Welcome summer, with deepening water crisis

How good are grandpas?

GRANDPARENTS are people who come to your house, spoil the children and then go home.

We recently had a month’s stay with our son’s family in USA. We have one son and he again has only one. Our single grandchild came rather late; he’s five, his father 45, myself 75.

We had a jolly good time interacting with the lively lad, playing with him, plying him with presents. Did we spoil him? It set me thinking about our role in the boy’s life.

The significance of grandparenthood evokes much interest and speculation. But it is backed by scant verification and research.

Grandparents themselves seem unable to speak of their role in anything but laudatory terms. Most speak glowingly of the joys of grandparenthood, particularly of the fun with those adorable small grandchildren. That way, "nothing makes a boy smarter than being a grandson".

In the process, grandparents may indulge their grandchildren in a way parents cannot; in fact, in ways parents may not approve. Yet this is a relationship from which grandparents derive much satisfaction. Indeed, nothing is harder on a grandparent then having to watch a grandchild being disciplined.

It is sometimes made out that such indulgence from grandparents served a salutary purpose for the grandchildren, as it functioned as a relief from the tensions caused between the parents and children by parental authority. But then, modern parents themselves are becoming permissive these days, and usually adopt an egalitarian and friendly relationship with their children. Hence children don’t need grandparents as mediators or allies against parental authority.

Many a sociologist has come to believe that in modern times, grandparenthood is "a largely inactive role" that does not bring continuing interaction into the lives of grandparents. They are just permitted to dispense certain services and material support, and to engage in certain expressive activities, yet mostly prohibited from encroaching upon the parental responsibilities of their adult children or interfere with their
authority.

These sociologists attribute this downsizing of grandparental role to the high value being placed upon the independence of the nuclear family in child rearing. Their writings create an image of grandparents as "meddlesome intruders" in family processes. The once favoured position of the grandfather and grandmother is getting undermined.

Others make out that grandparents live on the fringe of a nuclear family, so long as the family remains intact. However, in the event of a break-up or the death of a spouse, grandparents assume a vital function, providing a source of rescue or refuge for grandchildren. And grandmother often take on major household responsibilities when the mother is working or giving birth, and lend assistance in times of illness or crisis. Even economic help is sometimes given in the form of shared living arrangements. The flow of aid, particularly financial aid, is chiefly from the parents to the children, especially in the early years of the latter’s marriage.

That way, despite a decrease in joint family living, middle-class parents and their married children usually do develop a regular pattern of mutual aid in nursing care, festivities and other activities.

Where young married middle-class couples deem it important to avoid obligations and keep their independence, their parents find indirect ways of helping their married children: the most common method is to give substantial gifts to their grandchildren. Parents help their children to establish their homes and families; in return they expect their children to give them continued affection and personal attention, and to include them in some of their activities. What’s the significance of grandparenthood to grandchildren? Very few investigators have examined the grandparent-grandchild relationship, often called a magical relationship. One interesting thing
revealed in studies is that young people with grandparents and great-grandparents have fewer age prejudices than those who do not. When the grandchild sees his grandfather organising his life with meaning and purpose, the former entertains not only a certain pride in owing up the latter, but also actively indulges in even exaggerating grandpa’s busy schedule.

Studies also show that grandparents have different meanings for children at different development ages (4-5, 8-9, 11-12). The youngest group valued grandparents mainly for their indulgent qualities; the middle group preferred active, fun-sharing grandparents; and the oldest group appeared to have become distant from their grandparents. It seems, as children grow up, they grow away from their doting grandparents. In a survey where American college students were asked as to whom they deemed their most important transmitters of information, almost all named their parents during childhood and peers in adolescence. Hardly anyone made a mention of grandparents.

The changing status of grandparents, and the influence this will have on the grandparent-grandchild relationship, should be an area of emerging interest in family research.

Most grandparents appear to find the grandparent role comfortable and pleasant. They don’t hold themselves responsible for the mistakes or shortcomings of their grandchildren, but like to bask in the reflected glory when grandchildren achieve success.

Seemingly, grandparenthood is a relatively undemanding role; few, if any, clear-cut demands are made on grandparents as a category. Yet the older person has an opportunity here to create a role that is valued by the family. Such a valued role, presumably, has to be learned; it’s not something automatic and traditional.

A person who wishes to become a valued grandparent should learn to accept change, and should be able to relinquish the parent role with his children and enter into a new role with his grandchildren, a role that supplements the parental role and in no way conflicts or competes with it. The general advice is that you have to be careful not to get too tied up in your grandchildren, as it isn’t good for you or for them.

It is still to be established whether grandparents influence their grandchildren directly, or whether their influence is largely indirect (through their children in the middle generation). And here again, tension in relations with one’s adult children may often prevent a satisfactory relationship from developing between grandparents and grandchildren.

Grandparenthood is one of the few "ready-made" roles available to the ageing person at a point in his life when his former roles are lost or decrease in significance: "A man begins to show his age about the same time he begins to show pictures of his grandchildren".

When an individual retires or is widowed or exits from other roles, grandparenthood begins to assume greater importance for him. Surely grandparents look for every opportunity to play host to their grandchildren. But then small children with their pranks and noise can prove quite tiring to elderly grandparents.