Opinions differ sharply on who should bear the main burden of raising children. Some argue that grandparents, with their experience and often greater availability, should play a central role, while others insist that the task belongs to parents alone. In my view, parents must remain the primary guardians of their children's development, but grandparents can contribute a great deal.
The case for grandparental involvement is strongest where both parents work long hours. In many Mediterranean and East Asian households, grandparents collect children from school and prepare their meals. Such arrangements build close bonds and a sense of belonging to an extended family, and grandparents, having already weathered the pressures of raising their own children, often bring an unhurried patience that busy parents struggle to match. They also pass on language, recipes and customs that might otherwise fade.
Yet there are sound reasons to keep the responsibility largely with parents. Children need consistent expectations, and when grandparents quietly undermine the rules a mother or father has set, the result is confusion and a habit of playing adults off against one another. Childcare orthodoxies also shift over time; advice on sleep, diet and screen use that grandparents learnt decades ago may now be contradicted by current evidence, leaving parents to reconcile conflicting messages.
On balance, I believe parents should be the decisive voice, since they are ultimately accountable for the child. However, the real question is how the two generations can cooperate. A friend was largely raised by his grandmother while his parents worked abroad, and he credits her with his patience and his love of cooking. Yet when she began overruling the bedtime rules his parents had established, the household nearly fractured. Grandparents enrich a child most when they reinforce a framework rather than replace it.
Parents, then, should hold primary responsibility, but grandparents deserve a clearly defined and respected supporting role. Where that arrangement is agreed openly, children gain the wisdom of two generations without the confusion of competing authorities.