I had the unusual opportunity of a practice run at being a grandparent. When I was living in London in 2006, one of my adult students, Olivia, Ugandan by birth, chose me to be her ‘adopted’ mother. Back in Kampala, she had been a street child, staying in a lean-to church refuge. A Lutheran priest there had recognised her abilities and sponsored her education right through to university. He died just before she graduated. She did not know where her mother was.
Olivia won a scholarship to the School for Social Entrepreneurs in London, where I was the director of teaching and learning in the first few years of my post-political life. She founded and ran a small not-for-profit in East London. I came to admire her tenacity, optimism and commitment to making life better for the children of African parents with HIV/AIDS in East London. One of the services she designed was for volunteers to visit their homes to help with meals and homework, to keep the children living a home routine and attending school as regularly as possible.
The two of us clicked. Olivia involved me in her work and invited me to her home for huge Ugandan meals. I’ve definitely had more than my share of green banana, goat meat and pan-fried flatbreads. A year after completing her studies, she asked me to be her birth partner. I felt a sense of panic, which only increased as the due date approached. But, as it turned out, it was a bonus that I was there to intervene after three days of intermittent labour. ‘And who are you?’ asked the bossy midwife. ‘My mother,’ said Olivia. ‘Stepmother,’ said her Ugandan partner. After another twelve hours of induction overnight and an emergency caesarean just before the morning change of shift, I was the only one left standing to welcome into the world the shrivelled little human, to be named Gavin. I tried to speak in a soothing voice; I dressed him and made sure he got something to drink. I felt as if we bonded there and then. I stayed with Gavin and his parents in their home for the first two weeks, then visited every second day. Needless to say, we were all much better prepared for the birth of his brother David a little more than a year later, when I was once again the birth partner.
We remain very close to this day, even if we have only communicated via Skype during these past four years since they returned to Uganda and then back to London. The many photographs I have of them as babies and toddlers, the outings I took them on because their parents couldn’t afford to, all of that has become an important part of our shared family folklore. This year I sent them money for a trip to the movies, including treats to eat, an indulgence beyond their current family budget.
In 2012, the news that I was to become an actual blood grandmother caught me by surprise. I had a busy academic life in Sydney, punctuated by spots of political commentary. My daughter, twenty-eight, had been with her partner for six years and they had married in late December 2010. I had presumed the usual marriage–house–child timeline would be followed. So when I was emailed a photo of a scan, I had to look closely several times before I could join the dots. I was completely unprepared. Especially in my head, I was not ready. I hadn’t allowed my thoughts to wander there. So I disappointed them immediately by saying, ‘Really?’ My first selfish thoughts were: ‘How will I fit this into my busy life? How can I find emotional space for this in my head?’ Those of us who’ve had a child often say ‘wait and see how you feel’ to new parents who insist they’ll be going back to work soon after giving birth. I needed to take my own advice: I too needed to wait and see.
My daughter was quite ill for the first several months of the pregnancy, so all attention was focused on helping her to cope and to continue working. I was invited to attend various scans but didn’t. It was their baby, not mine. Despite my daughter saying I should feel free to be involved only as much as I wanted to be, I did feel just a little pressure to participate more in the pregnancy. I was happy, though, to accompany her and support her for non-standard appointments, such as a cervical ‘sweep’ for overdue babies—a painful experience for my daughter.
I had the whooping-cough vaccinations now required by those planning to be in contact with newborns, and thought about what I might choose to be called as a grandmother, if I weren’t already given a unique name by my grandchild. Despite researching various cultural alternatives, I settled on Nanna, after my own, who was very warm and loving. I also instinctively chose a teddy bear as a birth present and it has been that grandchild’s favourite sleeping companion for the last seven years.
Throughout the pregnancy, I consciously paid more attention to friends and family who had been grandparents for a while. I observed two trends: firstly, the expectation that grandma/grandpa would be very available to babysit while parents worked, and secondly, that one could easily morph into being a grandparent first and foremost, at the expense of one’s previous persona. I particularly didn’t want the latter to happen to me. There would be no brag books proffered without invitation, no constant references to my grandchild in conversations with others.
The length of my daughter’s labour mirrored mine, and Toby was born at ten p.m—the same time his mother had been born! Having waited outside all day, I was shocked at my son-in-law’s first words to me when he emerged, beaming, from the birthing suite: ‘Mum, he’s got your nose!’ A face palm emoji would adequately capture my response. I hadn’t quite realised at the time just how significant this nose business was for him—he is Samoan and was expecting to see a flat nose on his son. Toby’s nose looked pretty flat to me. I could see only his paternal grandfather looking back at me. How amazing, then, that Toby and I do indeed now share a nose shape and even the occasional simultaneous nose bleed.
In the days following his birth, he didn’t sleep much, didn’t cry either, just kept his bright little eyes open wide, taking in the sounds and lights of the world around him. Over the coming months, like most grandparents, I couldn’t see enough of him. I melted in adoration, along with his parents, at all his milestones: the eyes looking straight back at you, the first smile, the ‘language’ and all the rest. And he has me to thank for recognising his growing appetite and moving him onto solids sooner than his mother had planned. The moment he took my hand in his to guide his first spoonful of cereal into his mouth, then reached hungrily for more, is a powerful memory for me and his parents.
I continued to work full-time and added ‘Nanna Time’ to my list of things to fit into my life.
My uncle and my father often told me how much I reminded them of my maternal grandfather—not physically, but because of my interest in politics and talking about politics from a very young age. As a child, I wasn’t aware that my grandfather was asked to be a political candidate for Labor in a Hunter Valley coalfields seat in the late 1940s. He decided that he preferred to run campaigns instead, which he did successfully for a decade. I am the only one of his six grandchildren to have inherited that interest. He died when I was just eleven and I regret now that I never got to have an adult political conversation with him, and that he didn’t get to see my election to parliament.
Imagine how my attention was piqued when, at age four, Toby turned the pages of the newspaper and proceeded to ask a few questions about what he could see. Then, at six, he looked up from whatever he was doing and asked me to explain the ‘breaking news’ story on the news channel. Simplifying international events and describing Donald Trump was a challenge, and often the chance for a bit of fun. But did my genes play any role in his success in the public-speaking contest in kindergarten and then in Grade One? And in the fact that he really likes doing it? I can only smile, enjoy his enjoyment of it and hope to explain, over time, concepts like fairness and justice and equality, in ways that might matter to his young life. I had no success in talking him out of choosing Godzilla as his ‘A day in the life of…’ project. But what would I know? He won the school event (beating children in a class above him) because he knew his subject and was able to speak and engage with enthusiasm.
Once a week, my neighbour (who has no children) and I go to the delightful little public school nearby, to help with reading in Toby’s class. There are grandparents’ afternoon teas and special assemblies to attend—I even fill in for my daughter at Parents’ and Citizens’ meetings when she can’t attend. I’m also enrolled in training to become an ethics teacher. I have come to realise how much Toby enjoys my involvement in his school life, and it reminds me that I wasn’t able to do as much for my daughter when she was at school at his age. Thank goodness I have replaced that previous clutter of city life with a clearer mind and deeper thinking, and have made myself more available!
Several factors—the cost of housing in Sydney, the need for my daughter to revert to part-time work when their child was born, as well as my wanting to downscale my work responsibilities—all led to our joint decision to move to the Hunter Valley, where I was born and grew up and where my daughter spent many happy school holidays with her maternal grandparents and cousins. We were going to pool our resources and design our own version of intergenerational living.
First we had to find a house with the right skeleton for renovation. A backyard for children to play in was important. In the process of house-hunting, we were astonished to discover just how many big old backyards had been subdivided—to make a buck, no doubt. Eventually, we found the right one to renovate so that we had a single common wall that had a secure locked door, two small decks for me, two large common decks, and space for me well beyond the standard granny-flat specifications. As we had already shared a two-bedroom unit for a few months prior to moving, the challenges of living together during the renovations seemed minor.
Shared rituals of childhood are important. My sister and I still talk of things we did together, particularly catching the (steam) train to stay the weekend with Nanna and Pop. I may be only on the other side of the hard-to-keep-locked door if I’m needed, but on most Saturdays, Toby and I celebrate ‘Nanna Night’. He comes over to sleep in my bed and we play cards, read, watch a movie or even play the dreaded Minecraft together on our individual screens. I am not very good at it and he patiently takes my screen and catches me up with the action. In the morning we have ‘French Breakfast’: croissants and hot chocolate with a marshmallow or two on top.
Toby had our undivided love and attention until, when he was almost five, little Isobel was born. It reminded me of when I was at a prenatal class, preparing for the birth of my first child, and the instructor told those expecting their second child that, even though they were wondering if they could love a second one as much as their first, it would take just one look to fall in love all over again. As it was for me with my grandchildren.
Isobel’s impending arrival was announced to me via Toby’s T-shirt: I’m an only child…until February. Her birth was swift and natural. Toby (who had wanted to be present) and I arrived about an hour afterwards. When Toby was born, a carload of excited rellies, including his great-grandmother, made a two-hour trip down to the Sydney hospital, arriving by nine a.m. the next morning. This time we all left the local hospital within six hours of the birth and gathered at Isobel’s great-grandmother’s house, so the new baby could meet her extended maternal family. My mother is ninety-seven and delighted to be around to meet her newest great-grandchildren. Toby is particularly close to her and has enjoyed her teaching him to play card games, especially Strip Jack Naked, which was so useful for his developing maths skills. It seemed right for us all to celebrate Isobel’s birth with my mother, and it was an especially lovely time.
We’re quite a matriarchal family, so raising an active, single-minded boy had been a new challenge. Isobel would be more familiar, we thought.
Two years and four months later, Izzy and I have developed our own rituals born of her interests. We tour the garden looking for ripe strawberries to pick and eat; we lie on the grass looking up at the sky and describe what we can see; she raids the drawer of my bedside table. On the mornings when she leaves for preschool she calls out, ‘Bye, Nanna. Have a day!’
Intergenerational living that allows for separate spaces is a distinctly twenty-first-century evolution. In the past, many couples who, of necessity, started out living with their parents never had private space for themselves. How has this version worked for me? Most of my friends say they couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do it. My nieces say they couldn’t do it. It definitely has its moments. My daughter has developed her ‘Back off, Mum!’ response for the bigger issues. Disagreements with a son-in-law are more complex. Fortunately, there aren’t many of those. He has told others that he thinks it’s a positive for his children that I am there.
I had naively expected to be able to maintain similar levels of privacy, space and time for reading and watching my favourite television programs as I had had before we moved in ‘together’. Not so. The lockable door handle on the common door has had to be reinforced, but Isobel, especially, is quick as lightning to get out of her back door and across to mine whenever she feels a deliberate barrier has been placed in her way. Toby can usually find the key.
But who could ignore a little face at the raised flap of the cat door, calling ‘Nanna!’, when, on nights her family has gone to bed early, this two-year-old has negotiated the hallway on her side, in darkness? Not me. Such things are precious memories. And anyway, before you know it, grandchildren are at school, gone during the day.
In some ways, I feel as if I’m reliving aspects of parenthood: always picking up children’s clothes and toys left on the floor, sweeping up ever-present crumbs, sharing a shower. Once a week, I cook a meal, a roast or osso bucco, or a hearty winter stew, and they visit ‘Nanna’s house’ to eat dinner together. We started out eating most meals together, but I now prefer a quieter ambience, so to speak. I come and go, with some travel and the occasional teaching day or two. Homecomings are still greeted with excitement and hugs. And, maybe, a treat from me.
So, five years on, apart from my proximity to what my doctor describes as a ‘perfect germ factory’ and thus more viruses than ever in my life, the trade-offs have been worth it. I am already there on birthdays and for Xmas. And, as I am present in so much of my grandchildren’s lives, I can also witness all the important little things. Yes, I’m often called on to babysit, but no more so than in most families, I suspect. Because I am already there, they sometimes come into my bed early in the morning for snuggles, and we can have a spontaneous swim at the beach, or I can help with homework.
Best of all, though, is when they draw pictures of their family and there’s always a smiling Nanna.