HSL Greatest Grandparents, Blogger Competition

Times have changed since our parents, and their own parents were children. Back then the children were looked after typically by their mother whilst the father was the "bread winner". 

I remember when I was a child, my dad looked after me for small period of time when he was out of work. We than moved down south to be with my dad's parents, dad got a new job and my parents had my sisters, mum stayed at home most of the time looking after us after than.

Now, with the increase of women working and returning to work, possibly due to the increase in living and the cost of childcare, the grandparents have taken a role in being a huge part of caring for our children of today. This is very true for us, both my other half who is a very skilled print finisher and myself who works in the perfume industry as a counter manager full time find the cost of childcare with an under 3 and a 7 year old quite high at times ( espeically in the summer holidays ).

So when I got approached by a PR company of behalf of HSL Chairs to celebrate the greatness of grandparents and all the wonderful things they do for their grandchildren for a blogger competition to raise awareness, I of course jumped at the chance to take part.

Our families, the girls grandparents do so much for them though out the year.  My other half's parents who are much older than my parents and retired now have been providing childcare part time since I went back to work 5 years now to help us with the cost of childcare. Without their support it would not warrant me to go back to work at all, especially as we don't get any help from tax credits. They have also provided my girls with their nappies and baby wipes. When we gone out on a day trip for the girls birthdays, they have always paid for us, even when we have said we would pay.

My family due to them living further a field, can not physically help with week to week childcare and so they have been helping out during the school holidays. Either my mum comes up for a week, one of my sisters has my eldest for a few days, my dad has my eldest for a few days and comes up for a week, and my other half's sister will have my eldest for a few days too.

Part of the blog was for my girls to say why our grandparents are the great to them. As my youngest is just 2, my eldest who is 7 has done a short video whilst staying at her grandads in Cinderford. Unfortunately the sound was missing from the first video my dad sent over and so we had to get them to do another. I have popped both verisons in a movie for their efforts.

 We have also included some picture of what they have been doing with grandparents.

Grandad with the girls at Swanage beach

Grandad paid for Isabel to have an art lesson this summer

It comes at no surprise that when HSL Chairs done research in to the role our grandparents play nowadays, that the average UK grandparents can put in more than 600 hours of hard work over the summer holidays looking after their grandchildren. In reality, if our grandparents got paid for their efforts, they would be on a salary of more than £22k!  A fun app has been created where you can discover how much your grandparents could be earning, based on how much time they spend doing each activity associated with being a grandparent. The app is available at HSL Chairs

An example of jobs the grandparents do and what they would earn in reality is below to give you an idea of how great grandparents are, and that they should be celebrated.

The average UK’s grandparent’s typical role includes:

·         Personal Chef (baking and preparing meals) £29.04 per hour*

·         Private Tutor (revision, homework, educating, reading) £23.18 per hour

·         House & Grounds Keeper (tidying and cleaning, gardening) £10.01 per hour

·         Chauffeur (taking to and from pay dates, activities) £18.64 per hour

·         Life Coach (listening to problems, breaking up arguments, keeping the peace) £102.13 per hour

·      Private Nurse (helping them wash and dress, giving medication, applying sun-cream etc.) £19.88 per hour

·         Event manager (organising and attending trips to theme parks, nature walks, historical sites etc.) £18.89 per hour

·         Sports coach (playing sports games, taking to lessons etc.) £27.97 per hour

·         Creative Director (crafting, styling, role play) £43.65 per hour

*all average salaries taken from payscale.com.

HSL chairs is the largest back-care chair specialists in the UK, supplying handmade, high-quality furniture for more than 40 years. The company was founded in 1968 in Yorkshire. Currently, HSL has 41 stores across the nation, serving more than 56,000 customers annually. HSL prides itself on being a family-run business which is dedicated to providing a caring service and excellent value for money, whilst providing comfortable back-care furniture which meets customers’ needs perfectly. For more information, visit: http://www.hslchairs.com.