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- Victoria Thorsen was taken aback when JD Vance said grandparents should help with childcare.
- Her parents live close but can’t babysit because they’re in poor health and have a lot going on.
- The mom’s in-laws live six hours away, so it’s difficult for them to help the family.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Victoria Thorsen, a retail manager from Pennsylvania and mom of two. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Many working parents like my husband and I have thought about the practicality of the recent suggestion by Sen. JD Vance that grandparents and other family members “help out a little bit more” to relieve the burden of childcare costs.
Not all people are positioned in the sort of world that maybe Vance thinks exists. It’s a blanket assumption to think everybody has access to grandparents — or still has grandparents alive.
In our case, we have two sets of grandparents, all in their mid-60s. However, neither can consistently watch our kids.