Everybody knows it’s harder to be a parent than a grandparent. As a grandparent you can rest between visits and live your own life. You’re not with your grandchildren all the time, and even if you are, you’re not carrying the primary responsibility. That’s an advantage.
But there’s another plus that creates a storehouse of rewards for grandparents, and that’s our vantage point. Observing our grandchildren is like viewing from the balcony, and what a view! Our perspective is so clear; we see the whole person, their nature, their character.
Parents sit closer, supervising, correcting, and directing each move. (Stand still, don’t forget your manners, go to bed, wake up, clean your room, finish your vegetables, and so on.) Parents do the real work, full-time, 24/7. They carry the primary load of raising children from infancy to adulthood, personally (and financially) supporting their physical, emotional, social, and mental development. Whew! But watching our grandchildren from a distance, with space and time in between, gives us a different appreciation of the individual. I learn a great deal from my observations and from spending time with them. Camp Grandma has changed me. Here are some more lessons I’ve learned:
With few exceptions, I never lived in the present before my grandchildren came along. I was always revisiting, reliving, reviewing, and reminiscing about the past, or planning, goal setting, visualizing, and working for some point in the future. What a joy to live in the moment! My grandchildren captivate me; I can patiently watch them for hours—their appearance and mannerisms, their expressions, their movements. I see glimpses of recognizable DNA: their parents, my father, my mother, my grandparents, but in a new and unique person. I see bits of me as I was in my youth, and I can relive those times in the present. I learn about myself from observing the ways we are both alike and different.
What struck me first at Camp Grandma is that I don’t move the way I used to (when I was younger), but they sure do. I watch my grandchildren in constant movement, and it brings back memories of the energy, physical strength, and stamina in me that I took for granted as a young girl. There is never an idle moment for them, either physically or mentally. Even when they are quiet, their brains are working, focused on the task at hand, be it coloring and writing or just running about. Oh, how I wish I had that energy now! And actually, I do have some of it back now, just from being around them.
I also marvel at their innocence. They are so trusting. The wisdom of my years doesn’t quite substitute for the beauty in their open and less skeptical natures. There is authenticity in everything they do. I’d like to tap into the tender heart I, too, once had. They remind me of how it feels to be unguarded and enthusiastic about the simplest things in life. I now try to see things through their eyes and take a fresh look at what I may have been missing. I know this sounds trite, but they awaken my inner child. I experience many things again as if for the first time when I am with them. Who thought Disneyland could be so much fun again?
It seems I pay more attention to everything now, like eating a snow cone on a hot summer day or feeling the beat of a song and jumping up to dance whenever I feel like it. As if relishing the comfort of a cool breeze, I am more mindful of each moment, less on autopilot in their company. In requiring my attention, which I am so happy to give, they remind me to pay attention to other happy things too.
I can honestly say that for the first time, in the company of my grandchildren, I have learned to live in the present. They are wonderful role models for me.
Caring less about what others think is a load off my shoulders. Parents of young children are often judged by the behavior of their children—or misbehavior, as the case may be. They get that judgmental glare of disapproval from others that says, Can’t you control your child? This can feel to the mom or dad like people think they’re a lousy parent. When my children were young, I was sensitive to what others thought of my parenting. I bought into the belief that children were a reflection of their parents. Well, the fact is that’s not necessarily so.
When children have a mind of their own or have some developmental issue going on, they can’t always behave as adults wish them to. Circumstances may be beyond their control. If and when my grandchildren behave badly (crying or being disruptive on occasion when they were younger), I tune out other people unless they offer to help. I focus all my energy on my grandchild who needs my attention. I try to mitigate the situation as quickly as possible, sometimes leaving the place, so as to not disturb others, but now I do that out of courtesy and not because I fear others’ judgment. I no longer feel performance anxiety. I also try extra hard not to judge others as quickly, especially without knowing the details. I realize that the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, critiques of parenting abilities by others can be painful, but fortunately not to me anymore. What a relief.
Is our development determined by heredity or life experiences? As a parent, I believed in nurture over nature, and hoped that I could mold and shape my children as I saw fit. But as I watched my children grow up, I began to reconsider my position. Now with the time I have spent with my grandchildren, I tend to favor the nature theory. It almost seems that they come into the world as they were meant to be—with maybe a few adjustments. We can certainly influence and give guidance, but I don’t believe you can change a person’s nature. Your best bet is not to even try.
Instead, at Camp Grandma I prefer to work to understand who they are and bring out their best traits. I support and nourish their interests and passions rather than ask them to adhere to any preconceived notion I may have as to their outcome. This is about acceptance, not trying to change people. An Ayurvedic doctor that I see regularly, who is Hindu and also a friend, once gave me this example of how to manage people. “Consider a mountain; you’re not going to move it. You’ll appreciate it for what it is and find ways to get around it or over it or through it, but it remains a mountain, as it should. You can learn about that mountain, see its beauty, and experience what it has to offer. It’s the same with people.”
He went on to give me good advice. “Do the best you can and let go. Disengage from the outcome. You are not in charge of how they turn out.” I can understand this now, but I don’t think I would have accepted that as a young parent. Then I felt the future of my children was under my control. I was too focused on the results of my parenting, willing to take credit for their brilliance or assuming the blame for any failure. I’m so glad I see things differently now. I like my seat in the balcony.
In my family I saw immediate differences between my four grandchildren. Jack and Lauren are pleasers, outgoing, and social; Jake and Katie quieter, more content to play alone. One is highly sensitive and artistic, one a caretaker and people manager, another very creative and cooperative, and the other very intellectually focused and marching to his own drummer.
This isn’t to say they don’t share many characteristics; it’s just that some characteristics are more dominant. I vividly remember an outing with Lauren (our caretaker) when she was just three years old. Lauren, her brother Jake, and I were at a local market and bakery. It was a bit crowded at the bakery counter, so after they pointed to the donuts they wanted, I asked them to go sit at a table nearby (where I could see them) and wait for me while I paid. Jake promptly found a table and sat down.
What I saw next was amazing. Lauren went to the table next to Jake and began dragging a chair over to where he was sitting. At first I didn’t understand what she was doing. Then I got it. Without saying a word, she immediately recognized there were only two chairs at the table Jake chose. She then took it upon herself to make sure I had a chair too. Even many adults don’t think to do that, but here was a three-year-old excited to get her chocolate donut, yet with the presence of mind to notice a chair was missing and that I would need one. She did it automatically and never mentioned it. If I hadn’t been watching them and seen with my own eyes what she did, I would have assumed the third chair was already there.
Was she born that way?
Dominant tendencies and inborn traits are what make children unique and who they are. I don’t know how they got them, but I do know that such personality traits were noticeable practically from the moment they were born. I came to acknowledge this more fully as I grew as a grandmother.
Nature versus nurture? There is no way to forecast the development or the outcome of an individual’s life. All I hope to do as a grandparent is offer my best traits in their presence and to appreciate them for who they are.
Something else I’ve learned from spending alone time with my grandchildren is how it feels to be free, to be completely myself. I don’t have to pretend or meet others’ expectations. With my grandchildren I am comfortable in their open and loving company to express myself, act out in funny ways, sing and dance when I feel like it—although all of them are quick to remind me not to do it in public. (Other than that, I have no PC police looking over my shoulder.) I don’t have to impress anyone with my résumé or worry about how my hair looks or whether I’m dressed fashionably. They accept me for the person I am and actually like me for it (even if I do have “coffee breath” sometimes, as Lauren points out). Lucky me.
With them, I find I laugh out loud more often. I remember vividly when Jack was very young, getting him buckled in his car seat was always a challenge for me. I would be leaning over, fumbling around, and he would start laughing at my ineptitude. That of course would get me going, and before I knew it we were both cracking up! It was so nice not having to make excuses for myself or to defend my lack of experience. I struggled doing it, and it was just plain funny. Although I’m much better at managing car seats now, I still laugh at the memory.
Getting along with adults requires more finesse and diplomacy, and as a people pleaser I tend to suspend some aspects of my personality depending on the people I’m with. Maybe that will change as I continue to revel in being who I am more and more with the grandkids. It’s quite relaxing and enjoyable, really, to feel free to be more myself regardless of the context.
To love so completely and yet be able to let go can be one of the hardest things in the world. If you spend a lot of time with your grandchildren and help with childcare, you are deeply involved in their daily schedule; you know what they eat, when they sleep, poop, play, and so on. You are in their lives so fully, and then you must part at the end of the day. Even though you are ready to go and return to your life, it can be painful to disengage. But you go because you know they are not yours.
My daughter-in-law shows her compassion for this, I think, as she frequently texts me with pictures of the children and stories about what they are doing when I’m not with them. This is her saying to me, We’re okay and we’re thinking of you too. This is very thoughtful and sweet of her to do. I am so grateful. Without my saying anything, she understands my separation anxiety and how much I miss them.
What else have I learned as a grandma? I’ve learned to recognize all the special ways people can say I love you without saying a word:
Experiencing the complete joy of Lauren running into my arms when I used to pick her up from preschool and her ongoing trust that I will always be there to “catch” her.
The comfort in knowing that even as a teenager, Jack still wants to spend time with me. Recently he asked that we “stay in touch and hang together more often.” As if he had to ask.
The delight in hearing Katie always rush to open the door when I arrive and greet me with her loving smile and big hug.
And the feeling of belonging when I first see Jake. He barely looks up at me when I walk in the door, as if to say, No big deal. Grandma’s here, as she should be.