All those rules spoil the fun
Isn’t it grandma’s right to be indulgent and even slightly subversive?
So I belong to a generation of grandparents killing our children’s young with too much kindness and over-protectiveness, do I?
That at least is the verdict of a review by public health experts, who warned yesterday of the danger posed by we well-meaning old things.
I hadn’t thought this was what I was doing when I have my six-yearold granddaughter and three-yearold grandson for playtime, and they find the cookie jar and whisk out a broken chunk before I put the tin out of reach with a sigh.
I had thought that being indulgent, and perhaps a little subversive of parental wishes, was rather the point of being a grandparent.
I have, however, been issued a terrifyingly strict “request” by son and daughter-in-law not to give the children sweets or sugary foods when we’re out and about or they visit.
If they’re with us in the late afternoon, I must stand like old Mother Hubbard in front of fridge and cupboard in case they gobble up a chunk of deliciously indigestible cheese, a bowl of raisins, hunks of buttered bread, or consume sweet fruit drinks, sending blood sugar levels soaring as well as ruining their appetites for supper.
The trouble is that it spoils the fun. I long to be the kind of grandmother my husband’s mom was, and see the kids’ eyes light up as they spot the sweetie jar full of favourite candy. Or to buy them a lollipop, a chocolate, or an ice cream cone when we’re on an outing.
But at home I’m too easily spotted. My much-loved son and daughterin-law share a house with my husband and me, even though it’s divided by solid doors and strict rules of engagement. It means the joy of an easy flow for my granddaughter and grandson to come up and see us and I don’t want to endanger that. This just means I need to be clever. When they come up the stairs after school, instead of putting out plates laden with sugary goodies or kiddie snacks, I wrap and hide packets of dried mango slices, containers of buttered oat cakes, bunches of grapes, and then give the grandchildren clues to find them. Somehow when they discover their loot with a great whoop of triumph, they seem content to eat what’s there.
The relationship between grandparent and grandchild can be an unusual one, full of its own kind of secrets, and perhaps that’s why it finds itself open to criticism.
Sometimes at the end of afternoon playtime, for example, fearing they spend their time with us as couch potatoes, my son appears to collect them.
He mutters darkly about entertaining with a screen, not realizing that Peppa Pig has bought us all just 10 quiet minutes after hours of wild games.
We grandparents are also guilty, apparently, of being over-protective when parents come on all strict.
Sure, I sometimes stick up for the little guys during a telling off. If I’m a renegade grandmother, then it’s my style and I’m sticking to it.