Emma Soames Did you know that when you are looking after your grandchildren you are one of a huge and growing unpaid workforce that is worth an incredible £3.9 billion?
Although it’s enough to bail out a failing bank, I doubt whether any grandparents consider minding their grandchildren as work at all – just one of life’s sweeter challenges – and would not even consider allowing their children to pay them. But many active older people forgo work themselves in order to help out their families and suffer hardship as a result.
The charity Grandparents Plus recently produced a survey that demonstrates just how huge an input British grandparents make to caring for grandchildren. Half of all single parents rely entirely on their grandparents for childcare and one in four families relies on grandparental care at least once a week. Indeed as the recession bites, young parents are becoming increasingly dependent on their own parents to mitigate the high costs of childcare, which are biting ever deeper into their earnings.
Grandparents Plus is rightly suggesting that the Government should recognise the terrific job grandparents do by giving them credits towards their National Insurance if they are working and caring for grandchildren, or tax credits if their care allows the parent to return to work. It sounds fair and it is right that grandparents should not be penalised for providing this vital service.
And what a service it is! Study after study shows that the relationship between grandparent and grandchild is enormously positive for the child (not to mention the life-enhancing effect on grandparents) and in nearly every case, a grandparent provides the sort of loving care that no paid professional can possibly match. Surely, in “broken” Britain it must be in everybody’s interest to enable grandparents to play their part in bringing up grandchildren without suffering an old age of poverty.
And as well as deftly rocking the cradle, older people are just beginning to be valued in the workplace too. I recently wrote a newspaper piece about older people at work and a 36-year-old employer added a comment about an older woman he had recently hired. He said: “If you want a job done thoroughly, and conscientiously, then ask her. She is a welcome break from the ‘drama’ created (and revelled in) by her much younger colleagues. In contrast, the younger girls tend to arrive late, leave on time, waste time talking or on the internet, and always have an excuse – usually to do with their children. Most of all, they have a sense of entitlement, that all this is acceptable and even deserving of a raise and bonus. I honestly have come to the opinion that older workers are simply better.”
This so raised my spirits. More employers are evidently waking up to the fact that older people do make great employees. Our knees may be a bit creaky but we have a great attitude to work that really does come with maturity. And employers who rate older workers will do our chances of getting jobs more good than any amount of age discrimination legislation.
Meanwhile the world suddenly seems to be full of praise for the achievements of older women. Joining Diana Athill enjoying huge success in her nineties with her memoir, Somewhere Towards the End, we now have a 66-year-old woman, Johanna Siguroardottir, as the new prime minister of Iceland, bravely picking up the poisoned chalice of a bankrupt country. And there’s an American ovation in progress for Jane Fonda, who has returned to Broadway at 71 after years away from the stage and years of retirement while she was married to Ted Turner.
As a feminist, an environmentalist, a Buddhist, a Christian and just recently a blogger, she is a one-woman tribute to the powers of reinvention. She still regards herself as a work in progress.
I don’t wish to underplay the successes of thousands of older men but, as a sex, they have not had to struggle behind the tiresome veil of invisibility that until so recently seemed to encase older women whatever their achievements. So it is very satisfying to hear these choruses of respectful appreciation.
Here’s one idea to get the economy moving again. American shoppers who buy a $200 suit from menswear store Jos. A. Bank (established 1905) during their spring sale will get their money back if they are subsequently made redundant this year. And they will get to keep the suit.
This is the sort of clever lateral thinking that’s needed to inject confidence into consumers fearful for their futures and their job security. Surely the British high street should give it a go?
There’s a lovely suit – very Glenn Close – I am sorely coveting in Banana Republic. I really, really shouldn’t but an incentive like this would make me get out my credit card for an increasingly rare airing in the retail breeze.
Emma Soames's response to the budget announcement
"With one in four families relying on grandparents to care for their children at least once a week we warmly welcome the recognition the government has given to grandparents - who provide some £3.9bn of free childcare. Saga has been calling for more support for this group who provide a vital family service."