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I only had one grandmother around growing up and she wasn't the snuggly type. I am grateful I had a wonderful relationship when we grew up but I am very glad my LO has 2 sets of fun, snuggly grandparents that get on the floor with him and spoil him rotten. My parents tend to go way above and beyond on the grand parenting because their parents weren't involved. And as the article states, they help with the caretaking and extra load with the kids.

My family never fits these generalizations, just because we are so atypical. I'm one of 6 kids (same parents) and although my parents started having kids at age 20, they had their last kid at age 41. Continuing in that vein, my oldest two siblings were super young parents who also went through early divorces (both at exactly 7 years). One got married and had a baby at age 20 and the other at age 19.

My parents had me at age 36 and I had LO at age 33.

So my parents were grandparents (twice!) at age 41 (yes, same year they had their own last child--we call them "the triplets") and my mom will be a grandmother for the 8th time when my 2nd LO is born this summer. My mom will be 70 years old.

BUT....from my perspective, my mom is able to be a much more fun and involved grandma NOW. It helps that she is very fit and active. She can out-exercise me any day--and does. And she just retired last year, so she has more time to devote to her grandkids. When the first grandkids were born, 26 years ago, she was still in the thick of parenting herself, still working full time, and although she did a lot for those grandkids it was different. She was more like a second parent back then--especially when the divorces happened. More involved in every-day parenting, more involved in their discipline. Now, she does no discipline (doesn't need to!) and just does fun, grandmotherly things with her grandkids.

Anyway, I think she's been a great grandmother to all of the kiddos, even though her age has been wildly different for all of them.

As of this summer, she will have grandkids ranging from 27 years old to infant age. =) =)

Yes I really wish my son's grandparents could participate more in his life and fill in for us when we can't. My grandma pretty much raised me and it was wonderful. She retired a few years early, partly because of us kids and partly because my grandpa was worried about her going on house calls in sketchy parts of town late at night.

My MIL really wants to be involved more, but she's in her 70s and doesn't trust her health enough to watch B alone. My parents have to take care of my grandma and to some extent my brother, so they have enough on their plate. Plus they're just not into dealing with young kids. So it makes me sad that when they have free time they're always doing their own thing, but I know I'm wrong and have no right to expect any help.

On the bright side, in a way I'm glad we have duo little help. If we didn't, I'd be under a lot of pressure to just focus on my career and leave the kids with someone else.

Yep. Grandparents are doing their own thing on his side. They're also in their 70's. Mine are still in their 60's (for another year or two). We don't have any grandparents near us because we are all floaters and have traveled and landed in different places.

I really only had 1 set of grandparents growing up since my dad's parents didn't live close by and both passed away when I was young. Right now DD has both sets of grandparents alive & well plus they live near by... I'm hoping she will be able to grow up to actually know & love them!

While I am an older parent, the main reason why LO will not have grandparents around a lot is because they live far away. My parents had me when they were young, and all four of my grandparents had died before I was 2 years old. There are lots of reasons that contribute to people not having access to older relatives.

My parents had me in their 20s, and DH's parents had their children at 30, and then 35. So, my parents are under 60, and right at 60, and his are in early 60s. They're both active, and ecstatic to become grandparents. Both my grandparents have been alive and active in my entire life (I'm 28 now), except my dad's dad who died when my dad was 26. DH's mother is sick, and it was important to him we had kids sooner rather than later for her to have a chance to be in their lives.

My daughter has three grandparents who are super involved, even the ones who are not close by. I grew up with just one, who I was not close to emotionally or geographically.

DH's parents are very young (they had him young and we were young when had our first) but they very much do their own thing. They aren't involved at all.

Although, I had my first when I was young, my parents are in their 60's and they are very interactive and involved.

I honestly think it depends on the person/family moreso than age.

We have a deficit on one side, due to a general disinterest/grandparents doing their own thing. However, our situation is a little unique in that there's also a constant preoccupation with the other grandchildren that keeps DD on the fringes of what could otherwise be a tight relationship.

While my father is older and deals with some health concerns that could play in later, my parents are definitely very involved, smitten, and wonderful.

I just read this last night. I get that age can increase the chances of these things happening, but I don't think it should be a factor in family planning. There are a million reasons why grandparents could be out of the picture - bad relationships, distance, etc. We're an increasingly global society and the typical family looks very different today than it did a generation ago.

As for us, we have experienced some of this even though we were considered "younger-ish" parents. My dad passed away in his 40s, and my FIL has dementia/early onset alzheimer's. My mom is still really busy with her career and not good with kids so only visits once every few months, but my MIL was their primary caregiver the very first year of both their lives. I guess you could say they are experiencing a grandparent deficit from their male grandparents, but it has little to do with the age we had children.

One thing I am thankful for is that we don't have to straddle the dual work of taking care of an elderly, ill parent while taking care of our infant children. Our children are older now, and our mom's are both in robust health. Hopefully when it is time to take care of them my children will be a lot more independent.

Generally speaking, no. We had our kids in our early 20's and all our parents are in early to mid 50's. But, my parents had my youngest brother late in life, a total surprise baby. So he's still just 14 and they are in the early 50's. Obviously whenever he has kids, they will experience different grandparents than my kids are right now. But same thing as how my brother is experiencing different parents than I did when I was his age.

This is one reason DH and I wanted to have kids younger. We "look forward" to enjoying life after our kids are raised, and we want to be relatively young to still enjoy life with grandkids. Kind of reverse of what I guess some people think who want to wait to have kids for the reason of enjoying life now.

@Anagram: my family is very similar - us kids cover an 18 year spread and I was an aunt at the age of 7! My mom is much more interested in being a grandma now that she doesn't have her own kids in the house and has been retired for a few years.