Wise grannies know when to keep mum
HAVING just played hostess to Grandbaby Zekey’s first birthday party – since you ask, there was a bus theme, bus cake, bus emblazoned balloons and a ball- pond into which Grandma V gamely plunged – I feel qualified to hold forth on the latest findings that working mums and grannies are clashing over everything from bedtimes to TV viewing to sweetie consumption. The simple fact is that grandmas and grandpas are essential. Frankly, we are keeping the economy and future generations afloat.
Without the unpaid assistance of grandparents, one mother in five would be unable to carry on with her career.
Having established that we are vital and therefore immeasurably important, let’s get down to the nittygritty. Of course, we grandparents know everything there is to know about childrearing. We are the veterans, the experts, we have form and there is nothing you can teach us about weaning, toilet training, tantrums, the terrible twos or what to do when an infant sticks a frozen pea up his nose.
Despite what feels like a universal conspiracy to convince us children are like smartphones, constantly evolving, acquiring new and complex mechanisms, and therefore require an entirely new style of parenting hitherto unseen on planet Earth, we nannas and granddads know that’s a pyramid of piffle. Babies now are just as they always were. Nothing whatsoever has changed.
They need love, cuddles, food, security, firm fair boundaries and to be stimulated NEVER have children been more thoroughly bored rigid than the mini- Beckhams at their mother Victoria’s triumphant New York fashion show, except perhaps little North West who was so browned off at having to spectate as her dad Kanye’s promenading models preened and primped that she yelled the place down and had to be speedily removed by her mother Kim Kardashian.
What don’t these unquestionably talented people understand about children in the workplace? but not charged.
If we want everything in the nursery to be rosy, though, we also know that we have to shut up about our unquestionably superior knowledge, bow to mum and dad and their weird theories, bite our lips and get on with it. There is absolutely no point battling with our children and daughters and sons in- law over how to bring up their children.
No matter if we’re longing to sneak the three- year- old just one chocolate finger. It makes no odds if our urge to grab the iPad from the baby’s hand is positively overwhelming. Unless we genuinely feel that our grandchildren are at risk, we must take a back seat and obey instructions.
Accepting that we’re not in the driving seat, even if we are providing hours or even days of free childcare, is a hallmark of our maturity. We’ve brought up our own kids, made mistakes, scored occasional triumphs. It’s the next generation’s turn to make a right royal mess- up.
Sridiculously
turbo- HHH! Don’t breathe a word but, naturally, whenever our children’s backs are safely turned we can wade in with the splashing about in puddles, learning to knit, playing good old- fashioned noughts and crosses and even with a few squares of forbidden chocolate. We may be wise, tolerant and understanding, but we’re not beyond getting up to a bit of mischief while the cat’s away. The secret is to avoid all arguments and altercations while doing just a little bit of what you fancy when they least expect it.
CHILDREN DON’T BELONG AT WORK
There’s an excellent reason why Take Your Child To Work Day only happens once a year. Kids and business do not and should not mix.
Fashion is stupendously serious while being monumentally tedious and children should not come within a million miles of a catwalk. NOTE TO PARENTS: If you must insist on your offspring being paraded on your glory day, have them dressed in their best and speedily popped in and out by nanny.
Take your cue directly from Downton Abbey.