Tough parents, soft grandparents

“You did not want to be changed, you did not want to be dressed. I produced a shoe to find you have pulled off your sock. I put the sock back on while you pulled off the other one. I put that one back on while you pulled off the first,” says Claire Kilroy in her widely acclaimed book Soldier Sailor. And such have been the travails of every parent who has taken the responsibility of bringing up a child.

Immediately after the birth pangs, parents see the angel whose future they visualise the moment they set eyes on it. The child should be good, beautiful, brilliant — as ideal a child as possible. They place their trust in the divine, the ultimate dispenser of all destinies.

But children are not all sweetness and light and as they crawl, toddle, grow up, parents witness the temper tantrums of the terrible twos, teenage angst, and growing grouses. They see their wilful and angry sides and wonder about the change. No rulebook on childcare or parenting provides all the answers. There are no rules to the game, and then parents see their tender side.

After the initial euphoria, parents are confronted with changing nappies, feeding even in inconvenient hours, rocking the baby to sleep, and carrying it around. No outing can be peaceful as the baby occupies all mindspace, Simultaneously, parents juggle the needs of the rest of the family, workplace imperatives, and career aspirations as the child takes centre stage. Even with all this, parenting may not be perfect. Some are often impatient, not always understanding, and even careless of the child’s psyche. Many are guilty of foisting their own ambitions and dreams on their children. Adrienne Rich, American poet, says of motherhood, “A sense of insufficiency to the moment and eternity.”

And with all this, loving them, making them individuals, and leaving them alone to become independent are a challenging task. Children’s colonisation of our hearts and our powerlessness to always protect them overwhelm us.

Meanwhile, time is on its relentless march and one graduates from parenthood to grandparent- hood, an awakening all its own with one looking at grandchildren in ways he or she had not seen children. Being grandparents is a different ball game altogether. More tenderness, more of a sense of vulnerability. Time was at a premium during parenthood, in the middle of crowded lives where competing claims jostled for attention. Now that one has hung up the boots and is more relaxed with more flexible schedules, there is time to revel in their smiles, to humour them in their tears, and generally enjoy their innocence.

Grandparents have the time to listen and become part of the stories of the children, their little joys and sorrows. All the efforts of the past in raising children has turned to experience and grandparents are better equipped to handle tantrums and spirits, creaking joints notwithstanding, as well as share their ecstasies while they are chasing a butterfly or marvelling at the plop of a raindrop. That is what being a grandparent is all about, to understand childhood the way one had not understood it and walk backwards into innocence.

sudhadevi_nayak@yahoo.com