Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Listening to what our grandchildren mean

www.raisingyourgrandchildren.com

One day my 6-year old granddaughter asked me, “Mom, would you be mad if I didn’t live with you?” I didn’t know what was driving her question, so I didn’t know how to answer her. I paused then said, “I would be really, really sad.”
She insisted, “But would you be mad?” I assumed she meant would I be mad if she lived with her mother instead of me.

I sat down with her and asked her why she asked me that. She responded with, “If you were mad, then I would know you were sorry.” “Whom would I be mad at?” I asked. She responded with “the person who kidnapped me.” I about fell off my chair. I assured her that I would be really, really mad and very upset and very sad if anyone kidnapped her. We then talked about how we keep ourselves safe.

I first thought she was asking her question for very different reasons. I was really glad I clarified things before I jumped in with an answer.

Stress Makes Us Old

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According to an interesting article by Sarah Mahoney in the latest AARP Magazine, “Stress makes you old.” The information in this article is taken from research performed by the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and from a project at Boston University. According to Thomas Perls, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Boston University and the director of the New England Centenarian Project, “It isn’t the amount of stress that matters but how you manage it.” That’s good news for us grandparents raising grandchildren. If it were merely the amount of stress we were under, we’d be ancient before our time.                        

The article points out that internalizing stress makes us old. Now, that’s a problem I have. I internalize way too much. I sometimes even cry at emails I get from other grandparents telling me their stories, and I feel my children’s pain when things aren't going well in their lives. While I do need to internalize less, I do not want to give up my ability to empathize with others and truly feel what they feel. I just need to learn to do it in a less consuming way.

I have adapted the points in the article to fit my role as a grandmother raising little children.

1. Stay mentally stimulated - Playing fun stimulating mind games is rather easy to do as our grandchildren get old enough to play challenging board and card games. Even when my grown children come home to visit, they enjoy playing our “family” games.

2. Laugh – humor lessons stress. Sometimes when we are under a lot of stress, we forget to laugh. Yet, tiny children have a way of making almost anything funny. So take advantage of their antics and laugh.

3. Be optimistic This is a tricky one. It is easy to feel optimistic when those we deal with are also optimistic – not the opposite. One thing I do is make mental notes or written ones when I need to of what I am grateful for. When my little girls seem out of control with being noisy and rambunctious and getting on my nerves, I remind myself how grateful I am that they are capable of being out of control and arguing with each other. They could be sitting in a wheelchair incapable of interacting or making a mess of the house. When I am feeling annoyed at decisions my daughter made in her life, I remind myself how grateful I am she chose not to have abortions. There is always something to be optimistic about and grateful for.

4. Be passionate about your work or create something to be passionate about.

5. Have close friends, family, and emotional support.

6. Have a spiritual conviction. This means very different things to different people. That is okay. Just find what works for you and make it an important part of your life.

7. Exercise every day. My first response is “Yeah, right.” There are many of us who do not have an opportunity or a desire to go work out at a health club. Yet, there are other ways of being physically active. I love to dance (right now I am merely dancing around my house by myself, but I love to work out in my yard and go for walks around the neighborhood pushing the two-year-old in her stroller. That is really good exercise since my neighborhood is rather hilly.

Finding the obvious as well as the creative ways of managing stress not only helps us stay younger, but it keeps us healthier as well, which to me is really the most important.

Raising grandchildren while still raising your own children

www.raisingyourgrandchildren.com

I had a comment from one of my readers and the man who introduced me to the idea of creating a weblog, David St. Lawrence from http://www.ripples.typepad.com/. He suggested that I write more frequently to share the discoveries I make while raising my grandchildren. Tonight I made a discovery that saddened my heart. While I love these little children dearly, I also love my youngest daughter who is graduating from high school this week. I feel that I have missed the last two years of her life. Tonight was her final senior chorus concert, which she sang two beautiful solos. My husband is out of town on business, so I was in the audience with a two-year-old, a four-year-old and a six-year-old, along with my video and digital cameras (past bedtime). The oldest sat like a little lady, the middle one liked to see just how loud the auditorium seat would squeak, and the two-year-old would not get off my lap and kept jiggling the camera, while I attempted to video tape the choir. I also had to keep her quiet as she insisted on telling me that she had just wet her pull-up.

Fortunately, after intermission, my daughter’s friend came to my rescue and operated the video camera, so at least Angela’s solos and beautiful performances would not make one feel seasick due to the camera moving all over the place. While Jessica recorded the performance, my two little ones fought over which side of me belonged to them as I held both of them trying to get them to watch the concert. While the audience applauded and loved my daughter, I felt like crying. I only knew 3 of her schoolmates and none of their parents. After the performance my daughter proudly introduced me to one of her school friends, “This is my mommy.” As my daughter and I were giving each other a hug and I was trying to tell her how beautiful she was, my two-year-old was crying “Mommy, Mommy, pick me up,” and the four-year-old was turning wild and running all over the place.

It was late, everyone was tired, and I cried most of the way home. I was overwhelmed, and I had simply just wanted to enjoy my daughter’s performance. She was beautiful and I was so proud of her and I felt I had missed most of it. Fortunately, her friends came home with her and we all watched it twice on video. Thank goodness for technology and wonderful homemade videos.