Joys and Concerns

Grandparents’ Concerns

Grandparents are concerned about how the social and personal issues of the world impact their grandchildren, with affordability worries rising to the top. They see rising costs, economic uncertainty, safety risks, and uneven educational access, and they feel each of these through the lens of the children they love. At the same time, they also hold more intimate concerns: whether their grandchildren will be healthy and safe, whether they will thrive academically and emotionally, whether family bonds and cultural traditions will endure.

Grandparenting Joy and Fulfillment

Grandparents express high levels of joy and fulfillment and report deep satisfaction with their relationships with their grandchildren. Across life stages we see consistently high fulfillment in the grandparenting experience, as well as joy and satisfaction in grandparents’ relationships with their grandchildren.

This does not mean that grandparenting is without difficulty. Grandparents, particularly those who are 35-49, acknowledge real demands, yet these pale in comparison to the joy and fulfillment they describe.

Life stage influences the circumstances, energy, and availability grandparents bring to the role. Younger grandparents, often still parenting, working, and juggling financial responsibilities or caregiving for older relatives, may face greater time constraints than those who are retired. Older grandparents generally maintain a positive outlook, yet research shows these feelings can soften with age as health changes, bereavement, and shrinking social networks reshape daily life.

In this study, grandmothers often express the joys of grandparenting more emphatically than grandfathers. For example, grandmothers are significantly more likely to say their experience is extremely fulfilling, extremely satisfying, and brings all-encompassing joy than grandfathers. This likely reflects lifelong patterns shaped by cultural norms and social expectations: women often maintain stronger kinship networks and are socialized to express emotions more openly. Grandfathers may experience equally positive feelings but tend to express them more reservedly, reflecting expectations of emotional restraint and a tendency to demonstrate care through involvement rather than verbal expression.

Grandparent Experiences across Positivity and Challenge

Data modeling shows that grandparenting experiences have two broad dimensions: positivity (joy, fulfillment, satisfaction) and challenge, which move independently. The result is four segments, or groups, based on how grandparents experience the ups and downs of grandparenting.

Three factors most clearly explain the grandparent experience modeled on these two dimensions of positivity and challenge: proximity to grandchildren, frequency of interaction, and caregiving roles. In the next section, we take a closer look at how near grandparents live and how often they see their grandchildren.