Quote:
Originally Posted by CArizona
Each culture and each family has different expectations when it comes to how grandparents are suppose to act...
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It is my feeling that you've sort of answered your own questions with the very correct statement above...unless you want to collect a series of narratives to capture the diversity of grandparenting experience.
If I were to take the mainstream expectations associated with the grandparent role in America, I would probably not be able to recognize my own grandparents in those, not even by a mile.
Where I was born and raised, many children had more like a set of mothers: the actual mom and at least one of the two grandmas.
I was one of those children.
Mine was NOT a modern grandmother. She was the kind who gave more than 100% of herself in raising her own children, yet somehow did not declare herself unavailable, "done" or too tired for being involved just like a mother, a second time, when she started having grandkids.
With us, she started motherhood all over again, and she wouldn't have had it any other way. She was grandmothering like a mother, along with my mom of course, and she often surpassed my mom at the job - who was glad to learn. To this day, she admits that the best things she knows she learned from her MIL.
Both my mom and my grandmother were great (I love my mom very much) but my grandmother was also sublime. She remains the human I've loved most (apart from my kids, who are a completely different experience anyway) and the one who left a tremendous void in my heart when she was gone at the age of 90.
Her eyes would always lit up when she saw us. She never did one single thing for us just out of "grandmotherly duty", as I could simpy feel her love for us grandkids all around. She cooked like the Godess of all Fine Restaurants, looked like an heiress, and loved her husband (my equally wonderful grandfather) and her entire family in a way that makes all feminist writings appear like piles of ridiculous garbage. She was certainly loved back and she knew it.
She had the happiest marriage with my grandfather, who was her definite soulmate, if there has ever been such a thing, and who was equally involved in raising us. He would take us to the park, to the market, to the dentist, to the doctor, doing homework with us, and telling us endless stories about Saudi Arabia (to this day I have no idea why Saudi Arabia as we have no relation to anything arabic
). Maybe he liked 1001 Nights...
They had us over week-ends, vacations, year in and year out, and she would often come to my parents' place during the week just to help and stay with us. My parents loved it as they had relatively heavy careers, she had a great relationship with my mom (her DIL), we loved it, everyone was darn happy. The extended family at its very best.
Today, hearing modern grandparents using the word "baby-sitting" and "fitting grandkids into their schedules", is an insult to the memory of my grandparents.
Just my experience.
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Great Gift Idea for Grandparents
