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GRANDPARENTS INFLUENCE YOUNG CHILDREN’S LIVES

by Jennifer McManus

My mother moved in with us last year. Not out of necessity—her health is good and she still works and travels. I view her moving in with us as more of a continuation of the generational influences that have always been a significant part of my life and of my desire to have a continuum of those kinds of experiences in the lives of our girls.

As a child, I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents and my great aunt, Beatrice. My parents were young when I was born and both of them worked. They were fortunate to have their parents (and their parents), as well as other members of the extended family, available to them to help care for and raise their only child. I had, as I often told my friends, five grandparents in my life. They functioned as caregivers, role models, confidants, and friends. From each of them, I learned something about the world and our place in it, including a strong sense of patriotism–both my grandfathers fought in World War II and both were of immigrant families that worked hard for the American dream, reaching success in their chosen fields.

I learned different skill sets from my grandparents. From my Sicilian great-grandmother, and her daughter, Bea, I learned the significance of food as an expression of love and care. I watched and helped as they spent hours in the kitchen making “gravy,” sausages, fresh pasta, pizzelles, and the like. From my Polish grandfather, I learned to love the garden and the sea, how to grow the best tomato, and how to properly bait a hook for the elusive snook.

My memories are treasures, my indebtedness to all of them great. I learned that people such as these were to be respected and honored. Their life experiences, I somehow understood at a young age, would make my life, and me, better.

Our girls now have the opportunity to have similar experiences with my mother, made all the more real by the fact that “Gaga” lives under the same roof. She is there with us in the morning, getting breakfast and lunch together, and when the girls come home from school to hear about their day. She juggles her very busy schedule as a travel executive to be able to drive to and from soccer or cello practice. She loves working on school projects–in fact, we have a whole classification of projects, school and otherwise–“a Gaga Job.”

She gives the girls a view of the world from her travels to all corners of the globe. They spend time with her going through the vast collection of albums from her work related travel in the last thirty years. They delight in her tales of Komodo dragons, Egyptian pyramids, Moroccan markets, and the exotic Australian outback.

She sits through the endless repeats of “Hannah Montana” and “High School Musical” with patience that neither Jim nor I can muster. She keeps track of new Webkinz releases with the authority of an avid aficionado, always knowing which one is the best option for whatever friend’s birthday party is approaching.

The truth, I now recognize, is that the generations actually have a reciprocal relationship. Our girls get my mother to do things that she never anticipated doing at her age. She has bought a new bike for the first time in thirty years. She has had to learn the rules of soccer at an age most don’t care to learn about new sports. And she must know the difference between Hannah and Miley when she hears a song on the radio.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson the girls are learning from our multi-generational household comes from watching how we make it work through love and respect for each other and what we each contribute to the family as a whole. It may not be what most families do these days, but it works for us. One of my great hopes for our girls is that they learn, as I did, that a family is so much more than Mom and Dad and brothers and sisters. It is aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and—perhaps most importantly—grandparents, that can define who we are from early childhood on.

Jennifer McManus, a resident of Kenilworth, IL is the mother of two daughters. A former preschool teacher, she currently holds cooking classes for children. This article was first published in the Fall-Winter 2008-09 issue of Early Childhood.