As a grandparent, we don't mind helping out once in a while. But when it starts to feel like free labor....
I've been lobbying the past couple of years to let the grandson come visit for a week or so in the summer. It's about an hour direct flight from DTW to Richmond. The airlines still do a decent job with unaccompanied minors . There is more than enough to keep him occupied in CW, Jamestown, Yorktown, not to mention places like NAASA in Hampton. It's also a chance for him to get to know cousins who live fairly close by. He's 12 so the time is growing short.