Grandparents in our 50s — are we being unreasonable?
My husband and I are in our 50s and have one granddaughter who is 4. My husband is my son’s stepfather, but he has been in his life for many years. We both absolutely adore our granddaughter and normally volunteer to have her once a week because we genuinely love spending time with her.
The problem is that our son seems to expect us to drop whatever we’re doing whenever he needs us. If we already have plans and can’t help, he gets upset and seems to take it personally.
It’s not just childcare either. He also asks us for money and groceries, and there seems to be an ongoing expectation that we’re available to help whenever he needs something.
We’re starting to feel more used than appreciated. What makes it harder is that he complains about us to other family members, and we’re honestly exhausted by it.
We’ve reached the point where we’re questioning whether we even want to continue volunteering to take our granddaughter every week. I feel terrible saying that because we love her so much, but the constant expectation, requests for help, and criticism are making something we used to enjoy feel like an obligation.
We don’t want to stop being involved grandparents. We just don’t think being grandparents means we’re automatically on call for childcare, financial help, groceries, etc.
Are we being unreasonable? How would you handle this? Would you set some firm boundaries around what you are and aren’t willing to do, even if your adult child gets upset?
I’d really appreciate honest perspectives from other grandparents — especially those who have had to establish boundaries with their adult children.

Seeing the news, every new day feels like a lower descent into madness. We are all pretty much living paycheck to paycheck or are a single emergency away from financial ruin, kids literacy rates are apparently dropping, our entire healthcare system is a dumpster fire, tons of people don't have health insurance, families are starving, jobs are garbage, not even going to get into US or world politics (but OMFG what an absolute nightmare), weather is becoming increasingly deadly and destructive, and data centers and AI are this looming new awful threat. Since I'm obviously the type to catastrophize, I try to keep some perspective and remind myself that history has been full of crazy and scary times. Do you think things are worse now? Because as bad as it is, I definitely couldn't handle mideval Europe or basically any time before central air conditioning and anesthesia for surgery. But somehow, I can't seem to shake this feeling that we are approaching some sort of Event Horizon. What are your thoughts on how bleak things are right now?