her weeks at GrandMa’s since she was 3 months old. We pick her up Friday evenings (from Miaoli county) and have her for the whole weekend (In Taichung ), and I drop her off on Monday mornings. It’s been very good so far. Grandpa passed away many years ago but the inlaw’s place is always busy with cousins and aunts visiting at all hours of the day. (not to mention the neighbors who are just as friendly).
We will kepp on this routine until next summer. Then she will start going to kindy (across from my work) and she’ll stay with us permanently…I can’t wait for that. Although I know that she’s in good hands at the inlaws, I still find myself missing my daughter a lot on weekdays.
IMO, the key point in letting grandparents take care of a child here is the living environment. What kind of space can be provided for your child(children) and what kind of influences (positive and negative) can that place have on him (or her, or them)? Grandparents are often (bit not always) quite passive and are happy to let their grandchildren do as they wish, which can be tough to ‘tame’ in the future. Take the time to sort out and explain your ideas on raising issues with your inlaws and in most cases they’ll be happy to oblige…
So, my experience has been good so far and it can be ok for the short term (0~3 years)…maybe more depending on the situation.
Hope this info helps.
Grandparents are great! Not only can they provide short-term and emergency child care, but it’s good for the soul of both the children and the geezers for them to have a solid relationship. Offers healthy doses of perspective.
Whilst kids seeing and spending time with their grandparents is a good thing, I can’t help feeling that some parents use the grandparents as an excuse to opt out of parenting. My sister in law and her husband are going to japan for a week and not taking their daughter.
I can’t imagine having a holiday without my son, however much I’d value the peace and quiet.
I agree with StuartCA. Shortly after zuo yuezi, my wife’s sister and her husband left their daughter with her parents in Chiayi and moved backed to Tainan, returning to Chiayi once every few weeks to check up on their daughter, until they finally picked her up at about age 3 and brought her to live with them in Tainan. I don’t care what people might say about different cultures, different customs, etc.; to me the parents were blatantly selfish and irresponsible. The daughter developed some serious emotional and behavior problems, which didn’t surprise me in the least, since her parents basically abandoned her because they didn’t care enough about her and prefered to spend their time with other matters.
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and I learned long ago not to tell me wife (much less her sister) too much about my opinion in this matter, but that’s how I feel and I always felt badly for the poor child.
Visiting grandparents is a different matter. That’s terrific. My daughter is totally in love with my parents (and they her) and I regret that she only gets to see them once or twice a year.
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]I agree with StuartCA. Shortly after zuo yuezi, my wife’s sister and her husband left their daughter with her parents in Jiayi and moved backed to Tainan, returning to Jiayi once every few weeks to check up on their daughter, until they finally picked her up at about age 3 and brought her to live with them in Tainan. I don’t care what people might say about different cultures, different customs, etc.; to me the parents were blatantly selfish and irresponsible. The daughter developed some serious emotional and behavior problems, which didn’t surprise me in the least, since her parents basically abandoned her because they didn’t care enough about her and prefered to spend their time with other matters.
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and I learned long ago not to tell me wife (much less her sister) too much about my opinion in this matter, but that’s how I feel and I always felt badly for the poor child.
Visiting grandparents is a different matter. That’s terrific. My daughter is totally in love with my parents (and they her) and I regret that she only gets to see them once or twice a year.[/quote]
I certainly agree with your point in the case that the parents dump their kid at the grandparents’ place for prolonged periods of time without seeing (and doing stuff together) on a weekly basis. But if it’s to be done in moderation as a means to allow both parents to hold onto their jobs (we’re not all rolling in it), and the conditions are good, then there is no reason for it to be damaging…In our case, we get 3-4 days a week with her (depends on work skeds) and all has been fine.
I don’t think I could do that, so it’s just as well the in-laws live down the Chungle wilds.
Ours goes to a minder who lives a few hundred yards from us four days a week, but not until 11:30, so I have time to get him up, feed and dress him, play with him. We get him back at around 9pm.
On days when I have to go to work before he wakes and get home after he’s asleep I tend to be fucking miserable. Thank god that’s only once a week, but still, its once too often for me.
[quote=“Captain Stag”]
IMO, the key point in letting grandparents take care of a child here is the living environment. What kind of space can be provided for your child(children) and what kind of influences (positive and negative) can that place have on him (or her, or them)? Grandparents are often (bit not always) quite passive and are happy to let their grandchildren do as they wish, which can be tough to ‘tame’ in the future. Take the time to sort out and explain your ideas on raising issues with your inlaws and in most cases they’ll be happy to oblige…
So, my experience has been good so far and it can be ok for the short term (0~3 years)…maybe more depending on the situation.
Hope this info helps.[/quote]
I think that’s the main point: the environment that grandparents can provide. I know my child would be spoiled by her grandparents, so I wouldn’t leave it for long period of time. 
I don’t think I’d be able to do that, leave the kid for 5 days. It must wrench a bit on a Monday morning?
My parents are great role models for their grandkids. They impose the discipline that mummy and daddy often fail with. They also get physical and emotional enjoyment from their grandkids. I wish sometimes that I had kids because I see the joy my sisters pair give to my folks. And the kids learn how to cope away from the parents, they learn social skills like how to behave at another persons house when not being watched etc. I am pro grandparents having an active role in the childs upbringing.
I think Grand parents are a fabulous influence on kids. But we should remember that they raised their children already and we should raise ours. Its okay to depend on them when the need arises but they should mostly get to spend time with their grand children and ‘enjoy’ them whilst we do the parenting.
In any case, I think parents especially in Taiwan make good use of grand parents and baby sitters to opt out of parenting. The kid spends 10-14 hours in school/day care/ grandps and only comes home for bedtime, what kind of parenting is that??? weekend parenting? The idea of ‘quality time’ is completely misinterpreted. Quality comes after quantity. One Sunday afternoon of fun does not equal 5-6 days of absence.
I was raised by my grandparents and almost never saw my mother. My dad died when I was six and if I saw my mother five times from birth to 21 it was a lot.
Also, no big deal. In my case I think I was better off that way anyway.
However, in terms of my son I wouldn’t be able to do the same. Last CNY I bent to pressure and let the grand parents keep him for five days so the wife and I could get away alone for a few days. Sure, it was nice, but mostly I just ended up missing my boy. After that my wife and I agreed we wouldn’t be doing that again.
[quote=“divea”]I think Grand parents are a fabulous influence on kids. But we should remember that they raised their children already and we should raise ours. Its okay to depend on them when the need arises but they should mostly get to spend time with their grand children and ‘enjoy’ them whilst we do the parenting.
In any case, I think parents especially in Taiwan make good use of grand parents and baby sitters to opt out of parenting. The kid spends 10-14 hours in school/day care/ grandps and only comes home for bedtime, what kind of parenting is that??? weekend parenting? The idea of ‘quality time’ is completely misinterpreted. Quality comes after quantity. One Sunday afternoon of fun does not equal 5-6 days of absence.[/quote]
Well said. :bravo:
Due to my wife’s work schedule, my son spent quite a bit of time each week with his grandparents until he was about two. He now sees them about once a week, and when I’m out of town, his grandmother comes here for a few days to look after him while my wife works. My son enjoys it; his grandmother enjoys it. And my son’s Taiwanese is better than it otherwise would be (it’s amusing to hear one of my neighbors, a man aged about 60, criticize some youngsters in our community for not speaking Taiwanese well, and citing my son’s trilingualism as something they would do well to emulate).
My wife lived with her grandmother from shortly after birth till she was 3. Her parents visited her on the weekends, but that’s it. Her brother lived with the other grandmother. My wife’s parents joke about how she cried for two solid weeks when they took her to the US. She thought her grandmother was her mother, and didn’t understand why those strange people had come to take her away.
While I was still married to my Taiwanese wife and we were living with her parents, her parents would look after our boy throughout the day while we were both at work. Nothing out of the ordinary for that I thought, except that they were chanrging me NT$20,000 per month for the service, which my wife (now ex) used to tell me was normal and not to complain and insult her family. Oh, we also had to pay NT$15,000 for rent on top of that. But, when I started questioning my Taiwanese work colleagues about this, they thought it was very not normal and that granparents don’t usually charge, they usually want to do it because it was there grandchild (especially grandson). When we split up and I moved out of there with my son, I had to find a babysitter and I had one of my work colleague’s mother look after my boy. She was also looking after her granddaugher so it was quite good, like he had a sister to play with… and it only cost me half as much as the (ex) wife’s parents were charging me…