Let’s not forget, either, that this is a gender issue. Most often, the grandparent doing the childcare is the grandmother. Her own pregnancies and births may have brought their own health issues. Often, she will still be working. She may have other care responsibilities, either her own parents, a partner, or offspring. For women, retirement from paid work doesn’t mean the unpaid care work stops. I’m not surprised that Carmen Díez, one of the Spanish grandmothers interviewed, enjoys her peace, saying: “I love my empty nest.”

I don’t blame older women for fighting back, and in some cases saying that they deserve a salary. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love their grandchildren, and of course there are grandmothers – and grandfathers – who would be insulted by offers of payment. But even they would acknowledge that looking after small children can be physically and emotionally draining. My son now weighs more than 18kg, and I am lifting him daily. What grandparents are able to do does have limits.

Often, grandmothers are running themselves ragged to support their own daughters’ careers – it is the mother who so often pays the penalty, career-wise, still. Dr Terri Apter, the author of Grandparenting: On Love and Relationships Across Generations, has pointed out that it’s often the feminist grandmothers who help out the most, because they know what a struggle it is.

That capitalism thrives on the unpaid domestic labour of women isn’t exactly news, but the grandparental revolt is a new manifestation of it. Love shouldn’t come with a price, but the care work that comes with love: why shouldn’t it? Why should mostly older women be propping up insufficient childcare systems?

This is of course from the same writer who said her “PTSD” was beneficial to her sons upbringing and of course nary a mention of a dad anywhere.