As Childcare Costs Soar, Families Lean on Grandparents

The average annual cost of childcare for a child under 5 in the United States reached $13,184 in 2025, and as that figure has climbed, a growing number of American families have turned to an older, unpaid source of support: grandparents. According to Child Care Aware of America, the national average rose from $10,853 in 2022—an increase of more than 21% in just three years.

For many households, the expense now rivals rent or college tuition. For a married couple with children, childcare consumed roughly 10% of median household income; for a single parent, it absorbed about a third. In some cases, center-based care can reach as high as 36% of a family’s income, leaving parents to choose between paying for care and stepping back from work.

A Growing Need for Childcare

A cluster of long-term trends has made childcare a necessity for more families. According to Pew Research Center, 52% of different-sex couples with children had both parents working full-time in 2025, up from just 31% in 1975. A decades-long rise in single motherhood and a growing number of families with children with disabilities—who often struggle to find providers equipped for specialized care—have added further pressure.

“The reality is that because this country hasn’t invested in a childcare infrastructure that is flexible and affordable and reliable, grandparents are filling in the gaps that the service system leaves behind,” Nicole Jorwic, chief program officer at the caregiving group Caring Across Generations, told NPR.

Grandparents Fill the Gap

The arrangement is not new, but its scale is. Millions of grandparents now help raise their grandchildren. A University of Michigan poll found that nearly half of respondents with grandchildren under 18 cared for them at least once every few months. According to an AARP report released in June, the top reasons grandparents provide care are that the children’s parents are working or busy and that it allows them to spend quality time with their grandchildren.

The median time grandparents spend caring for grandchildren—excluding primary caregivers and those who provide no care—is about 200 hours a year, or roughly 3.8 hours a week, AARP data shows. The organization estimated that grandparents provide around $731 billion worth of unpaid caregiving annually, a figure that climbs to roughly $903 billion when direct financial support to grandchildren is included.

Madonna Harrington Meyer, a Syracuse University sociology professor who studies aging and grandparenting, said parents often prefer the arrangement because they already share parenting philosophies with their own parents and because the care comes at little or no cost. “But perhaps the biggest benefit is that they are so flexible,” she told NPR, noting that grandparents can come to the child’s home or alternate locations—flexibility a formal daycare rarely offers.

A Sacrifice, Not Just a Joy

The benefits run both ways. One study found that grandparents who provided care scored higher on memory and verbal fluency tests. Yet caregiving is still work, and for older people who have already raised children—and who may face their own health issues—the burden can be significant. It can take a physical toll and cut into social lives, especially for those who relocate away from friends.

The trade-offs are economic as well. More than 11.7 million Americans age 65 and older were in the labor force as of August 2026, according to government data, reflecting that older workers are staying on the job longer—often in tension with childcare demands. Yalanda Lattimore, 59, an Atlanta blogger and podcaster who provides “granny daycare” for her 1-year-old granddaughter one and a half days a week, described the choice as a career sacrifice. “I felt like I could make the sacrifice more than they could, and it truly has been a sacrifice,” she said. “You just put things on hold, because your priorities are different.”

Harrington Meyer said she has heard similar complaints from grandparents who spend so much time in a parenting role that they have less room for the carefree fun long considered a reward of grandparenthood. Parents, meanwhile, face their own anxiety: arrangements built on goodwill can change at any time, leaving families scrambling for backup care.

The Policy Question

The reliance on grandparents has rekindled a political debate. During the 2024 presidential campaign, JD Vance suggested that more grandparents could provide free childcare as a solution to high costs. Critics countered that not all grandparents can or wish to provide care, that many older Americans need care themselves, and that the idea does nothing to address the lack of public investment in childcare.

Some jurisdictions have moved in the opposite direction. New Mexico made childcare free for most families in 2022, and candidates in New York have proposed universal childcare and expanded pre-K. The affordability squeeze extends beyond childcare: a September 2026 U.S. Conference of Mayors survey ranked housing, groceries, and utilities as the top concerns for families.

The figures underscore the scale of the affordability question. A LendingTree analysis found that caring for an infant and a 4-year-old costs an average of $28,190 nationwide—a sum that would require household income of more than $400,000 a year to meet the widely used 7% affordability benchmark.

What to Watch

For now, grandparents remain the de facto safety net for a childcare system that many families find out of reach. Whether that arrangement endures depends on two things: how much further costs climb, and whether policymakers act to build the flexible, affordable system that caregivers say is missing. Until then, the burden—and the joy—will continue to fall disproportionately on an older generation that is, in many cases, still working itself.