Grand times (with Lolo and Lola)
Nonagenar-ian. My mom became one recently, that is to say, she turned 90 years old just a couple of weeks ago. Some might joke that another term for a 90-year-old is “antique.” I think that the more apt description, however, is “priceless antique” — the kind that only the likes of Sotheby’s and Christie’s would handle. I, on the other hand, am still a quadragenarian who is about to become a quinquagenarian. That only makes me like some of those clothes that are about to be phased out and transferred to the “buy 1-take 1” rack at Shoemart.
My mother was born in 1920, the same year that band-aid was first invented. I find it incredible to think of all the vast changes she has seen the world go through over the years. Forget about high-tech changes such as rockets, jet airplanes, and computers. Apart from band-aid, many of the things that seem so ordinary today, such as ballpoint pens and scotch tape, had not yet even been invented then. I asked her the other day about her thoughts on the differences between the world then and today. She answered that technology has certainly made things a lot easier, but that life has also become too complicated. I asked my mother-in-law, who is still in her spritely 70s, the same question and she wistfully replied that she sometimes longs for the simplicity of life in the farm. Modern-day society’s materialism, she lamented, is like a beast whose appetite can never really be fully sated. Although my children get to spend time with their grandparents on a regular basis, I sometimes regret that they are still too young to have these kinds of conversations with them. Grandparents truly have a wealth of first-hand knowledge and experience that they can pass down to our kids.
As parents, I think it is imperative that we ensure that our children develop strong relationships with their grandparents as early as possible. Studies have shown that children with healthy relationships with their grandparents develop good family values, do better in school, and feel more confident with other people. Grandparents don’t even have to do or say anything special to impart something valuable to the kids. For example, just by being with their grandparents, children learn about unconditional love. One grandmother noted that while the parent/child bond is perhaps the most powerful emotional bond, there is always a lingering conditional character to it. Grandparents, on the other hand, are essentially free of any parenting responsibilities towards their grandchildren. They’re just happy to spoil them! In such a pressure-free environment, children get to experience a kind of love that is safe, secure, yet undemanding and with endless patience. Experts say that exposure to this kind of love, unique to grandparents, helps children feel special and develop higher self-esteem.
Grandparents can also help provide our kids with an invaluable link to their past and give them a sense of identity. When I lived abroad, one of the things I noticed was that we did not appear to foreigners to have as unique an identity as those of the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and other Asian nationalities. At worst, we appeared to only be bad facsimiles of the Americans. I think that this is one area where our grandparents can help by sharing with our kids their own stories and actual experiences about our cultural heritage and traditions. One of the things that really gives my mother joy is when she tries to teach my children words and phrases in our native Pangasinan dialect. I read somewhere that the Pangasinan dialect is slowly dying. I myself am already hard-pressed to maintain a conversation in Pangasinan. I don’t know if the trend can still be reversed, but at least my children will remember and, hopefully, retain something of this beautiful language.
Children also learn valuable lessons about family relations from the way we/their parents interact with our parents/their grandparents. Do we follow what we preach and are we actually as good children as we ask them to be? How differently do we treat them from the way their grandparents treat us? The quality of our relationship with our own mothers and fathers will not just set the tone for our kids’ relations with their grandparents; it will also plant the seeds for their own parenting approaches in the future. The benefits, of course, are not all on our children. In the twilight of their lives, grandparents derive immense comfort from being with their grandkids. In a lot of instances, a lot of old wounds or issues that we may have with our parents may also be healed through the magic of the love that grandparents and grandchildren generate.
Oh and by the way, as valuable as my mother may have already become, she is not for sale. We’re keeping her for our private collection. Who knows, she might even become a centenarian!
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