One year on and I've finally relaxed into being a grandmother. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long. Most friends seem to have slipped into it with no problem, at least none they will admit; one or two have said when asked how difficult it has been, particularly when their grandchildren live at a distance that doesn't make regular contact easy. I'm not convinced however it's just about distance, for me it's been much more about defining my role and working out how to be a grandmother.
Gracie's first birthday weekend was the event that helped me shift from being very concerned about what I should do and how I should behave as her grandmother, to just being her grandmother and enjoying it. Heartfelt thanks to my son and daughter-in-law for helping that happen, and particularly to Kerri for letting me take over her kitchen and do all that baking! I loved every minute of it.
So if there are any other new grandmothers out there who aren't finding it all plain sailing and joy, my advice is hang on in there and you will get used to it. Time will help and one day you will feel you have accepted your new role, and what a wonderful role it is too.
Friday, 19 August 2011
Friday, 11 February 2011
How to be a grandmother
The first photo of me with my granddaughter shows me gazing at her with a serious look, and the second, in response to my son's instruction to 'smile', grinning with pleasure. But there is a truthfulness to that first photo; having a grandchild felt important and not to be trivialised; it was serious business. Yes there is pleasure, but there was also a profound sense that my world had tipped slightly, was rocking, and would take time to settle. I held her in my arms. An hour and a half old and so powerful. I was shaken by the life force that was coming from her and I knew she would change the world.
Here was a new baby, immensely fragile, vulnerable and needy. Babies trigger the most powerful emotions - they need to as they are totally dependent on others to survive. What I hadn't expected was the strength of the impact she was making already and the urge I had to take care of her.
This wasn't my baby, I couldn't take her home with me and look after her, and nor did I want to. My role was grandmother, and I wanted to nurture, protect and care for this new family, to love and support them and help them to grow together. I wanted to take away all the cares and worries that go with being a parent and let them just enjoy each other. I wanted to wrap them in cotton wool, cocoon them from the world and let them live those first few milky weeks with no intrusion from the outside.
But how on earth do you do this? And how do you differentiate between what your instincts tell you and what this new family wants? What can you do with all your experience and wisdom? How do you share that without being intrusive when everyone has to learn how to be a parent through doing it their own way?
How do you become a grandmother? You know it's going to come, you have almost the same 9 months to learn to become a grandmother and yet it happens so quickly. One moment you are waiting in anticipation for the phone call; the next your world has lurched and you have shifted up a generation. You are a grandmother, ready or not.
Becoming a mother was momentous and I will never forget that feeling of arriving home with my daughter, sitting down with her and wondering what on earth to do next. Everything had changed and I would never go back to being the person I was. But I was expecting that, enough people had told me that things would never be the same again.
I didn't expect becoming a grandmother to be as momentous, but it is. Nothing will ever be the same again, or feel the same again. My whole world has shifted. It's not overt, I still work full time, have the same social life, the same friends; my family has not altered apart from the addition of one little being at the bottom of the family tree. But what a difference her arrival has made. The light that illuminates that family tree has shifted and that has cast different shades across the whole perspective. It's all so different now.
The arrival of this child created a ripple effect, no-one was unaffected. A slight earthquake had run through the family and we were all feeling the aftershock. In the first few minutes after the text message to say she had been born my husband and I bickered; we argued about the most stupid things, a childish display of tit for tat by two people who had just become grandparents and didn't know quite what to do, how to handle the news.
In the first weeks after her arrival I quarreled with my sister, snapped at my daughter and felt my stress levels creep ever upwards. The day after the birth, while waiting to go and visit, I couldn't even knit! Knitting has been my therapy through thick and thin; it keeps me going, its rhythm soothes and comforts. I couldn't settle to it at all, I paced the hotel room and thought I would go mad if I didn't do something. Adrenaline had kicked in and I needed to be active, to cook, to clean, to iron .... to do something!
I was so wary of intruding but I asked my son if I could go round and do something while he was at the hospital and he said yes. So I tidied, and hoped my daughter-in-law wouldn't curse me; I cooked, and hung washing out, and folded clothes.
And I was angry! I'm still angry with all you grandmothers who, on hearing the news that my first grandchild was on the way, smiled and said how much I would enjoy being a grandmother. I fell in love with my granddaughter immediately and feel a love as strong as any I feel for my own two children. But being a grandmother? I'm not sure I am enjoying that at all.
Here was a new baby, immensely fragile, vulnerable and needy. Babies trigger the most powerful emotions - they need to as they are totally dependent on others to survive. What I hadn't expected was the strength of the impact she was making already and the urge I had to take care of her.
This wasn't my baby, I couldn't take her home with me and look after her, and nor did I want to. My role was grandmother, and I wanted to nurture, protect and care for this new family, to love and support them and help them to grow together. I wanted to take away all the cares and worries that go with being a parent and let them just enjoy each other. I wanted to wrap them in cotton wool, cocoon them from the world and let them live those first few milky weeks with no intrusion from the outside.
But how on earth do you do this? And how do you differentiate between what your instincts tell you and what this new family wants? What can you do with all your experience and wisdom? How do you share that without being intrusive when everyone has to learn how to be a parent through doing it their own way?
How do you become a grandmother? You know it's going to come, you have almost the same 9 months to learn to become a grandmother and yet it happens so quickly. One moment you are waiting in anticipation for the phone call; the next your world has lurched and you have shifted up a generation. You are a grandmother, ready or not.
Becoming a mother was momentous and I will never forget that feeling of arriving home with my daughter, sitting down with her and wondering what on earth to do next. Everything had changed and I would never go back to being the person I was. But I was expecting that, enough people had told me that things would never be the same again.
I didn't expect becoming a grandmother to be as momentous, but it is. Nothing will ever be the same again, or feel the same again. My whole world has shifted. It's not overt, I still work full time, have the same social life, the same friends; my family has not altered apart from the addition of one little being at the bottom of the family tree. But what a difference her arrival has made. The light that illuminates that family tree has shifted and that has cast different shades across the whole perspective. It's all so different now.
The arrival of this child created a ripple effect, no-one was unaffected. A slight earthquake had run through the family and we were all feeling the aftershock. In the first few minutes after the text message to say she had been born my husband and I bickered; we argued about the most stupid things, a childish display of tit for tat by two people who had just become grandparents and didn't know quite what to do, how to handle the news.
In the first weeks after her arrival I quarreled with my sister, snapped at my daughter and felt my stress levels creep ever upwards. The day after the birth, while waiting to go and visit, I couldn't even knit! Knitting has been my therapy through thick and thin; it keeps me going, its rhythm soothes and comforts. I couldn't settle to it at all, I paced the hotel room and thought I would go mad if I didn't do something. Adrenaline had kicked in and I needed to be active, to cook, to clean, to iron .... to do something!
I was so wary of intruding but I asked my son if I could go round and do something while he was at the hospital and he said yes. So I tidied, and hoped my daughter-in-law wouldn't curse me; I cooked, and hung washing out, and folded clothes.
And I was angry! I'm still angry with all you grandmothers who, on hearing the news that my first grandchild was on the way, smiled and said how much I would enjoy being a grandmother. I fell in love with my granddaughter immediately and feel a love as strong as any I feel for my own two children. But being a grandmother? I'm not sure I am enjoying that at all.
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