The Role of Christian Grandparents preview

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The Role of Christian Grandparents by Keith Chappell “May grandparents return to being a living presence in the family, in the Church and in society” Benedict XVI, Address to the Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family, 5th April 2008

All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE

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Contents Caring, sharing and sacrifice: the modern grandparent .3 The baton of faith: the challenges of today . . . . . . . . .13 Joachim and Anne: the patron saints of grandparents .25 Stewards of time, talents and treasure . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 A unique position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 A crowning vocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

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Caring, sharing and sacrifice: the modern grandparent It would be great if we knew just what a grandparent looked like, then the ‘something special’ that seems to stand out would be easy to identify. But grandparents don’t all look alike. Grandmothers don’t all sit by the fire knitting whilst grandfather is outside digging the vegetable patch. The grandparents that I’ve met are involved in activities that their own parents would not have dreamt of. From travelling the world, to skiing, to running marathons, the generation that comprises grandparents is almost unrecognisable against all the clichés. Today’s grandparents also have vastly different experiences of their faith. Some are rooted in a faith that preceded the changes of Vatican II, preferring an older form of worship, whilst others are impatient for change.

This booklet makes no assumption about grandparents, which raises the question as to whether there is anything unique about being in this position. Firstly, what is the role of a grandparent? Secondly, and more specifically, what does it mean to be a Christian grandparent? And finally, what are the challenges that modern society poses to all grandparents? As we go through this booklet we

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will look at all three of these questions through the experiences of grandparents, the teachings of the Church and in the light of Scripture.

The truth is, grandparents are as diverse in their relationships with their grandchildren as they are in age, social background and interests. Some are very distant geographically and may rarely see their grandchildren.

Others may live in the same household, seeing them every day and being as much a part of their daily lives as parents and siblings. Regardless of physical distance, the closeness and type of relationships can vary hugely. In increasing numbers of families grandparents are taking on parenting roles, either as full time guardians or as those who are present while busy parents work to meet the often crippling cost of owning a home and raising a family. Of course, not all grandparents have a close relationship with their grandchildren; perhaps because of physical distances in our increasingly mobile society or difficult relationships with the middle generation.

Tom’s story: an example of caring Tom spends most of his time at university in the north of England but each holiday he returns home to the south.

He doesn’t stay at his mother’s house, or his father’s.

Home for Tom is with his dad’s parents. He moved to live with them when he was 17 after spending ten years with his mum following his parents’ divorce. His parents,

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were, and still are, very bitter towards each other and during Tom’s childhood put a lot of energy into telling him how evil the other parent was. The only place he felt relaxed was with his grandparents, who never made any attempt to undermine either parent and were happy to help him spend time with both.

When he was 16 he ran away from home and spent a short time in council accommodation. Eventually he managed to persuade both of his parents that he would be happiest with his grandparents. “I don’t know what my parents wanted me to be, or do” reflects Tom about growing up. “They wanted me to hate the other one as much as they hated them…if it hadn’t been for my grandparents I would have had nowhere to go and no one to listen to me. It was the only place I could be me.”

Tom’s behaviour became increasingly troubled during his early teenage years, he would spend his time drinking and hanging around streets and parks with friends, getting into situations that made him begin to hate himself more than his parents. One night he was arrested for causing criminal damage whilst drunk and the only person he wanted to pick him up from the police station was his grandfather. “I cried so much as he drove me home and when we got home he sat with me and hugged me until I stopped. It can’t have been easy for him, he used to be a soldier and men of his age just don’t cry. But, he still accepted me and never criticised me”. Some months of

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counselling and family therapy followed but in the end it never felt better for Tom and he ran away.

When he moved in with his grandparents Tom went back to school, re-sat his GCSE’s and ‘A’ levels and is now studying for a degree in maths. He also started going to church.

“I didn’t really believe, and I’m not sure how much I believe now, but they go every Sunday. They are so good that I reckoned it couldn’t do me any harm. I believe in God and Jesus, and the parish has become another place that I feel like I’m part of a family. I even go to the chaplaincy at university sometimes but don’t tell Nan or she’ll think she’s properly converted me!”.

Tom’s story is towards the extreme end of young people’s experiences but it is not unique by any means and doesn’t contain some of the more extreme abuse that many encounter. Tom chose to live with his grandparents but for some young people their grandparents are all that stand between them and being taken into care.

A support network Tom’s grandparents had become his primary carers, essentially functioning as parents where the parents had become dysfunctional for one reason or another. Are they still grandparents, though, or simply older parents? In her book When you are a Grandparent, Carol Luebering says

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to grandparents who are full time carers for their grandchildren that they are really parents and suggests her book is not for them 1. In one way she is right. As a grandparent with whom children are resident you are faced with all the responsibilities of parenthood such as making decisions about schools or healthcare.

Yet the grandparents I spoke to who are in this position do not see themselves as parents, they do what they do as loving grandparents and never want to take away the possibility of parents taking on the role again. Tom’s grandparents were careful never to criticise his parents and supported his continuing relationship with them, they knew he had heard enough criticism of his mother and father and that he had taken it all on himself. Other grandparents too still saw themselves as grandparents, whatever responsibilities they took on.

Caring for grandchildren in a formal way is something that appears to be increasingly asked of grandparents. For most it is not as full-time carers but as support for parents who need to work but find the costs of childcare increasingly difficult to meet. With parents in London paying up to £20,000 per year for each child in full-time care, and the national average being nearly £8,000 it can rapidly become prohibitive to use professional care 2.

Grandparents provide not only a cheaper alternative but also a more secure one. Confidence in ‘strangers’ around our children has decreased dramatically following

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numerous high profile abuse scandals, whereas grandparents provide a trusted place where children can be cared for without guilt or worry. The benefits of this for parents and for children are enormous, economically and socially. In fact it is becoming increasingly apparent that our entire economy needs the support of grandparents in order to function.

Sharing in the nuclear family Again, grandparents do not see themselves as replacing parents or as unpaid carers. They see this as a natural part of being a grandparent. When I spoke to a couple of grandmothers who look after their grandchildren during the working week they reacted in quite a hostile way to the suggestion of being paid by the state to do the caring.

“I wouldn’t mind the money, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not what it’s about. I do it for my son and his wife, and for my grandson. Yes, I get tired but it feels like the right thing to do. I wouldn’t like the government coming in and telling me what to do just because they parted with a few quid.”

We seem to regard the idea of grandparents looking after children as something unnatural and modern.

However the absence of grandparents as important carers is in fact a peculiarly modern and Western phenomenon that has accompanied the rise of the ‘nuclear’ family as

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the accepted norm. Until recently in this country the extended family was incredibly important. It was only really with the rise of urbanisation following the industrial revolution that people became mobile and left behind their support mechanisms in the shape of aunts, uncles and, of course, grandparents.

The multigenerational household Today we are finding a rise in the number of multigenerational households with children, parents and grandparents all living under the same roof. To a large extent this is the result of financial necessity: whether it is childcare, the sheer cost of housing or the need to look after elderly relatives. In all of this we are perhaps seeing something of a return to old, and perhaps more natural order that reflects the households of Abraham and Sarah or perhaps Joachim and Anne. It is certainly a model of living that would be more familiar to many of our forebears than isolated units living hundreds of miles away from their nearest blood relative.

It is also important not to get too romantic about these arrangements. Many families find it tough to live together, often sacrificing space and privacy without necessarily feeling that they are personally getting very much out of the arrangement. Grandparents can feel taken advantage of when they provide childcare and in-laws are challenged to a very special form of generosity.

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Such sacrifice can be part of the Christian calling and provide an incredible witness to children in a prevailing culture of individualism and selfishness. Service to one another is a strong feature of multigenerational households. Often, because one generation has particular needs due its youth or old age, this service is particularly strong between grandchildren and grandparents. In such families the old see the difficulties of growing up today as opposed to several decades ago, and recognise the humanity of youth in a world that often demonises young people.

The middle generation are reminded that what preoccupies them may not be what life is all about. It is all too easy in the middle years to become obsessed with careers, pensions, house prices and the material concerns of life. The young and the old tend to have a slightly healthier scepticism about this. I am all too aware of this as we became a multigenerational household two years ago and it has been a great eye opener for all of us. Fortunately it has worked for us without many of the traumas that accompany coming to live together, but we have all had to adapt and it has been good for us. As a member of the middle generation I am kept on my toes between the rapier-like questioning of youth and the gentle admonishment of my parents. In short, multigenerational households, provide a place where equity and equality between the generations is realised and lived out.