The most magical love of all: Being a Smitten Grandparent

I would like to reveal how I enjoy my second chance to be a better parent (a Doting Grandmother). As my husband is no more and I had started feeling very lonely and not having much to do and talk to, maybe, that is what brought me closer to my three Grandchildren

Let me first introduce them: : Aneesha - studying is St. Helens, Kurseong, Shyam Rai - boy and the youngest and the cutest of the three lot Simran - both Rai and Simran live in Michigan, USA).

I am really thrilled to be grandmother to all the three.  I know I will be their slave for the rest of my life; my face will light up whenever I see them or talk to the younger ones over the phone as mentioned earlier they are in the US and I really love it when the younger ones call me ‘DADA’,  Aneesha of course calls me ‘NANI’.

Whenever Aneesha comes over for her vacations from Kurseong to Calcutta, we all make sure that she gets all that she loves to eat and gets to do what she enjoys. In fact we both have a Grandmother and Granddaughter’s day our like going for a movie or horse riding and enjoy eating at the Food Courts.

When I stay with Rai and Simran they will tell me that they love the food I cook for them and would thank me and it would make me feel that I should do more for them than just cook.  When I get every photograph of them I coo over it, and be thrilled by every achievement and I will drop everything for a chance to be with them.

Here too we have our days out like going for walks and playing games with them like Hide & Seek or even a bit of Soccer in the garden (imagine in this age) and they would be so thrilled and just not want to go back into the house. Then comes the Ice Cream Lady in her musical van so DADA must get them ice cream even though there is some in the fridge at home but this is bonus which the parents are not to know.  I enjoy spoiling them They love playing Uno Card game and even not wanting to I just can’t think of refusing. When the younger two don't feel like walking whenever I took them for a walk they would say that their feet were hurting or the legs were paining and of course, I carried either one of them who was feeling worse. And though long before we reached the home I would be tired and their parents seeing that would get annoyed but it was the best moment of the day.  At that moment, they really needed me. And I could help in the most basic and human way.

I hope we shall be best, best friends. I hope we will share secrets and read picture books, and cook and paint and garden and go for walks together and explore and do silly things which we won't dare tell their Mum and Dad about.

I hope we will spend a lot of time holding hands, laughing and having fun. And I hope it will be a relationship that will enrich their lives as well as mine.

I would buy them anything they would like which I may not have bought for my children. Aneesha being grown up now loves to get good books to read and the younger ones in the meantime - Rai of course loves to have his computer game like minecraft (a whole series of them) and Simran loves to have a collection of dolls, which I just don't hesitate to buy them; and pull-along trains and jigsaws and funny hats.

But on second thoughts, maybe I won't . . . I remember how my father used to drive my mother mad when my grandparents showered us sisters and brothers with gifts.

They look up for their Diwali gifts and also feel Santa has put gifts under their pillow for Christmas, so as and when they get up and look for it under the pillow and the first question is “Oh! Dada / Nani did Santa come to give us the gift” and my reply will be ‘yes of course’.  

My husband would not shower them with nothing material but what he gave them was much more valuable; and priceless. He devoted hours of his time to them. He was endlessly patient with them and, I'm now beginning to understand why. I think he was just desperate to demonstrate his love for his grandchildren, and he did it in the only way he knew how. He was calm, confident and thoroughly unconventional and never interfered. They adored him and the relationship that grew between them was wonderful to watch. When he died their grief was as engulfing as my own.

Now that he is no more but he has taught me how to feel towards them just as he would - to never be bored by their repetitive questions, never cross when they broke something precious, never too busy for them, never irritable or moody, happy to show them again and again how to hit a tennis ball, ride a tricycle or push a set of shapes into a box.  To watch the TV programmes of their choice.  He would always say a idiom in Hindi “Asle say sood payara hote hai”.

This relationship that skips a generation can be very special - although I realise it's not exclusive, and that is what makes it almost more enjoyable than that teenage love affair that is so jealous and possessive.

Rai and Simran have the other (Rachel’s parents - Granny and GrandPa - who they call ‘Papa’, whom they really love and are loved equally by them.  They are equally spoilt by them and spend every weekend with them on their farmhouse.   Unfortunately Aneesha lost her Dadi and Dada a while ago and her father recently so she has us to spoil her.

All the three will grow up to have a different relationship and different memories of each of us, but for all our differences, we will be relaxed and indulgent; it's not a grandparent's role to establish routines, to fret about development or to discipline. As the old adage goes, a grandparent gets all the fun but the moment the child gets grouchy you can hand it back.

As a mother, I had firm ideas about child-rearing - as all mothers probably do - but 40 years and three children later, I know there is no right way to do anything.

My children Ketan and Megha, Tushar and Rachel will be brilliant parents, and they know that I am there for Aneesha and Rai and Simran and the younger ones have Granny and Papa (Rachel’s parents) and we are all queuing up if they want help.  As for all the three of them they know we are all as smitten with them, and they will never be short of candidates to wrap around their little finger.

Rai and Simran love to make cards and little drawings and enjoy giving it to the grandparents.  As we feel proud of it we pin it on the board and feel proud when any relative or friend comes along and see it and appreciate.  The kids love it.

I know a lot of grandparents say that they behave differently with their grandchildren than they did with their own children, and I do agree, in fact I love them more than I did my own children and my children say so too.  In fact, I find it difficult to even punish them in any way but try to explain to them and never raise my hand.  This is when my children say that why don’t I do that now with the grandchildren when I used to punish them.

In fact that now Aneesha is grown up she is very concerned about me and whenever we go out she looks after me as if the granddaughter and grandmother relationship is vice versa.  I have learnt a lot from her during this vacation of three months that she was here.

Rai and Simran always say DADA calm down if I am a little angry and just can’t stop myself from hugging and kissing them as I feel they are so understanding.

'To me, these three will always mean more to me than my own children'

Grandfathers, of course, have it easy with grandchildren. While the grandmother, is the useful one who cooks for them when they come to see us, and who buys all the presents and sends all the cards.

When our children were this age we were probably a little stricter or rather more than many parents we knew, and we now expect to be obeyed by our grandchildren. In all kinds of other ways, not much has changed since our children were little.

Being a grandmother is just the best thing imaginable.

There he or she is, your child's child - a major miracle in itself - a part of you, in some magical way, dropped into your life, a kind of perfect present: to have and to hold, to love and to cherish and all that sort of thing, and to enjoy with no constraints of any kind.

Yours not to night-feed or to potty train or to clean up after; nor to be exhausted nor enraged by, not to chastise or to fret over or to argue with; yours simply to enjoy and admire and spoil and wonder at and quite simply adore.

Grandparenthood is above all a second chance: at all the things that as a parent, you (well certainly I) failed at so dismally - at being patient, smiling, endlessly good-natured, at making everything fun.

Grannies never shout, punish or hurry - that's not what they are for. Grannies are for thinking of games to play, finding books to read, planning outings to enjoy; they are for fulfilling wishes and expanding horizons.

You need the capacity to laugh at the silly jokes, be interested by the interminable stories, sympathise with the most minor sufferings, find excuses for bad behaviour or poor performances ('I'm sure he was tired / I expect she wasn't feeling very well'), point out virtues that might have gone unnoticed, or recognise talents that no one else has seen. One of the greatest joys of grandparenthood is that it's a licence to boast.

No one likes a boastful mother; everyone indulges a boastful grandmother

'Grannies never shout, punish or hurry - that's not what they are for'

And no one would let you produce new photographs of your own child at every meeting, or listen respectfully while you outlined its many skills; but your grandchildren earn endless, rather indulgent, admiration.

I remember someone saying there must be a grandmotherly hormone, and it is true that at a certain point in life you do develop an intense yearning for grandchildren, and the pride you feel in your new state is intense.

I had three children of my own; not only did I manage to raise them fairly satisfactorily (not always smilingly), and I ran a career, too.

Other grannies agree.  We decided that it was partly the crushing responsibility - one thing to have your own child fall out of a tree and break its wrist, quite another if it's your son or daughter's - and partly the absolute determination to Do It Right.

'Will you give me a bit of peace and amuse yourselves,' is not what a granny should say. You have to be kind, amusing and fun the whole time.

I'm sure I have become a better person since I became a grandmother. Well, at least when I'm with my grandchildren...

Parsan Narang

Kolkata

Thursday, 25th February 2016