In Praise of Grandparents*
When I was very young, before the age of six, I spent many weekends with my grandparents. At bedtime, my grandmother would sit beside my bed and read to me from a book of fairy tales. I still remember, after all these years, listening intently to Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Puss and Boots and many others. Just thinking about these magical times brings tears to my eyes. I felt safe, warm and loved. As I write this, it occurs to me that my interest in the human psyche was very likely sparked by these early experiences with my grandmother. In this youth-oriented culture, we often fail to appreciate the significant contributions that grandparents make to the lives of their grandchildren and, vice versa.
Yet, in the wake of the Covid epidemic and the recent inflationary financial pressures, more children are living with their grandparents in multigenerational households. As a result, more children are spending time with their grandparents. How has this impacted grandparents and grandchildren?
It is not easy for a parent to transition to the role of a grandparent. Becoming a grandparent requires adapting to a new social role usually during late midlife. It is associated with adopting new beliefs and behaviors that may interfere with long established practices such as having a tidy home or watching TV after dinner. It requires what may be perceived as “sacrifices.”
However, in contrast to earlier American findings which implied that childcare was burdensome, a 2018 Flinders University, Australia study of 262 female and 168 male grandparents across the first two years of their transition to grandparenthood, found more time spent babysitting the grandchild was associated with improvement in mental health.
In this respect, research focusing on the association between grandparents’ use of the internet and grandchild care is instructive. The authors of the study observe that using the internet to maintain ties with families and friends helps older adults to foster family cohesion, which in turn enhances older Chinese women’s life satisfaction and health to a greater extent as compared to men. This avenue of communication is especially important for those grandmothers in rural areas whose adult children migrated to work in cities. Thus, the parent–child contact through the internet is likely to be stronger among females than males and females benefit more from internet use than males. Of course, these findings are as relevant here as they are to China.
Other studies from China where parent-grandparent coparenting is very common have found that when parents and grandparents get along, the benefits for all involved are considerable. The majority of families in this study, lived in three-generational households, and 80% of families had only one child. Mothers who maintained strong coparenting bonds with their children's grandparents, primarily grandmothers, often experienced a greater sense of effectiveness in their parental roles.
The study's authors elucidate that grandparents, drawing upon their wealth of parenting experience, can offer valuable support, set positive examples, and provide encouragement when they engage in child-rearing collaborations. This, in turn, can impact the level of confidence that mothers feel in their parenting responsibilities. When mothers exude greater self-assurance, they tend to approach parenting with increased positivity and perseverance, ultimately contributing to their children's improved social development.
These enriching interactions can remove some of the guilt that parents may feel for being absent all day or, sometimes for longer periods of time.
Interacting with grandchildren can help keep grandparents both, physically and mentally active. Looking after grandchildren often involves physical activities like dressing them, playing, going for walks, or doing more laundry. Grandparents can benefit from increased socialization as they engage with their grandchildren's friends, teachers, and other parents. This will serve as an antidote to loneliness or isolation, a frequent occurrence here among the elderly.
Grandparents often have the opportunity to share their knowledge, wisdom, and family traditions with their grandchildren. Such early experiences strengthen a grandchild’s self-esteem, reinforce beliefs, norms, and values while creating opportunities to explore identity in the context of one’s family.
Recent research suggests that grandparent involvement during childhood, conceptualized as amount of contact and emotional closeness, is positively linked to emotional development, cognitive functioning, and social adjustment in early adulthood and that lessons learned from grandparent–grandchild relationships in childhood, especially those related to spirituality and moral development, persist into early adulthood .
A study from the Institute for Engaged Aging, Clemson University, SC, concluded that past and present grandparent relationships remain salient in early adulthood. These results echo previous research in which gratitude, respect, and appreciation were found to be significant factors in the well-being of young adults, a finding which holds across grandparent types. In the face of challenging family dynamics, these participants cited lessons learned from their grandparents as significant building blocks in their current perspectives on life.
With this study being conducted amid a global pandemic, many grandchildren discussed the emotional difficulty of being physically separated from grandparents, especially those with progressing illnesses (e.g., dementia, cancer). The majority of participants maintained regular, and at times even increased, contact with their grandparents as a result of the pandemic.
Sometimes family issues whether initiated by one or the other side can get in the way of harmonious transgenerational relationships. If arguments, in-law drama, or any other challenges have prevented your children or grandchildren from enjoying a healthy grandparent relationship, for their sake, it may be time to bury the old battle axe and make peace now.
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*Excerpted from “Hands-on grandparenting helps both ways” The Globe and Mail, Nov. 10, 2023.
Key Takeaways
The relationship between grandparents and grandchildren provides emotional support, love, and valuable life lessons for children.
Grandchildren contribute a sense of purpose and fulfillment to their grandparents’ later years.
These intergenerational connections enhance the well-being and development of the whole family and society at large.
References
1. Choi, K. H., & Ramaj, S. (2023). Multigenerational living and children’s risk of living in unaffordable housing: differences by ethnicity and parents’ marital status. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-22.
2. Condon, J., Luszcz, M., & McKee, I. (2018). The transition to grandparenthood: A prospective study of mental health implications. Aging & Mental Health, 22(3), 336-343.
3. Wang, J., Gu, R., Zhang, L., & Zhang, L. (2023). How is caring for grandchildren associated with grandparents’ health: the mediating effect of internet use.
Frontiers in Public Health, 11.
4. He, QH, Tan, YF, and Peng, ZC. How does grandchild care affect the health of grandparents?-new evidence from CHARLS. Population Develop. (In Chinese). (2021) 27:52–64
5. Li, X., & Liu, Q. (2020). Parent–grandparent coparenting relationship, marital conflict and parent–child relationship in Chinese parent–grandparent coparenting families. Children and Youth Services Review, 109, 104733.
6. Muennig, P., Jiao, B., & Singer, E. (2018). Living with parents or grandparents increases social capital and survival: 2014 General Social Survey-National Death Index. SSM-population health, 4, 71-75
7. Stephan, A. T. (2023). How Grandparents Inform Our Lives: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Intergenerational Influence on Young Adults. Journal of Adult Development, 1-13.
8. Sciplino, C., & Kinshott, M. (2019). Adult grandchildren’s perspectives on the grandparent-grandchild relationship from childhood to adulthood. Educational Gerontology, 45(2), 134-145.
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