Parents who begin a family much later in life may limit the interaction their children have with aging grandparents who may struggle to keep up. Picture: Martin Novak/ Thinkstock
- Older parents limit the capacity for some to care for grandkids
- Could change face of traditional grandparenting
- Caring for young children gets physically harder with age
AUSTRALIA could be heading toward a generation of "grand-orphans" as societal trends turn grandparenting into an endangered institution.
With an increasing number of women delaying childbirth until their late 30s and 40s more people are becoming grandparents at an older age, limiting their capacity to care for grandchildren.
In 2011, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a record 12,800 babies born to women over 40, up from just 7100 in 2001, with the median age for Australian mothers sitting at 30.6.
A 40-year-old mother who has to wait the average 30.6 or 40 years for her child to become a parent will be 70 or 80 by the time she herself becomes a grandparent, something Queensland University of Technology social psychologist Associate Professor Evonne Miller says is undoubtedly changing the face of traditional grandparenting.
"The reality is that the trend towards late motherhood is likely to change the role of grandparents and how they interact with their grandchildren," she said.
Cate and her husband Gerold adopted surrogate grandparent Irene Sills (centre) who has now become part of the family. Picture: Justin Lloyd
"Caring and interacting with a baby or toddler is typically much more physically taxing for someone in their late 70s, 80s and 90s than at age 50 or 60."
Ms Miller said other societal factors such as marriage breakdowns and geographical separation were also helping to redefine the role of the grandparent.
"Rather than frequent face-to-face visits, contemporary grandparents - especially those who live overseas or interstate - will use technology such as Skype and Facebook to interact with their grandchildren," she said.
"Instead of daily or weekly visits, grandparents may instead visit for extended times or take holidays together - it is about redefining our expectations about the role of grandparents in families."
Director of Grandparents Australia Anne McLeish said while women shouldn't feel pressured to have children earlier, they should realise the limitations delaying childbirth might place on their own parents.
"Parents need to continue to make the decision that's best for them but they have to understand at the same time that if they delay having children too late then it does limit the help that they can expect from the grandparents," she said.
"There are going to be a lot of children who miss out on the traditional grandparenting role as a result of marriage breakdown, relocation and losing contact with grandparents altogether."
That trend is being reflected in the skyrocketing popularity of Find-A-Grandparent, an online service that matches Australian families in need with "surrogate grandparents".
Director Cate Kloos, who launched the service last year to find a surrogate for her own two children, said she is desperate to recruit more grandparents to meet the demand from families.
"We have heaps of families registered but we could have heaps more if there were more grandparents to go around," she said.
"We get emails from interested families almost every day, but we have to turn them away. There's definitely a huge demand from families."
With Ms Kloos' and her husband Gerold's own parents living in Germany, their children Amelie, 5, and Luca, 3, now have a surrogate grandparent in Irene Sills, 75.
"It's really good because she only lives a couple of houses away from us so we can pop in and see her regularly, she's become part of the family," Ms Kloos said.
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