http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_lang/20070705.html
Being grandma is easy, but getting along with adult children requires a plan
One of my grandmothers used to say, "Life is just a series of adjustments." She said this often, while sitting in her Queen Anne chair, drumming her fingers impatiently on the chair's arm, gazing purposefully out the lacy-curtained window, as if she could make some sense out of life if she looked longer.
For many years, she was the "grandmother." Stories hinting at a young life, a young girl, a bride, a young adult, required much imagination from my point of view. All I'd ever seen was a white-haired, older woman, built like pillows stacked on a comfortable couch.
She died. Time passed. I got busy having children of my own, as did my brothers. It was my mother's turn to be the grandmother. She didn't want to be called "grandma," and instructed my children to call her "Grammy," which they did. And so, the children grew, my mother was their grandmother, and I was "mom."
This equation was fine with me. I was not "old," my mother was. It was not her job to raise my children, it was mine. We all did our best.
The usual story.
But everything is always changing. My granddaughter, who until recently liked to slowly amble along while inspecting everything, and saying to me, "Gamma, keep going," now runs everywhere, and yells back at me, "Grandma! Hurry up!"
Which brings me to the present subject. Much to my amazement, I have grandchildren. As everyone has been telling me for years, being a grandma is way more fun than being a mom.
I fall hopelessly in love with all my grandchildren. It is easy. I love being a grandma. That is easy too.
What I have found more challenging is adjusting to my adult children. As it turns out, all those parenting muscles I took so long to develop are now mostly out of date, as are a lot of my perceptions. As for memories? Well, quite a few of them are better forgotten.
This is not easy.
As far as I’m concerned, the adolescence and the childhood of all my kids was like yesterday. My memories are both acute, and accurate, according to me. Only an eye-blink ago, they were teenagers, and I remember all of their youthful escapades clearly, from my point of view, whereas they either don't remember anything, or have a completely different "take" on events. Further, they can remember things they think I did, that do not show up on my mental radar screen at all.
This sort of thing is what makes family dynamics so dynamic. We shed, store and rewrite memories constantly, according to our own needs and inclinations, without necessarily being aware to what extent we do this.
Furthermore, while I used to think it was my job as a parent to "direct traffic" to some extent concerning where they went, with whom, to do what (etc.), now it's basically none of my business, not that they need help anyway. And while I used to think my "advice" was invaluable to them (I still think this), now they either don't need it, or don't appreciate it necessarily. And this is as it should be. I was trying to raise independent children, and succeeded.
So the task for parents of adult children, I've found, is to relearn how to see our "children," and adjust to who they are now, as opposed to what they might have been as they were growing up.
As a teacher in a fairly small town, I often bump into former students, now grown up. It's often such a pleasant shock to see people I remember (like yesterday) as sullen, shifty-eyed, hormone-addled teenagers, who have transformed into pleasant, clear-eyed, mature adults complete with jobs, mates, children, lives of their own. Poof! There goes the image of the kid, replaced by the picture of a lovely adult.
With our own children, alas, this adjustment might not be so easy to make. But it must be made. All parents must make this transition from protector-guide-encourager-instructor (or whatever set of descriptors you fancy) to fellow adult. And while we're busy trying to do this, the muscles we exercise with our grandchildren aren't the same ones we used for our children either.
Millions of us are at this peculiar point in life. Our former "parenting" muscles are out of date. The time to switch gears creeps up on us, usually just shortly after we think we've finally mastered the fine art of parenting.
With regards to our children, who are no longer children, we must:
- offer to help out instead of expecting to be helped
- say nothing when really we could say a lot
- be the guest for Thanksgiving dinner instead of the host
- eat everything on our plates even if we don’t know what it is
- suspend all judgment regarding tattoos, metal, "clothes," or hair.
- store boxes of their left-behind items in the basement, instead of picking them off the floor all the time
- let their mates fuss over them more than we would normally at their birthdays
- send them infrequent postcards when we go away, and not worry about what they're doing while we're gone
- follow their orders when we babysit their kids
- never tell their children what they were like as kids, unless it's nice.
And run.
(what the hell is a playdate anyway...)
