She is eight years old. She is tall and thin. Her arms and legs are long. Good coordination is yet to be achieved. She has dark brown eyes and olive skin. Her hair is long, black and curly.
I met her in Chicago, a squalling bundle of energy who, for this story, I’ll call GR. Her mother, my daughter, had been in a birthing suite at Chicago University Medical Centre for thirty-six gruelling hours with pre-eclampsia, a baby who did not want to be born, and a severe asthma attack due to the stress of it all. In the tense minutes following birth, GR’s medical team forced her to deal with the world. She clearly did not much like what she saw and expressed herself with an ear-piercing wail of outrage. ‘Give her to her grandmother,’ a nurse said. The sudden quiet made the medicos look up but GR and I took no notice: we were having a getting-to-know-you spiritual moment gazing into each other’s eyes. I thought she said, I know you.
Four years later, I told her: ‘When you were born you looked into my eyes and said, “I know you.”’
‘Could I talk already?’ the child-of-practical-mind replied.
During the four years after her birth, I saw GR only twice before the family came back to Australia: country New South Wales to Chicago is over half a world away in more than one respect. We met in Sorrento, Italy, for five days, when she was two and a half, and a small connection was forged, but she was so supervised by her parents and so attached to her father there was little room in her life for extra people at that time.
The next time was the day they returned to Australia. They were last off the plane, this small family. We watched them walk past the windows in the off-ramp, my daughter and son-in-law carrying the things needed for a twenty-four-hour trip with a four-year-old. As they rounded the bend into the empty arrivals hall, GR saw us waiting, her grandfather almost hidden by a giant white teddy bear, and she practically flew towards us. I dropped down to her level and propped myself against her grandfather’s leg; even then her momentum almost knocked me over. So there we were, all hugged up, and she didn’t know how to disengage. Why don’t you say hello to Grandpa now gave her permission to let go.
Other people’s expectations can, at times, get in the way of forging relationships. Until I had my own daughter, forty years ago, I’d had little to do with babies or toddlers, and I still don’t find them interesting. ‘Play with her,’ GR’s parents urged. ‘I don’t play with babies,’ I said, and a small rift opened.
When GR and her parents returned to Australia, they stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Was I an instant grandmother? I tried, but the child was unknown territory. There was also, with the best of intentions, arbitration between GR and myself and I found I rather resented being manipulated into doing things not of my own choosing. The dinner table was dominated by a shrill, loud, young voice that was encouraged to speak, but which did not form words clearly at times, and the child was always the focus of attention.
My own granddaughter-hood was with a strict middle-England Methodist grandmother who, I know, loved me dearly, but believed the child was part of a family, not the centre; as did my own mother; as do I.
I believe this for more than one reason, but the main one is that if, in a family, all the attention goes to the child, the main relationship cannot help but be compromised. When the child—particularly an only child who does not have to share attention with siblings—is always prioritised, what happens to the vital relationship between the parents? How does the child understand and learn about kind and loving relationships that do not focus solely on her/himself? The parents’ relationship is the basis on which the child, when an adult, will model their own emotional life; she/he must be able to see their day-to-day affectionate and caring interaction and know this is love. I was caring for GR not long after they came back to Australia, as her mother was working in the USA for three months and commuting every few weeks to have time at home. Her father worked full-time, so I filled the gap for a while.
I wondered why she wanted to watch me dress or shower, then realised there had been no older people in her life so far, and she had never seen an ageing body. She was fascinated by my breasts and her hand crept out, then pulled back. ‘You can touch if you want to,’ I said. She did.
‘Does it feel like Mumma’s?’ It did.
Her finger traced the nipple areola. But that didn’t.
‘Thank you, Glennie,’ she said, and giggled, very aware that this was stretching personal contact boundaries.
‘You’re welcome.’
Her interest in my body continued for some time.
‘Let me see your teeth,’ she said, and I gave her a big smile.
‘Why aren’t they really white?’
‘Your teeth get old too,’ I said. ‘They can change colour.’
She touched the spot under my chin, fascinated by its softness.
‘Please don’t do that, GR.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t like it and I want you to stop.’
She understood that reason; being in control of your own body and not letting someone touch it if you didn’t want it was already ingrained in her awareness of herself. Those weeks of caring for GR were an eye-opener for me. Wisely, her parents had enrolled her in childcare for a few hours most weekdays. Even so, being one-on-one with a little person I didn’t know was challenging: the move to a new country and her mother’s absence for two or three weeks at a time meant she was highly vulnerable. I found an early bath, and lots of stuff to play with in the water, was useful. I planned as many outings as were possible in Canberra in summer—movies, a kids’ event at the War Memorial, a couple of live-theatre shows for preschoolers.
Walking from the car park to the theatre one day, I realised we hadn’t talked about what to do if we were separated for whatever reason. We sat down on a street bench.
‘GR, what would you do if you couldn’t find me in a crowd of people?’
Silence. Thinking. ‘I’d ask an adult to find you.’
‘Just any adult?’
‘No. A policeman. Or another lady.’
‘Okay. But how would they know who to look for?’
More thinking. ‘I’d tell them you’re wearing black jeans and a white shirt.’
‘Like that?’ I pointed to a young girl walking past wearing a David Jones uniform.
‘No-o! I’d say that you have very white hair and are very, very old!’
So that was sorted, then! And I completely understood that, to a four-year-old child, I was indeed very, very old.
‘I really must remember to bring my walking stick next time.’
‘You don’t use a walking stick, silly Glennie,’ the practical child said.
‘No, I don’t. I was just joking.’
‘But that’s not funny.’
The turning point of acceptance came after I’d been at her house for a week.
Each morning she didn’t want her father to leave for work, but on this day it was particularly difficult for him to get out the door. There was much crying and hanging onto him by GR, until I said, ‘Just go. I’ll take care of it.’
She stood on the balcony screaming, ‘Don’t go, Daddy, don’t go!’ as he rode his bicycle down the road. How hard it must have been for him to keep pedalling. How abandoned she must have felt at that moment. I picked her up, lifted her inside (no mean feat considering her height and my lack of such) and shut the door.
‘It’s really tough sometimes, isn’t it, when someone has to leave and you don’t want them to.’
Her reaction surprised me. She threw herself onto me and clung on, but the emotion gradually abated and we talked a little about leaving and returning: ‘He always comes home at night, doesn’t he?’ I realised that I was not only referring to her father going to work for the day, but to her mother, who had commitments in another country that had to be fulfilled. For a child, the two to three weeks away each time must have seemed a lifetime. ‘And Mumma, she will always come home, even though it seems to be a long time. I promise you she will.’
‘Pinky-promise,’ she said, and we solemnly hooked little fingers. I knew this was a promise I could keep.
She was fine with a different discipline from what she was used to. I was much more lenient in some things and tougher in others.
Walking in the city one day, I could see her shoes were hurting her. ‘Take them off and carry them,’ I said.
‘I can take them off?’
‘Sure.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Just watch where you walk.’ And she skipped along the hot pavement with bare feet, doing ballet poses.
The other side:
‘GR, please put away all the stuff you took out of the cupboard. Now, please, before dinner.’
A reluctant crawl towards a room of chaos, and an attempt at negotiation from this stubborn Taurus kid.
‘I’ll do this bit, and you can do that over there.’
‘GR, you made the mess, and it’s your responsibility to clean it up.’
‘But we have to help each other!’
This was a tough one: how to teach responsibility and helpfulness at the same time?
‘I’m helping by making your dinner. So, do you want to eat or do you want me to help put things away?’
She actually considered these alternatives, and I prepared myself to let her go to bed unfed, but she decided food was the better choice. My credo of carrying through something I have set up obviously needs more thought when giving choices!
On a hot day in Canberra, that first summer after they returned, my daughter and I were in the back garden, where GR was ‘going nudey’ under the sprinkler spray. She went inside to get my hat for me, then bounced back down the steps into the garden; her tall body and thin legs and arms making her look like a flying stick insect. The Akubra hat on her head was the only thing she was wearing and her long black curls flew around it. ‘Yippy-ai-ah!’ she shouted. ‘Yippy-ai-oh!’
That this child had nothing to do with older people for her first four years showed in various ways. She had to talk herself, several times, through the concept of Momma having a mother, obviously finding it unbelievable. And it took a little longer for her to accept that Momma’s momma also had one, even though she had died. Old photos helped. But once she grasped the reality—
The phone rang quite early one morning.
‘Glennie! Glennie!’
‘Hi, GR. What’s up?’
‘Momma just said bugger.’
‘Ohhhh. Really. Bad Mumma. Why are you telling me?’
‘Well, you’re her momma. You should do something.’
Daughter in the background: ‘You’re getting me into trouble.’
GR to her mother: ‘That’s what kids do.’
And then there’s GR’s grandfather, a quiet, diffident man who should have many children who have many children of their own, a man whose life should revolve around family, but to whom fate gave one child, who had one child herself.
In many ways he is a traditional grandfather, wanting a grandchild who will visit him in his workshop and be interested in making things. He wants a close relationship with this rather unusual child. He takes her to school when he’s in town and, on the first time, GR introduced him to her teacher, which made him happy. He has picked her up from preschool and school on occasions.
He leaves chocolate frogs in the fridge whenever he goes to her house; when she occasionally visits us, he takes her to the beach sometimes. He tells her dad-jokes, but because she doesn’t understand them she finds them rather disconcerting and maybe a bit threatening. She’s not used to adults joking around with her, saying things that aren’t real.
I would like her to go to him first when we arrive at her home, for him to be the one to make her smile. Even so, there is the beginning of a relationship there, but one, I fear, that is difficult at a distance and that may slip away unless nurtured. I hope, for them both, that does not happen; they need each other in a relationship that is different from any other either of them will ever have.
She is eight years old now. Her mind is always moving. Full and detailed information is her mind-food. She analyses answers until she understands, and then applies them to other situations, most times correctly. Friends and family could find her bossy. The books she reads would challenge a twelve-year-old child. She asks for mathematics and science problems to do, for fun.
GR started asking questions that seemed too complex for her age before she started preschool, where her mission in life was to organise the class at anytime, anywhere. Her mother said she seemed ahead of her age markers. And what could she do about her bossiness with other kids, she wondered. Apparently I replied, ‘What do you expect? Two pit bulls don’t breed a chihuahua.’
I imagine the person she will be when her huge IQ and her burgeoning EQ meet and become complementary. I imagine a person who is strong and a bit wild, who—as long as she has a firm home base—sees the world as her oyster, who understands that her privilege comes with responsibility to the world and acts on it. Who, because she understands herself, understands others. Why do I imagine such a person? Because she wrote this at school:
The Best Part of Me.
The best part of me is my heart. When I feel sad my heart makes me happy again. It holds my greatest secrets and is full of love. My heart makes me feel brave when I am scared. My heart is the best thing anyone could wish for. I care for my heart more than ever.
My greatest wish for her is not academic or professional achievement, for that will come anyway, but that she will understand other people’s hearts.
It’s not possible to have a close relationship at a distance, at first half a world away during those vital, bonding early years, now three hours’ drive between homes, which means—between school, parents working, everyone’s commitments—there is still not a great deal of contact, certainly not the easy, day-to-day dropping in to each other’s homes that is part of an extended family life. I feel GR considers us, her grandfather and me, not so much as family, but rather as people who happen to be around at times, even though, intellectually, she understands the connection.
Her mother keeps me in GR’s life by talking about me to her, and not letting the relationship slide away from the child’s consciousness. We occasionally talk by phone, but there is no landline in their house and GR has to use her mother’s or father’s iPhone on loudspeaker. There is no chance for a one-on-one conversation.
Even so, given that we only saw each other twice before she was four and maybe four or five times a year, briefly, since her life in Australia, we do okay most of the time.
They change so quickly, children, when you see them rarely. There she was in the birthing suite, a screaming bundle of outrage. Turn around and she’s flying down the entry tunnel at the airport. Turn around twice, a photo pings into my iPhone messages and she is in her uniform on that momentous first day of formal schooling. Turn again and she’s in Grade Two with extension classes for children who are ahead in maths and reading.
GR: ‘When are you going to die?’
‘Don’t really know. We don’t know that. Why do you ask?’ (Always a good idea to get the motivation.)
GR: ‘Well, you have to be a hundred to die. I just want to know so I can be ready.’
‘Ready for what?’
GR: ‘Ready to be sad.’
The difference now between the generations is probably more pronounced than at any time in history, and my generation of women is partly responsible, in that we told our daughters they could do anything, have it all. My heart bends when I watch my own daughter managing a demanding career that she loves, the home stuff, the child’s stuff, and little or nothing of her own stuff. We surely realise now that we have done our girls a grave disservice as we watch them juggling the ‘it all’ of work and family, with little time for self-care and social contact, and, sometimes, compensatory overzealous parenting. Michelle Obama called it correctly when she said, ‘So you can have it all? Nope, not at the same time.’ If the grandmothers are around, they pick up the slack and care for the grandkids, often to the detriment of their own lives. But maybe the problem, if we view it as such, is of our own making.
I don’t have that decision to make about how much to help with the one and only grandchild—we live too far apart. Would I take on that responsibility, if needed? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably. Of course.
I watch in admiration as her parents prepare her for adulthood in a world that will be unrecognisable to my generation: setting boundaries of behaviour that are strongly kept to, making her realise that some things may come easily for her but that she has to try, and keep on trying, when they don’t. Even so, I want to pick her up, give her a make-your-own-fun childhood, let her wildness run free, let her develop however it happens—but that world has passed and I can only do what I have already done:
‘You can phone me any time at all, GR. Any time, even if you just want to say hello and hang up.’
‘Any time? Even in the middle of the night?’
‘Any time at all. I will always answer, no matter where I am in the world. Pinky-promise.’