If you ask some Millennial parents about their children’s grandparents, you might hear a surprisingly common complaint: Where are they?
For many, the expectation was fairly simple. Their parents would become grandparents, fall hopelessly in love with the grandkids, and become part of the support system that makes raising children a little easier. Maybe they’d babysit occasionally, pick the kids up from school, or simply be around more often.
Instead, some say they got a very different response.
That frustration exploded onto social media in 2023. According to later coverage of the debate, a viral TikTok criticizing Gen X grandparents helped ignite a much larger conversation, with other Millennials sharing their own experiences and Gen Xers pushing back just as forcefully. The original video no longer appears to be publicly available, but the argument it helped spark certainly hasn’t disappeared.
Soon, Gen X was being called the “worst generation of grandparents.”
There is, of course, no study that awarded them that title. No researcher has determined that people born between 1965 and 1980 are measurably worse grandparents than previous generations. The verdict came from social-media posts, Reddit threads, and thousands of comments from people comparing their own families.
But underneath the exaggerated social-media label is a much more interesting disagreement.
Millennial parents describe feeling surprised, and sometimes genuinely hurt, when their parents don’t show up in the way they expected. Gen X grandparents counter that being a loving grandparent shouldn’t automatically mean becoming an unpaid childcare provider.
And when you look at how differently these two generations grew up, the disagreement starts to make a lot more sense.
@that1crazy72 Let’s take it a step further. You share DNA with your grandkids they are part of you not everyone gets the privilege of being a grandparent so if you are one take that as a blessing #genxgrandparents ♬ original sound – That1crazy72
What Gen X grandparents actually lived through
As of 2025, the generation spans ages 45 to 60, with the oldest now 60, young enough that many are still working full-time, especially since the U.S. retirement age for full Social Security benefits is 67. But the financial and emotional context of their lives runs deeper than their current age.
Gen Xers grew up during two of the most destabilizing public health events in modern American history. Britannica defines Gen X as the children of Baby Boomers, born between 1965 and 1980, which placed them squarely in childhood and early adolescence during the crack epidemic, which ran from the early 1980s to the early 1990s and devastated American inner cities, and the AIDS crisis. The CDC documented more than 100,000 AIDS-related deaths in the United States from 1981 through 1990, and by 1988, HIV/AIDS had become the third leading cause of death among men aged 25 to 44.
While those crises played out publicly, a quieter crisis was happening at home. By the early 1980s, an estimated 3 million children between ages 6 and 13 were coming home from school to empty houses each day, the so-called latchkey generation, named for the house keys worn around their necks. For many, memories of that time still shape their parenting; some vowed never to repeat their parents’ mistakes.
Many of the Gen X responses that followed the “worst grandparents” debate drew directly from this history. They point out that they were often neglected themselves, routinely tasked with caring for younger siblings. Many are now independent, freed from the responsibilities associated with parenting, and they don’t necessarily want to spend their later years caregiving again.
The complaint isn’t that they don’t love their grandchildren. The complaint is that being expected to be the default childcare provider feels like a role they already played, involuntarily, forty years ago.
The financial reality underneath the family tension
Gen Xers entered the workforce in the 1980s and 1990s just as employers were shifting away from pensions toward 401(k)s, a structural change that placed the burden of retirement saving increasingly on employees. In the 1970s, about half of all private-sector workers had pensions. Gen X inherited a system that required considerably more individual responsibility for retirement saving and investing.
The consequences are visible in the data. The National Institute on Retirement Security puts the median retirement savings for a typical Gen X household at just $40,000 in private retirement accounts, with the bottom half of earners holding only a few thousand dollars. About 40% of Gen Xers expect to retire after age 70, or not at all, according to New York Life.
Many Gen Xers are still working full-time jobs, still caring for aging parents, and watching retirement accounts that fall well short of what they’ll need. For them, a request to cover childcare on Tuesdays and Fridays carries a different weight than it might in theory.
What Millennial parents are actually asking for
The frustration on the Millennial side isn’t invented. Many Millennials say Gen X grandparents aren’t as involved with their grandchildren as they’d like. Some of that criticism may be colored by unrealistic expectations. But some of it is grounded in a genuinely difficult financial situation.
Center-based childcare carries a substantial annual cost for most families, and for Millennial parents, many of whom are still paying off student loans, renting in expensive cities, and juggling other rising expenses, that figure is not theoretical. It can help determine whether one parent can afford to keep working.
Pew Research Center data shows that about a quarter of U.S. adults, and more than half of those in their 40s, are part of the so-called “sandwich generation,” with an aging parent while also raising or financially supporting children.
Sandwich generation caregivers are more likely to report financial difficulty and substantial emotional strain, according to a study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
According to WBUR’s On Point, a 2024 survey found that half of all grandparents in the United States provide care for their grandchildren at least every few months, and 20% do so at least once a week. The system of informal family childcare is already functioning. The debate is about how much more it should be expected to carry.
Millennial parents who grew up in households where grandparents were nearby and available are often importing that model into their own expectations.
But many Gen X grandparents have a very different idea of what their role should be.
Gen X grandparents and the two definitions of “involved”
For many Millennial parents, “involved” means available: someone who can take the kids on short notice, fill gaps in the school-day calendar, and cover sick days when daycare won’t accept the child. It’s the grandparent as a structural childcare solution integrated into the weekly schedule.
A grandparent who is still working full-time, managing their own health, and trying to build retirement savings cannot necessarily be structurally integrated into someone else’s childcare schedule without real cost to themselves.
Many Gen X grandparents describe wanting to be grandparents, not stand-in parents. For them, “involved” means present: showing up for birthdays, attending school events, and building a real relationship with their grandchildren on terms that aren’t defined by the parents’ schedule.
A recurring theme in the Gen X pushback across TikTok, Reddit, and other social platforms wasn’t “we don’t love our grandkids.” It was closer to: “We want a relationship with them, not a job description.”
Many Gen Xers are also managing two financial priorities at once, serving as caretakers for their own aging parents while potentially still supporting children. According to the Caregiver Action Network, sandwich generation caregivers spend an average of $10,000 per year on caregiving-related expenses, costs that directly undercut their ability to save for their own retirement.
Research from the Journal of Population Economics suggests that intensive grandchild care is associated with declines in grandparents’ physical functioning and subjective health, with effects that can vary according to the frequency and intensity of care.
So, Are Gen X Really the “Worst Grandparents”?
Probably the most revealing thing about this debate is that both generations seem to be arguing about something slightly different.
Many Millennial parents aren’t necessarily asking their parents to raise their children. They’re asking for the kind of family support they remember seeing when they were young, at a time when childcare is enormously expensive and many parents already feel stretched thin.
Many Gen X grandparents aren’t necessarily saying they don’t want relationships with their grandchildren either. They’re saying that love and availability aren’t the same thing. A generation that grew up with unusual levels of independence is now reaching grandparenthood while many are still working, saving for retirement, supporting children, or caring for aging parents themselves.
That doesn’t mean every complaint is unfair. Some grandparents really are less involved than their children hoped they would be, and those feelings of disappointment can be very real. Likewise, some adult children may expect more time and childcare than their parents are realistically able or willing to provide.
That’s why declaring an entire generation the “worst grandparents” doesn’t tell us very much.
The more interesting question raised by the viral debate is what families actually expect grandparents to do.
Is being a good grandparent about babysitting every week? Showing up for birthdays and soccer games? Helping when there’s an emergency? Simply building a close relationship with the grandchildren?
Different families will answer those questions very differently.
And that may be what’s really behind a social-media argument that has lasted for years. Gen X and Millennials aren’t necessarily fighting over whether grandparents should love their grandchildren.
They’re fighting over what that love is supposed to look like.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
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