My children have spent a good deal of time this past year with their grandparents. My parents live 30 minutes from our family. My wife’s parents live a thousand miles away. But, our kids will get to see my wife’s parents three times this year, including Christmas at our home. The kids get to spend the night with my parents once in a while, too.
When I look back at my childhood, I know that these times with grandparents are important. I lost my maternal grandparents when I was six-years-old, my paternal grandfather when I was seven-years-old, and my paternal grandmother when I was twelve. My kids don’t know how important these memory making times are for them. I thank God that they have all of their grandparents. I also thank God that they are building great memories of these times.
I appreciate how important the role of grandparenting is to the young child. My children adore their grandparents. My son follows both of his grandfathers everywhere they go. My daughter thinks the sun, moon, and stars orbit around her grandmothers. They love to hear stories about their grandparents as they were growing up. I think they love even more to hear their grandparents tell them stories of my wife and me as children.
My son is learning things from his grandfathers that he cannot learn from me. My son is fascinated with hunting. I don’t hunt, but both of his grandfathers have hunted. They can tell him stories about tracking a deer or an elk and making the kill that simply leave him in awe. His grandfathers show my son their rifles or knives and he admires these men in his life who have provided for their families through hunting.
My daughter is learning things from her grandmothers, too. She helps them cook, or bake cookies. She loves to spend the night with my mom, and my mom will paint my daughter’s fingernails. Grandma buys her pretty dresses. Granny (my wife’s mother) got her a jewlery box for her birthday.
It is amazing to me how my son gravitates to his grandfathers while my daughter gravitates to her grandmothers. They seem to have that inate sense of maleness or femaleness, and they have turned to their grandparents in affirmation of that sense.
Over Thanskgiving week, we traveled to my in-laws home. There, the kids got to run wild in their grandparent’s home. My son got to shoot rubber band guns that his Grampa had made. The kids got to play board games with their grandparents -- and my kids even played by the rules, without cheating!! We got to go into the woods and decorate a tree with pinecone ornaments dipped in peanut butter and bird seed, popcorn, and berries for the deer and rabbits to feast on. The kids got to ride in “Dead Red,” the family van that was built the same year my wife was born. Dead Red is a family legend, and the kids enjoyed riding in the legend. They searched for golf balls at the golf course adjacent to my in-laws house (and they found a couple to keep).
We live in an age when children do not have the benefit of generational parenting. Often, families live far apart and cannot get together frequently. Our world is different from biblical times, when families lived in close proximity and a community was responsible for raising children into adulthood. I did not get to experience much of this generational parenting because my grandparents died when I was so young. My younger sister was too young to have any memories of her materal grandparents or her paternal grandfather. So I thank God for the blessings he is giving to my children. I also thank God that I can watch my parents show love to my children. As with all families, our family made mistakes and I didn’t always feel the love of both of my parents. But, as I watch my parents interact with love toward my children, I too am blessed.
