Spotlight on grandparents

You know the old saying, 'Parents get to discipline their children, but grandparents just get to love them'(?) Well, sometimes these days, grandparents are getting the double privilege of spoiling their grandchildren AND having to raise them.

When I first heard of this phenom, I thought it couldn't really be that much of a statistic, but I've recently discovered that up to 10% of children in this city are being raised by their grandparents! Wow! That's a huge number. I'm sure that the reasons for this are myriad: both parents having to work in order to make enough money to support their families; single-parent families (which are at a record number these days in some locales); reconstituted families due to second and third mariages ... the list goes on.

I've heard of this reality before, but it was only during a recent conversation relating to our parish outreach project, the Beech Street Community Kitchen, that I realized the impact grandparents must be having in the lives of their grandchildren, especially if they are actively involved in raising them. We have been made acutely aware of families who are in need because of various economic pressures, but there's a whole new population to be considered if we open the doors to grandparents who are doubling as parents.

Even the Vatican seems to be getting in on the act. The Pontifical Council for the Family has recently announced that its annual plenary assembly, a meeting for the purpose of discussion and possible action, will focus this year on Grandparents: Their Testimony and Presence in the Family. The assembly begins today in Rome and will conclude on Saturday. The fruit of this dialogue is sure to spark at least some debate, and possibly some discoveries that will truly be worthy of note.

Some cultures, such as the Chinese have long histories of multi-generational families living under one roof. There is a wisdom to be gained from living in close proximity with members of one's own family, and the more generations that are present, the more we seem to learn about compassion, love and acceptance - especially in these times of smaller nuclear families (or no nuclear families at all as the case may be).

In cultures such as these, there is a certain wisdom that is born from a seemingly innate respect for one's elders. Perhaps today's society needs to return to such sources in order to re-think the wisdom of allowing economic forces to dictate the values of family, however that unit is defined in today's terms.