Britain's Grandpas and Grandmas, your 'childcare' saves parents than £33 billion a year in 'free labour' when you look after babies, pick kids up from school and cook for them.
A survey carried out for the Insurance Company, 'Aviva', based on interviews with more than 1,000 of you has revealed that around half of the 7 million of you, 'help out' when parents go to work and almost all of you do so for free. In other words, millions of you are taking on the role of ‘second mum and dad' to your grandchildren.
It found that, on average, grandparents care for two children for around 13 hours a week and with equivalent childminding costs standing at almost £2,400 per child annually, this amounts to a saving of £33.6 billion.
The survey reveled that :
* around 30% of you cancel their own plans to look after your grandchildren and 1 in 3 of you 'feels guilty' when you have to say "no" to looking after them.
* around a quarter of you feel ‘taken for granted’ at times but only 1 in 8 of you feel 'financially worse off' for spending so much time with your grandchildren and only 1 in 20 of you would prefer paid work.
* 88% of grandparents feel closer to their grandchildren due to the time spent with them and 59% admit to being more patient with them than they were with their own children.
* in addition to childminding :
15% of you help out financially with occasional household bills
28% of you regularly do the school run
26% of you cook occasional meals for the family
33% of you help grandchildren with their hobbies
13% of you assist with gardening
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