Between familism and neoliberalism: the case of Jewish Israeli grandmothers

Abstract

In this article, we employ grandmothers’ childcare as a lens to explore the changing relations between familism, individualism and neoliberalism. More generally, we examine the connections between the political economy and the intimate moral economy of childcare work performed by grandmothers. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with twenty retired women in Israel, we examine how they negotiate, comply and resist the expectations that they will help ‘fill in’ the ‘care deficit’ resulting from neoliberal policies and labour market practices. We show how grandmothers navigate between family ideologies and individualistic cultural imperatives, constituting themselves as agentive subjects who can determine the conditions in which they meet their families’ care expectations while challenging the invisibility of their work. Thus, using Israel as a case study, we argue that familism and individualism, working against each other as well as together, create tensions while mediating the political economy and the intimate moral economy based on the love, commitment and ideology of the ‘good mother’. More broadly, we assert that neoliberalism strengthens family and familism and, at the same time, familism facilitates the neoliberal labour market and economy while also freeing the state from having to support families with children.

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the emergence of a lively and sometimes contentious debate about grandparenthood in general and grandmotherhood more specifically. ¹ This debate has taken place across the media landscape – online, in print and on television. Consultation centres, workshop facilitators and psychologists have all found grandparenthood fertile ground for expounding their various doctrines. Perusing this diverse media landscape, one finds newspaper articles such as The Complete Guide for the Young Grandmother (Shir, 2006) as well as newspaper op-eds offering advice like ‘What you can and can’t say, and why you are the one that needs to back down’ (Shnir, 2014) and even ‘No one will thank you: The 10 Commandments of the modern grandmother’ (Kahanovitch, 2014). Online forums, meanwhile, provide first-hand advice on “how to” be grandma and grandpa, tips to avoid frictions with their children, and recommendations for spending time with the grandchildren. Grandmothers also star in a wide range of satirical television programmes (Eretz Nehederet, 2019), comedy series (Aba Mishtadel, 2019) and various advertising.

This impressive proliferation of how-to guidance material signals that something intriguing is happening on the grandparent front, especially for grandmothers. Indeed, as we were carrying out research that initially focused on retirement in Israel, many of our participants spoke in detail about their experience of grandparenthood, even though they had not been explicitly asked about this aspect of their lives. We, therefore, decided to ‘follow their lead’, and to redirect our research to focus on grandparenthood. Since the interviews with women were richer in volume and texture, we homed in on these. Thus, the questions guiding our analysis were: What does being a grandmother mean to them? How do they comprehend, react to and negotiate the expectations regarding caring for their grandchildren?

We ground our study in recent scholarship on grandparenthood. These studies reveal just how crucial the care provided by grandmothers has become in the wake of a widening ‘care deficit’ (also called the ‘care crisis’) and places grandmothers at the centre of their investigation. Macro-social research helped us gauge the effects of institutional factors, namely social policy, labour market arrangements and cultural factors, on the extent and forms of grandmotherly help with childcare. It also provided the context for micro-social research that places the grandmothers’ perspectives and narratives in the spotlight and explores how they react and understand the ‘good grandmother model’.

Focusing on the Israeli case, we show how ‘grandmotherhood’ practices and ideology stem from and are entwined with the ‘childcare deficit’ that has been caused in large part by the neoliberal labour market and social policies; and we underscore two main cultural imperatives that are in play. The first is derived from a process of intensified individualisation. And the second is familism, a central feature of Israeli culture, where the family holds a central position both at the societal and personal level, and this centrality manifests itself in daily practices, attitudes, identity formation and sense of belonging. More specifically, our research demonstrates how the clash between economic forces, family ideology and individualistic perceptions allows grandmothers to manoeuvre between the different cultural imperatives and establish themselves as active subjects working to shape the terms under which they approximate these imperatives and the resulting grandmotherly expectations. At the same time, we also argue that studying the patterns of care delivered by grandmothers as well as how the grandmothers themselves understand the care they give provides key insights into the processes taking place within the family unit as well as the broader processes within Israeli society. We demonstrate that neoliberalism has strengthened familism as a cultural force and identity, reconfiguring the family unit by perforating its boundaries and letting the older generation in. This, in turn, allows the neoliberal labour market to demand ever-longer working hours, since the assumption is that there will always be someone to stand in and take over childcare duties at home. Additionally, the entrenchment of neoliberalism has exempted the state from fulfilling its obligation to support families with small children (whose birth is actively encouraged by the state).

Study of grandparenthood: the caregiving deficit and care labour

Over the past few decades, research has documented that in many Western countries both the role and experience of grandparenting have shifted, and grandparenthood has gained increased significance for grandparents themselves as well as for their children and grandchildren. This is due to a number of converging factors: an improvement in the quality of life, a rise in life expectancy, a decrease in birthrates (resulting in fewer grandchildren for grandparents), an increase in divorce and single parenting (specifically single motherhood) and a rising number of mothers in the labour market (e.g. Szinovacz, 1998; Attias-Donfut and Segalen, 2002; Arber and Timonen, 2012; Buchanan and Rotkirch, 2018).

As a result, grandparents, who were previously considered marginal to (nuclear) family studies, have become the centre of a growing body of research that examines the different patterns of grandparenthood and how those patterns are formulated in different social contexts (Cherlin and Furstenberg, 1986; Arber and Timonen, 2012; Shwalb and Hossain, 2017). This body of research has supplemented the literature dealing with childcare and the relations between formal and informal childcare systems, which discovered that grandparents, and grandmothers more specifically, were very much involved and held an important role in the overall system of care for their grandchildren. The importance of this role has grown alongside the expansion of the ‘care crisis’ or ‘care deficit’ – a term referring to the increasing difficulty in developed countries of providing affordable quality care that addresses the needs of parents, their children, their own ageing parents and other members of the family.

As feminist scholars such as Nancy Fraser (2016), Emma Dowling (2020) and The Care Collective (2020) have already argued, the care crisis is, to a large extent, the result of neoliberalisation processes, which induce changes in the labour market as well as in welfare policy regarding (the withdrawal of) support for young families. The labour market has seen a significant rise in female employment, especially among mothers of young children. These women enter a labour market characterised by long working hours and a demand for an almost total commitment to the job as well as for constant availability. These kinds of demands were once restricted to professionals, executive managers and independent businesses, but today they have permeated many other non-white-collar trades and occupations. In addition, we have witnessed an increase in the number of minimum-wage part-time jobs that offer extremely limited flexibility to respond to non-work responsibilities. This reality has been accompanied by budget cuts to welfare services, childcare services and public spending on caregiving in general (Ehrenreich, 2010; Gerson, 2017).

Grandparents, by and large, come to the aid of their adult children. Studies examining grandparents’ attitude to childcare indicate that most of them agree that they should assist their children when in need. And indeed, scholars have found that many grandparents, mostly grandmothers, provide some degree of care for their grandchildren when emergencies occur, though not exclusively so (Hank and Buber, 2009; Arber and Timonen, 2012). Yet, patterns of caregiving vary by country and region. In some areas, grandparents function as primary, and often even as sole caregivers (when parents are dysfunctional or absent). This phenomenon is found mainly in the United States and in Africa, where AIDS has severely harmed younger people, or in rural parts of Asia and Africa, where the middle generation has migrated to urban areas or different countries altogether to provide for their family, leaving young children behind in the care of grandparents (Dolbin-MacNab and Yancura, 2018).

Two additional patterns have been shown to be common in Europe, one that replaces formal care systems and the other that complements them. The first pattern, where grandparents are heavily involved in caring for their grandchildren, can be seen primarily in southern European countries where public care systems are limited, less available and often incompatible with work hours. The second pattern is when care is given on an occasional basis, as a supplement to the formal care system. This pattern can be found mainly in northern European countries characterised by more expansive public spending, more generous public services and paid maternity leave (Wheelock and Jones, 2002; various chapters in Arber and Timonen 2012).

In addition to family policy scholars, labour economists researching the rise in female employment have also ‘discovered’ the informal care labour provided by grandmothers. They have examined if and to what extent young mothers’ employment is affected by grandmothers’ provision of care. In terms of supply and demand, they have found that the supply or availability of care (i.e. grandmothers) affects the demand, namely the employment rates of mothers, a finding that holds for young mothers from all educational backgrounds and whether or not they are single parents or married. In other words, there is a direct correlation between the number of grandmothers assisting in childcare and the number of working mothers, the number of hours they work and how much they earn (Gray, 2005; Zamarro, 2011; Aassve et al., 2012; Kanji, 2018).

The degree of care provided by grandmothers is also shaped, among other factors, by their own participation in the labour market (Albuquerque and Passos, 2010; Zamarro, 2011). Therefore, a rise in the employment of older women – a policy goal in many countries – affects their ability to devote time to and provide care for grandchildren, subsequently influencing their daughters’ paid employment (Lumsdaine and Vermeer, 2015). Thus, for example, the labour economists Massimiliano Bratti et al. have outlined the implications of postponing the retirement age for women, warning that it might ‘potentially rob households of an important source of flexible, low-cost childcare, [and] could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with young children’ (Bratti et al., 2018: 1239).

In contrast to scholars who conceptualise grandmothers’ childcare in economic terms of supply and demand, other scholars have claimed that assistance in childcare does not exclusively address a financial need and is not merely a reaction to market conditions and social policy. Jane Wheelock and Katharine Jones (2002), for instance, have examined this ‘informal social service’ through the eyes of those both providing and receiving childcare, and have found that grandparents and their adult children see such help as a major contribution to the family’s overall well-being, and believe that this contribution is just as important as avoiding the need to pay for childcare – and perhaps even more so.

Indeed, to better understand the patterns of informal care labour and its incorporation into the lives of those ‘service providers’, a growing amount of micro-level scholarship has examined how grandmothers perceive social and familial expectations, and react to them (Wearing and Wearing, 1996; Kemp, 2004; Thang et al., 2011; Qi, 2018; Can, 2019). Such research reveals that grandmothers are not simply a ‘supply of care’ that automatically reacts to a given ‘demand’, and that they do not act only to complement an existing caregiving system.

It is the cultural context that creates a system of meanings in which needs are defined, and in which the roles meant to answer these needs are assigned. ² Yet, different systems of meaning may well operate at the same time, creating competing expectations and contradictory cultural imperatives and expectations in which care needs are defined and the roles meant to answer those needs are assigned. Thus, for example, conflicts arise between a commitment on the part of older parents to assist their children, the desire for autonomy among young parents, a ‘new active grandmother’ model and processes of individuation. Another conflict is that between good parenting, which is often interpreted as ‘letting go’, and the expectation that parents continue to help and assist their grown children (e.g. Kemp, 2004; Thang et al., 2011; Qi, 2018; Can, 2019). Oscillating between them, grandmothers can comply, resist or evade such expectations altogether. Thus, Teo et al. (2006), for example, conceptualise grandparenting in Singapore as a negotiated process where grandparents are active players who exercise agency and choice. This enables them to manoeuvre between new expectations to provide childcare as the prevalence of dual-earner families increases on the one hand, and the emergence of a generation of ‘new grandparents’ that demand freedom and their own space on the other.

We join the above-mentioned researchers who claim that these social and cultural imperatives and the ways in which individuals interpret them are embedded in social institutions and macro-level arrangements and processes, which are themselves incongruent and saturated with contradictions. These imperatives can be mobilised or drawn upon by grandparents to imbue their actions with meaning or they can be employed while negotiating with children, grandchildren and other relatives.

Before proceeding to our research, however, we introduce the Israeli case. First, we present the (scant) literature on grandparenthood in Israel, followed by a discussion of the social-economic structure, mainly the increasing care deficit caused by intensifying processes of neoliberalisation. Then we present how Israeli familism, a bundle of institutional, cultural and personal practices, coexists with seemingly contradictory cultural forces of neoliberal individualisation.

The Israeli context

Grandparenthood in Israel

The scholarly literature on grandparenthood reveals that Israeli senior citizens are an integral part of their adult children’s family life. Similarly, the role of the grandparent is significant both for the grandparents themselves as well as for other members of their families (Lavee and Katz, 2003; see special edition of Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 2015, 13[1]). Hence, in a study investigating parents’ and children’s emotional closeness, Israel received the highest score (compared with Spain, Germany and the UK) (Katz et al., 2003). In addition, scholars also found that the extent to which Israeli grandparents assist in childcare was also relatively high in comparison with other countries such as Norway, England, Germany and Spain (Lowenstein et al., 2007). For this reason, geographical proximity to extended family becomes a major consideration when deciding where to live, especially for young couples about to have their first child (The Marker, 2014).

The assistance in childcare clearly has substantial economic value in addition to its emotional value. According to family economist Nahman Lidor, this help is estimated to be worth several thousands of Israeli Shekels per month (Shilo, 2011). Parents also help cover other kinds of financial costs for their children’s young families. In a study conducted for the economic newspaper Calcalist, it was found that most Israeli parents, no matter from which socio-economic strata of society they hail, offer significant financial assistance to their adult children (Harari, 2013). Yet very few qualitative studies have examined childcare assistance from the perspectives of grandmothers or grandparents in general. One notable exception is the work of Sylvia Fogiel-Bijaoui, who has examined how the ‘babushka’ (or Russian grandmother) in Israel establishes a new model for grandmotherhood, linking the Soviet legacy with Israeli culture (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2013). Another exception is a study on multi-ethnic families, which explores the contrast between Russian grandmothers and those of other ethnic backgrounds (Lomsky-Feder and Leibovitz, 2009). ³ This lack of research on grandparenthood in general and on the role that grandparents’ childcare plays in society more specifically is especially surprising since the ‘care deficit’ in Israel is remarkably high, making the familial help provided by grandparents a critical and essential aspect of the Israeli political economy.

The Israeli care deficit

The ‘care deficit’ in Israel is caused by the extensive involvement of women, including mothers of young children, in the labour market (OECD, 2019), which is not family friendly, alongside a lack of state support for young families. The average number of working hours is greater in Israel in comparison to most OECD countries (OECD, 2021), whilst women’s representation in highly demanding professional fields is growing, as is their presence in occupations where they are paid low wages, often on an hourly basis with little flexibility (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2005; Benjamin, 2011). At the same time, formal childcare systems and governmental assistance for young families in Israel have remained scarce. For example, public spending for families with children under eighteen is much lower in Israel (1 per cent) than the average for OECD countries (1.33 per cent) or for the UK (2 per cent) (Almagor-Lotan, 2011). The cost of daycare for two children is 30 per cent of the average wage, much higher than the 17 per cent average for OECD countries. The per centage of children aged up to three years old in licensed daycare centres is 20, compared to 23 per cent in the UK and 31 per cent in Finland and Germany. Moreover, in Israel the school day typically ends at 12 or 1 pm (Gal et al. 2010; Almagor-Lotan and Weissblau, 2011; Holler and Gal, 2011; Hasson and Buzaglo, 2019). In addition, there are no policies encouraging the establishment of day care centres in workplaces (Fichtelberg, 2004), while the extent of benefits in the form of tax exemptions or young family stipends is the lowest of all OECD countries (Brender and Strawczynski, 2014). These facts stand in stark contrast to Israel being a pro-natalist and family-oriented society at institutional, cultural and individual levels, as we describe below.

Familism and the individualisation process

Research has highlighted that although Israeli society has undergone significant changes over the past decades, it is clear also that it still maintains its family-centred, pro-natalist culture (e.g. Remennick, 2000; Donath, 2014; Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2020). The family continues to hold a central and stable position in cultural perceptions as well as in individual and group identity; it also shapes attitudes and daily practices. Its centrality is clearly detected also when observing demographic measures (Lavee and Katz, 2003; Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2020). For example, when compared with other OECD countries, Israel has a high marriage rate, a low divorce rate, a relatively low average marriage age and a high birthrate. Another key statistic is the high number of children under 17 years old living with both parents (OECD Family Database, 2021). Equally important are family practices and attitudes. In a 2009 poll, 60 per cent of participants replied that they speak with their families by telephone nearly every single day, with 72 per cent claiming that they meet their families physically once if not twice every week (CBS, 2009). In addition, the percentage of people who report being content with their lives is higher among married individuals than it is among single people. That number rises with each additional child added to the family. Comparative research has also found that close ties between parents and their children are especially prominent in Israel (Katz, 2009). And, more relevant for our case, family relations are of the utmost importance for senior citizens, acting as a source of joy, meaningfulness and ‘something to live for’ (Halperin, 2015: 57).

The centrality of the family to individuals’ identity is especially evident in the case of women’s identity as mothers (Kaplan et al., 2020) – a fact that further encourages traditional gender roles within the family (Herzog, 2004). Yet, it is important to note that the ‘cult of domesticity’ was never embraced in Israel, and it has always been considered legitimate for women, even mothers of young children, to work for pay outside their home. At the same time, however, household duties and childcare are still expected to be at the top of women’s priorities (Izraeli, 1992; Frenkel, 2008). Family and familism are essential to the LGBT community as well, and the struggles of the Israeli LGBT community have mainly revolved around the right to a family, namely the aspiration towards parenthood and officially recognised partnerships (Kama, 2011).

While the hold of familism remains strong, over the past three decades Israel has undergone a process of individualisation, a counterpart to globalisation and the neoliberalisation that has swept over many countries (e.g. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Bauman, 2001). This process refers to the decline of the national collectivist ideology and the emergence of a capitalist individualist ethos; the rise of a new individualised entrepreneurial self that is expected to pursue his/her interests and is directed by ideals of self-actualisation and self-realisation, free of any commitment to the collectivist tradition, and who gives priority to his/her desires and needs over family expectations and commitments (Bauman, 2001; Illouz, 2008; Goodman and Tavori, 2010; Ram, 2013). Thus, individuals are allowed – and even expected – to design their lives according to their passions and self-preferences, including what kind of family they want. The result is the emergence of multiple new types of family, i.e. novel social arrangements regarding procreation, economic and care provision and housing agreements, which have emerged alongside the traditional form of the family (i.e. two heterosexual, cis-gendered parents who share their home with their biological [or adopted] children) (Fogiel-Bijaoui and Rutlinger-Reiner, 2013; Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2020).

Demographic statistics complete the picture, since – with the exception of birthrates, which remain high – they attest to the changing face of the family: namely, a rise in the average age of marriage, even as it remains low in comparison to other developed countries; a rise in the average age of women at the birth of their first child; and a rising percentage of single people and rising rates of divorce (Fogiel-Bijaoui 2020). Furthermore, there are signs of growing resistance to the ‘duty of childbearing’ among young women. Though still a limited phenomenon, a growing number of these young women reject the idea that motherhood is a necessary destiny for all women and instead adopt a childfree existence as a chosen lifestyle (Donath, 2014).

Methodology

We utilised a qualitative-interpretive method that examines how people understand and interpret the phenomena or experiences they witness. Following Cherry Russell’s claim that all research is ‘a form of storytelling’ (Russell, 2007: 173), we examined the stories women tell about themselves and their grandmotherhood. Data was collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, which allowed our participants to raise the subject of grandmotherhood without being directed towards it (as we noted, this study did not initially focus on grandmotherthood; rather, the participants themselves constantly raised the issue). Interviews were held at the participants’ convenience, mostly in the privacy of their own homes, and lasted 90–120 minutes on average. All interviews were recorded with consent from participants and later transcribed. The selection of interviewees was in accordance with the criterion of purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990). Since the study originally dealt with retirement, the chosen sampling criterion included people who had retired from the workforce in the preceding decade and who were generally in good health. Participants were located by contacting senior citizen centres, pensioner assistance organisations, human resource departments in large public companies (such as the Israel Electric Corporation) and various hospitals. We also used snowball sampling by asking those who had complied to provide additional potential participants. Twenty women were selected, all of whom were from Jewish backgrounds and between fifty-eight and seventy-five years of age. All had been employed until retirement in a variety of positions and fields. Seventeen were married and three were divorced at the time of the interview. They all had children and seventeen of them had grandchildren. To analyse the data, we first adopted the customary method of analysis for phenomenological research, wherein information is processed by being broken down into segments and then compiled and rearranged for the purpose of evaluation and interpretation (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008; Creswell, 2012). We executed this process in steps, as suggested by Amadeo Giorgi (1997). Following a thorough read of all interview transcripts, we located the segments that referred to grandmotherhood and the contexts in which these statements were made. We analysed the segments according to a lateral reading of all interviews, from which central themes were extracted. We also looked for inconsistencies, the rhetoric used and recurring words.

Findings: grandmotherhood models

As noted above, almost all participants (eighteen out of twenty) talked about grandmotherhood without being asked about it, including one who did not have grandchildren of her own (yet, according to her). They raised the issue when asked about positive experiences in retirement. Statements regarding how they spent their time during retirement were interwoven with stories about their connection to their grandchildren. Questions regarding relationships with their children were mostly answered with descriptions of their grandmotherhood, e.g. what type of grandmother they are, and what kind of help they provide to their children and why.

All participants had children of their own, most of whom were already parents themselves. From the women’s responses, it became clear that each of their children required some degree of assistance with childcare. This subject was dominant in every context where relationships with their children were discussed. The nature of assistance provided varied between participants, and sometimes even between different children. The recurring pattern was that of complementary care, replacing afterschool care or following it. Some grandmothers picked up their grandchildren from kindergarten or afterschool care centres – on either an occasional or regular basis – and spent time with them until one of the parents came back from work. Most of them were readily available to help whenever a sudden need arose. Some hosted grandchildren at their houses over weekends or on occasions when parents went on holiday.

Our analysis reveals three general patterns of grandmotherhood. The first two are derived from two contradictory, dominant cultural forces: the maternal imperative and the individualistic imperative.

The third is a construct that intertwined the two and created a pattern on which we elaborate in a later section.

‘You have to help everyone’: the maternal imperative

As previously stated, nearly all interviewees mentioned that their adult children required childcare assistance. Occasionally, this was the only context in which their children were mentioned at all. When the relationship with their children came up, they essentially described various aspects of their own grandmotherhood, as well as their assistance in caring for their grandchildren. For example, when asked about how retirement affected her relationship with her children, Tzipi replied ‘Look, I have a son and two daughters …’, and then immediately continued to describe how she helps each one of them. Liora, when replying to the same question, skipped any mention of her children and proceeded to describe what kind of grandma she is: ‘I’m no ordinary grandma … I’m the kind who sits on the floor, tells stories …’. Thus, these grandmothers’ relations to their own children are mediated by their grandmotherhood.

Although they were not asked why they help their children, participants volunteered this information. Liora, for example, told us: ‘I try to help out; my youngest daughter has four boys, her oldest is especially problematic so I do my best to give a hand there’. Hedva offered a similar account: ‘Now that we are able to travel more often [every two weeks], we go to Jerusalem [from Haifa] for two or three days to help her, since they both have jobs, and they have three young children, so we help as much as we can. As much as we can’. Elena went even further, saying that she retired to help her daughter and daughter-in-law (not mentioning her son) in caring for their children. Indeed, the statement that ‘it’s necessary to help’ or ‘one has to help’ was reiterated – with slight variety – in most interviews. This statement, we argue, describes how our participants interpreted the ‘care’ situation as one in which they themselves had to provide the necessary help – and this was perceived as an obvious fact.

Efrat added another layer:

I’m more available to them; obviously, previously I could hardly help them at all … But I’m happy to help them. I have no problem. I knew that their intention to begin studying would mean that they would need help, and the other grandma also helps out … and I have eight grandchildren [gives a detailed account of them] … so eight grandchildren is a lot of work; you have to help everyone.

Efrat is essentially saying something more than just about helping her children. The help she can provide now, after retiring, gives her a chance to ‘amend’ and improve her motherhood. Previously, while employed, she was too busy to help her children when they needed her, and now she can compensate them for her past mistakes as a mother.

Liora was much more specific:

As long as I remember, for years I was always at work, work, work … and I have to say, especially my oldest daughter, she always said ‘where were you? you were always at work’. I wasn’t there for my girls. I had a caretaker who cared for them and [in retrospect] that was not right; I was absent for many things. And now I have time and can help my daughters a lot more …

It was obvious and even self-evident to our participants that their children needed help, and they assumed, just as clearly, that they were the ones who must come to their children’s aid – for that is what mothers do. In essence, these women were narrating how they were prolonging the labour of mothering. Grandmotherhood also provides a chance for those who felt they had been deficient mothers to make amends. Thus, mothers continue the work of mothering, which at this stage in their lives and the lives of their adult children translates into grandmothering, which in turn is interpreted as helping their children care for the grandchildren. And while many studies have shown that most people become grandparents when they are no longer ‘active parents’, i.e. when they no longer have young children to care for themselves, here we witness a different type of active motherhood – through active grandmotherhood.

‘I deserve the freedom to invest in myself’: the individualist imperative

Alongside the claim that ‘you have to help’, most participants also asserted that they reject the model of a grandmother who is at her children’s constant beck and call and who adjusts herself to their needs. Rita, for example, distinguished herself from those who spoke of other people’s needs while invoking terms related to self-realisation and self-fulfillment:

… I can’t really place myself when it comes to grandmotherhood. I’m not that type of grandma, it doesn’t satisfy me … Look, that whole deal with a grandma who sits on the shelf and is taken down when needed, that’s not exactly the case. And my daughter grew up with that [knowing that I won’t be available whenever needed], there’s not really any possibility for it to suddenly change … and even today, if something doesn’t work for me, I say so.

Ella prepared her children ahead of time:

I remember myself at a very young age with three children, repeating over and over like a mantra, ‘don’t bring me your kids when they come along, I’m a working grandma’. I took that option off the table way back then, no, no, no, in no way [am I] a full-time grandma. If they need help, if they’re going somewhere and it’s on a weekend then … but not on a regular basis. By no means.

Note her repeated use of the word ‘no’, as though she enjoys the way it rolls off her tongue. The right to autonomy, along with the right to decline other people’s demands, was a right that these women had struggled for; it did not just fall into their hands. By the time their grandchildren were born, they had already fulfilled their part of the gender contract (Berkovitch and Manor, 2019), which included working for and serving others. Now during the latter years of their life, after having raised their children and retired, their time has come. Hava said: ‘Throughout the years I was there for the kids, for the husband, for the family, for work, yeah, and where am I?’. Many years of hard work have granted her the right to freedom and liberation from worry, as well as the capacity to decline others’ requests.

Hava used the word ‘no’ in a more determined way. When asked if retirement altered her relationships with her children, she responded: ‘I’m not willing to be a slave again’. Yet, to fully comprehend this answer, we must bridge the gap between the question asked (‘Did retirement alter your relationships with your children?’) and the answer given. Within this gap lie the expectations that apparently need not be mentioned explicitly, i.e. that after retirement she will be available to her children whenever required and for as long as necessary. It is so evident that she did not fill the gap when speaking to the interviewer, assuming that they share the understanding of what is expected of grandmothers, especially after retirement. But Hava rejected this expectation, mobilising the heavily loaded notion of slavery. She continues by repeating the term ‘slave’ in various forms: ‘… that is, I was enslaved to my job, a slave to the family, I was a slave … I’m finished being a slave’. ⁴ As far as Hava was concerned, her time of liberation had come.

What distinguishes the ‘era of slavery’ from the ‘era of freedom’ is control over time. Ella added:

Most significant is my control over time – over schedules, as well as their content. That means the most to me. I’m the master of my activities. That’s what is most fun. I think the fixed framework [of life] was suffocating me, and I was in there for so many years. I am most content – and I define it this way – with my control of time and what I do with it. It’s the best.

Supported by an individualistic discourse, grandmothers thus demand their ‘me time’, and find many things to do with it. Participants spoke of being busy with a rich array of recreational activities – courses, lectures, classes, sports, travelling and hiking, as well as many types of volunteering. Interestingly, it was essential for them to convey that they continue to be very busy, sometimes even more so than before retirement – for one of them it was only after retirement that she began to keep a calendar – and that they have many things to do besides grandmothering. These activities limit their availability as providers of childcare for their children and even their availability for interview.

Motherly and individualistic: contrasting or mutually enabling discourses?

The participants invoke terms that relate to caregiving and family care, while simultaneously speaking up for individualistic values – requesting autonomy and placing themselves centre stage. They often blur the line between them, and craft a third pattern, a new model of grandmotherhood in which the two do not merely add up but rather enable and legitimise one another. They do so by employing two themes: the first is pleasure – or ‘fun’ as they call it – while the second is control, e.g. it is their choice when to help and to what extent. These terms act as discursive mechanisms that render the two – the familist imperative and the individualistic imperative – dependent on one other and, in effect, confer legitimacy on each other.

The pleasure of grandmotherhood was a common theme that appeared in nearly every interview. It was mainly a response to the request that they describe a positive experience in their lives following retirement. They tended to provide details about their grandchildren; they told anecdotes about them, they expressed pride in their achievements and they described the joy they found in the time spent with them. Thus, for example, Daniella was full of joy simply by being a grandma: ‘When I was young, if someone said the word “grandma” it would startle me. What do you mean, grandma? I was spooked by that word. Today when Lihi [her granddaughter] calls me grandma, my heart jumps for joy’.

Moreover, nearly all our interviewees noted that they were happy to have free time now, particularly because it allowed them to help their children and spend more time with the grandchildren. So, it was not just the enjoyment of playing with the grandchildren; equally important was the feeling that they could help their adult child. Nearly all of them used the word ‘fun’ (kef in Hebrew), a slang term used mostly by children and youth. For example, Tamar put it simply: ‘… so it came out that we’re here for fun, for hugs and kisses, for visit’.

The women also viewed their good relationships with their grandchildren as important achievements in which they take great pride. When describing how she consulted with her granddaughter about a recently purchased item of clothing, Ella said:

… and she told me ‘grandma, you are so cool’, [laughter] I thought to myself – this is kind of like a friendship, it’s so much fun. That girl is special. They live in Haifa, in Ramot Remez, and she calls me sometimes when she needs me to take her to school instead of her parents; it’s always an honour, of course I will – what kind of a question is that?

Alongside this pleasure, participants also spoke of difficulties, weaving the two elements together in many creative ways, often making them inseparable. They take pleasure in knowing that they are assisting their family, as well as in the sacrifice involved in doing so. They evoke pleasure in order to diffuse the challenges, to show how those difficulties are not actually so bad. They raise these difficulties while, at the same time, playing them down by emphasising the sacrifice. They help their family despite the heavy burden, because that is what a mother must do – provide help in spite of the difficulties. This kind of statement establishes their altruistic motivation. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, they speak of the fun as a way to help them overcome the difficulties involved in childcare. Tamar described her pleasure in ways that do not necessarily annul the inherent difficulties: ‘It’s hard but also fun, great fun’.

The second theme that emerges is control. Participants repeatedly emphasised that it was their choice to provide help, and that they controlled the amount, schedule and manner of assistance. They help because ‘one has to’ but also because they choose to – and the two elements often appear in the same sentence. Each grandmother has her own set of priorities which guide her action and choices. Regardless of how much time they spend with their grandchildren, the important fact is that they can ensure all the help they provide is on their own terms – in accordance with their own schedules. This compensates for difficulties they encounter, and to a certain degree also helps to generate the aforementioned pleasure.

Rita claimed to be ‘constantly exploited’. However, when asked about the positive aspects of retirement, she asserted that she can take her time and do as she wishes; and as it turns out, she used the time to help care for ‘the grandkids and kids, which are [priority] number one’. She set the order of priority and acted accordingly. Debby combines it all – difficulty, pleasure (or fun), control and pride – all of which characterise her relations with her daughter and granddaughter:

… Sometimes it’s hard, I go there three times a week, but it is definitely fun. I have a good connection with her – if I put her to bed because her mother [the daughter-in-law] only gets home at 10 pm, and then when her mother returns we’re still up chatting, or if she wakes up and calls out ‘grandma’ and not ‘mom’ that’s great fun. You can also travel and do all kinds of things; [there is] a feeling of no pressure, you can choose [to do] whatever you wish, you know.

Tamar stressed the importance of setting boundaries, claiming that: ‘We’re here only for SOS situations. We are not the babysitters …’. However, after reviewing her interview transcript, it becomes clear that her grandchildren frequent her home once a week after school. But ‘that isn’t work’. She reads, sings and plays with the kids, ‘ … and that’s it’. Later, she says that she and her husband sometimes babysit at night, and even have the kids stay overnight once in a while. But ‘that’s it’. The more she elaborates, the more it becomes apparent that she and her husband actually spend considerable time caring for their grandchildren. Yet, the way in which she presents the situation is also important. She does not present the entire range of help all at once but, instead, reveals it gradually so that she will not create the impression that caring for her grandchildren is the only thing she does. Equally important is the fact that she insists that this help is ‘nothing, not a big deal’. She blurs the distinction between choice and necessity even further later on in the interview: ‘I need to help her, I feel like I want to help’. The existing ‘need’ does not automatically mean it is done against her will. If that’s what it takes, she says, ‘I want to be there to help’.

In sum, from the interviews, it becomes apparent that two cultural imperatives operate simultaneously and shape the model of grandmotherhood the participants adopt. The first is the individualistic imperative which establishes the ‘new (selfish) grandmother’ and the second is the familial motherly imperative that continues the model of the ‘good mother’ who helps her children as much and whenever she can. Though contradictory, the participants draw on elements from each discourse and imperative to imbue their action with meaning and to narrate what they do as grandmothers, as well as what they do not do and why. Moreover, in order to tackle the contradictions, the participants act creatively, weaving the discourses and expectations together whilst also plotting connections and constructing them as enabling each other. They do so by using the theme of fun and control, i.e. they help not only because they have to but also because it gives them pleasure (and not for altruistic reasons), and emphasising that they are the ones who decide the terms – namely, what kind of help and how much. In that, they create a new model of the grandmother – one that follows the maternal imperative but under the conditions and meanings of individualism. ⁵

Discussion: neoliberalism, motherly love and the Israeli grandmotherhood model

The findings of our analyses present a complex picture. The assistance that grandmothers provide to and for their adult children creates a dynamic arena, which has been increasingly depicted in the media and popular culture as well, as we mentioned in the article’s opening. This dynamic arena is made of contrasting expectations and desires, feelings of commitment and entitlements. These, we suggest, need to be understood as driven by the encounters between familial obligations and neoliberal economic structures and ideologies; between motherly love and devotion on the one hand, and individualised aspiration to self-realisation on the other. Yet, the patterns of help and accompanying accounts also help shape and maintain these processes, structures and ideologies.

The initial narrative pattern that we outlined above was grandmothers’ obligation to help: ‘you have to help … you must help as much as you can’. This norm and its linguistic expressions reoccur often, with slight variations in phrasing. One must help, so they do – as much as they can (and as much as they choose to). The necessity of this assistance is a consequence of the ‘care deficit’, to which neither the state nor the market provides ready solutions. In a family-oriented society such as Israel, the ‘care deficit’ subsequently translates into the expectations among young parents that their parents will mobilise to help them. These expectations are often taken for granted, as can be inferred from the simple but repeated claim that ‘you have to help’. The care deficit – translated as ‘you have to help’, though qualified by ‘as much as you can’ – is made feasible by a clear sense of parental obligation. This sense of parental obligation is a dominant cultural norm, which assumes that parents need to help meet the needs of their children, regardless of the children’s age and family status.

Alongside familism, the second cultural force at play is individualism, according to which individuals should put their desires and interests above those of the collective to which they belong, or in our case, above those of their family and their obligations as family members. Indeed, in the name of individualism, our interviewees said that their time to do what they want had arrived. This individualistic discourse of ‘me time’ stands in stark contrast to parental/familial duty and commitment. It refuses the expectation that grandmothers will sustain the motherly role of actively caring for their children whenever they are needed. Yet, it seems that the interviewees cannot just make this claim in the name of individualism. Individualism is not a ‘stand-alone’ position that one can simply invoke as one wishes, especially when motherly duties are involved, at least not in the Israeli context. This is why the women we interviewed justify this position by mobilising the ‘superwoman’ narrative. They were employed full time, worked hard, some even establishing major careers – all while simultaneously carrying the burden of housework and childcare. The women who ‘were slaves’ now demand what they deserve and are entitled to – freedom, time for themselves and control over their own time. In this way, neoliberalism – which created the need for inter-familial assistance – also promotes individualism, which might weaken family ties and commitment, and in doing so potentially subverts the opportunity to provide family solutions to the problems it created.

Yet, individualism can also be employed as a legitimising tool by those who follow the opposite imperative. Thus, grandmothers do provide assistance and fulfill the motherly-familial expectation, but under individualistic terms – as they repeatedly state, they do so because it gives them pleasure, helping according to their own schedule and in their own fashion. In other words, they perpetuate the motherly role by assisting their children when help is needed, but only on the terms of the individualistic imperative. They thus attempt to establish themselves as autonomous subjects and active agents as opposed to victims of expectation or demand. They are in control, they will gladly help, but it will be on their own terms – ‘let me check my calendar first’.

Adopting this new model of grandmotherhood also helps them extricate themselves from a position of victimhood or from a subject position without agency, which they attribute to other grandmothers – those who are ostensibly engulfed in and by grandmothering – and simultaneously distinguish themselves from those others who selfishly care only for themselves – ‘some are like that’. In this manner, they continue to fulfil the motherhood imperative, but in ways that are compatible with the individualistic imperative.

This mobilisation to help ‘cover’ the caregiving deficit – a product of neoliberalism – clearly has consequences for familism, social policy and the labour market. First, neoliberal political economy has centre-staged grandparents, reinforcing intergenerational relations and therefore familism – this time of the extended family. While researchers have argued that the major factors responsible for the centrality of the family in Israeli society are the significance of religion and religious adherence, the holocaust, the ongoing Israel–Palestine conflict and fear of change in the demographic balance between Jews and Palestinians (Peres and Katz, 1981; Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2020), from our analysis it becomes clear that the neoliberal political economy serves as an important fortifying and preserving force of familism and the family as well. This does not necessarily mean harmonious familism. On the contrary, dependence on parental assistance and the pressure to continue to provide parental assistance can become a site of stress and conflict. However, it does establish the extended family as a source of feelings of belonging, responsibility and meaningfulness. Additionally, the family becomes relevant when considering decisions being made by its members on employment (can the young mother take on a more demanding job? when should the older mother retire? etc.), fertility (should the young couple have more children and when?) and place of residence. Unlike the American case as presented by Melinda Cooper (2017), in the Israeli case it is the extended double-earner family that is promoted by neoliberalism and not the traditional nuclear family based on the male breadwinner and his dependent wife and children.

Second, familism also helps to release the state from its family-related duties. For example, rather than demanding structural change and budgets to establish affordable and high-quality childcare designed to accommodate parents’ working hours, young parents turn to the private sphere – their parents – for help. And parents comply; mothers assist in childcare, while fathers help via continuous financial support. ⁶ Thus, Israeli familism leads people to find private solutions to social and systemic problems. And this eases the pressures caused by neoliberal policy, whilst also buttressing the conditions needed for the latter to exist. This point holds true for double-earner and male-breadwinner families alike.

Third, the mobilisation of grandparents’ help also has consequences for the labour market. What we observe is an Israeli version of the ‘dual-person career’, a term coined by Hanna Papanek in the 1970s (Papanek, 1973). It describes a model of a wife, who in the 1970s was a full-time housewife supporting her husband’s career, who is now employed full time and is replaced at home by the ‘care-on-demand grandmother’. Employers are thus able to set increasingly demanding requirements for their workers, as they assume that everyone has access to help at home.

The Israeli grandmotherhood model, its ideology and practices, enabled us to explore how familism and individualism create tensions, yet concurrently mediate between the neoliberal political economy and the moral, intimate economy based on love, commitment and the ‘good mother’ ideology. Indeed, our investigation helps to open new ways to think contextually about the connections between economic and non-economic relationships, between the emotional and the pecuniary aspects of family relationships and between love, devotion and labour in the neoliberal era.