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Aging Well
The New World of GrandparentingIf you’re a grandparent today, you know how profoundly the role has changed since you were a child. The typical grandma 50 years ago was a gray-haired homemaker with plenty of time to bake brownies and play Candyland. Now, she’s apt to be a career woman (or a retired one) who keeps in touch by phone, jet travel and e-mail.What happened? “Our culture has undergone major changes, including the women’s movement, the sexual revolution, exploding technology and job mobility,” says Pat Gordy, director of Muhlenberg Behavioral Health. Today’s kids live in a world of computers, divorce, drugs, violence, economic pressure—and more extracurricular activities than their grandparents ever dreamed possible. One of the biggest changes is the growth of dual career couples. Unlike older generations, they share more parenting responsibilities; but with no one at home full-time there’s a need for child care that many grandparents fill. “More and more, it’s grandpa or grandma who takes the children to soccer practice and steps in when they’re sick,” Gordy says. The rising divorce rate (now 50 percent for first marriages) intensifies this need. It’s part of a trend toward new forms of “family” including stepfamilies, intercultural marriages, same-sex unions and never-married parents. The anything-goes attitude often extends to children, whose clothing, hairstyles, music and language can be startling to grandparents. It’s the lucky grandparent who gets to work out these issues on a day-to-day basis. The more common scenario is a family separated by hundreds of miles. Some retirees relocate near their children, but given the current job scene, as one grandfather puts it, “You can never be sure they’ll still be living there in a few years.” Many of today’s retirees can afford regular visits—and more. Grandparents are sometimes an important source of financial support, providing everything from holiday extras to college trust funds. “Rather than downsizing in retirement, some are actually building larger homes to accommodate grandchildren,” says Gordy. The most important function of a grandparent, though, isn’t money. “It’s loving and caring,” says Gordy. “Grandparents are in a unique position to provide this. The parent/child relationship is the intense one where we work out our unresolved conflicts. Grandparenting is much more relaxed.” For many grandparents—including former “workaholic” fathers—this is a point in life when they have the wisdom, patience, time and resources to “do it again and do it right.”
Want to Know More? For information on grandparenting after a divorce,
call (610) 402-CARE. This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM
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