for grandmothers who look after their grandchildren

I keep bumping into grandparents at school and pre-school who are dropping off or picking up their grandchildren. Often they have a weary look! The reason for this becomes clear as we chat.

One bent-over elderly woman raises her two spunky, energetic granddaughters full-time because her daughter isn't capable of caring for them.

One woman who looks to be in her fifties or sixties has 5 (yes, 5!) grandchildren aged 5-16 living at her house - and I can tell you, the 5 year old is a handful!

One woman (and this is a composite) cares for her grandchildren 1/3/5/7 days a week (not excluding weekends) because her daughter/son(s) and son-in-law/daughter-in-law(s) work part/full-time.

They've raised one generation, and they're helping to raise another. They're older and tireder this time around. They probably weren't expecting this. But they do it out of love for their grandchildren - and sometimes from a sense of desperation (who else will do it if they don't?) - driven by the changing patterns of society, and by their children's choices, desires and/or needs.

I was encouraged this morning to read this blog post, addressed from one godly woman in this situation to other women in this situation:

Nana Nanny.

Enjoy!

what I'm reading: being a grandma - or older woman - from Melbourne's Child

What does Titus 2:3-5 mean when you're a grandmother? What does it mean when you're an 'older woman' caring for younger women with babies? I think this model (from Rose O'Reilly's article Time to Care in June's Melbourne's Child*) is really helpful (and it includes some interesting reflections on retirement too):

The matter of how much grandparents can or should help out with the new generation always requires sensitive negotiation. When my eldest grandchild was born, I didn't help enough. It was only after the difficult early weeks were over that I realised that a couple of hours a week minding the baby was not all that the new parents had needed. They'd needed advice and reassurance, and an extra pair of hands when the baby wouldn't feed properly, or sleep, or stop crying. They'd needed me to be there; but I was off chasing a passion of my own...

Many older people have a lot of freedom, and we tend to think that we deserve it after so many years of working and raising our own children; but life doesn't work like that, and neither does family. There may be a few years that are all our own,** between when our children become independent and when their babies start to arrive. Then the new family demands begin - and they are demands of the nicest kind.

All too soon those gorgeous grandbabies, those miraculous little cooing bundles of brag material, will grow up and be gone. Then we'll be able to spend the rest of our lives shopping for screwdrivers or going on cruises.** I for one will find these things a poor substitute.

* Or Sydney's Child, or Perth's Child, or...
** Or devoted to serving Jesus with all our energy - which I hope goes for all of life, retired or not!

the maelstrom and the sea of tranquillity

I was standing in the kitchen on Saturday, feeling like the still centre at the heart of a tropical cyclone, a whirlpool of love, affection, enthusiasm and joy. My mother had come over to help out while Steve was away.

Children were running, shouting, playing. Mum was alternately reading a series of board books to baby Andrew, helping Thomas with the dot-to-dot and sticker books she brought, patiently listening to Ben recite lists of Pokemon and their evolutions, creating beautiful cards with Lizzy using every scrap of fabric and craft paper in the house, and intermittently asking me "Is there anything I can do to help?"

When my mother walks in the door, all four children run screaming "Grandma Ruth's here! Gwandma Wuth's here! Ga-ma!" depending on their various stages of verbal development, and she drops all her belongings on the floor while she cuddles each one and tells them how much she loves them and has missed them since last time she saw them - yesterday.

When she stays the night, at 6.30 they all creep into bed with her and time-travel the globe in the stories she tells: "Where shall we go today? I know, Imperial China!" At the end of her stay, after numerous hugs and goodbyes, the house is littered with unfinished cups of tea, forgotten possessions, the detritus of numerous craft projects, and four bereft children. Thomas speaks for all of them: "I like she! When is Gwandma coming back? I want she!"

When Audrey, Steve's mother, comes over, I stand in the kitchen and feel a warm, peaceful stillness descend on the house. You can barely hear the "click" of the door as she steps inside: I will sometimes go into the kitchen and realise she has been unpacking the fruit, vegetables, jams and eggs she has brought from her garden and chooks, without me noticing her arrival.

She spends her time in the kitchen, scrubbing cupboard doors, unpacking the dishwasher, heating soup; or in the garden, pulling weeds out of garden beds, fussing over the neglected lemon tree, and pruning rampant rose bushes. The children trail behind her, fascinated, as she bakes trays of anzacs and gingernut biscuits, or shows them worms and snails as they dig in the dirt together.

Audrey is a midwife, and has brought a quiet calm to the birth of each of our children, and a secure feeling of being cared for during the days of recovery. She leaves as silently as she comes: sometimes I only know she's gone by the empty yard and kitchen, and Thomas asking "Where's Gwandma Audrey? Can I go and see Gwandma?"

Somewhere between the maelstrom and the sea of tranquillity there's me: enthusiastically affectionate or calmly loving, reading stories or mopping floors, excitedly playing or quietly present. It's odd how, when either of my mothers enters the house, it takes on their character. When they leave, I slip back into my own skin.

But while they're here, these two wonderful women introduce us to two different ways of being, bringing with them an exuberant love and joy in life, or a gentle affection and serenity, as their gift to me and the children.