I had worked for more than four decades, and at 67, I was finally ready to retire.
\nI imagined slow mornings, gardening, visiting friends, and spending time with my grandchildren when I wanted to.
\nThen my daughter-in-law called.
\n\u201cPerfect timing,\u201d she said. \u201cNow you can keep the kids Monday through Friday.\u201d
\nI laughed because I thought she was joking.
\nShe wasn\u2019t.
\nI explained that I loved the children, but retirement didn\u2019t mean I had signed up to become their unpaid full-time babysitter.
\nShe became cold and hung up.
\nA few hours later, my son texted me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou owe us. Do you remember how much we helped you after your surgery?\u201d
\nI couldn\u2019t believe it.
\nYes, they had helped me.
\nFor six days.
\nBut over the years, I had also watched their children countless weekends, paid for summer camps, helped with school expenses, and even covered several months of their mortgage when my son lost his job.
\nI called him.
\n\u201cI remember everything,\u201d I said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly why keeping score is such a bad idea.\u201d
\nHe went quiet.
\nI told him I would gladly babysit sometimes.
\nBut five days a week was a job, not a favor.
\nA week later, they apologized.
\nWe worked out one afternoon each week.
\nThat felt like being Grandma.
\nNot unpaid staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had worked for more than four decades, and at 67, I was finally ready to retire. I imagined slow mornings, gardening, visiting friends, and spending time with my grandchildren when I wanted to. Then my daughter-in-law called. \u201cPerfect timing,\u201d she said. \u201cNow you can keep the kids Monday through Friday.\u201d I laughed because I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10400,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398\/revisions\/10400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}