I yearn to be a granny but fear my hopes will be crushed

DEAR BEL

MY PROBLEM is one some women encounter in their 30s, but it also crops up later in life. When you’re newly married, people can’t wait to find out when babies will arrive.

Well-meaning friends and family ask the question without realising that there might be a painful/financial reason for no baby news.

I experienced this and found it frustrating, sometimes hurtful. But we were lucky because the decision was ours to make at a time to suit us, which we duly did.

Now 30-plus years later the questions are coming again, but slightly differently.

Well-meaning friends ask about grandchildren and look sadly at me when I admit we don’t have any.

We have two lovely sons in their 30s, one in a long-term relationship with a woman who doesn’t want children.

Our other son is now seeing a woman in her late 40s who says she would look at fostering.

Both sons have always wanted children of their own and I thought we would become grandparents, but I can’t see this happening.

I know the answer to this is just to be happy they have partners and a right to make their own decisions, and I wouldn’t ever upset them by showing how much I wish their situation were different.

It just seems that everyone wants to know baby news without thinking the question might cause tension and hurt.

There must be many prospective grandparents out there feeling they’ll never have grandchildren of their own.

And of course I’m well aware that even if you have grandchildren it isn’t necessarily happy ever after — because of family splits or teenagers who don’t want to bother with the older family members.

I wonder if you have a suggestion to deal with the questions people ask about our grandchildren? CHRISTINA

Well, it won’t surprise you to know this is an issue I’ve met before. Your good nature is displayed in the fact that you use the phrase ‘ wellmeaning’ twice; you know people don’t mean to do harm even if, unwittingly, they cause embarrassment and sadness.

Many of us have endured the careless questions about babies and grandchildren; it used to upset me (back in the Seventies) when near-strangers assumed I only had one child because I was so focused on my career, when I was desperately sad after a stillbirth and terrified of trying again.

When in doubt, my friends, it’s best to steer clear of questions and assumptions about the private lives of others.

There are many men and women who will sympathise with your yearning to be a grandmother.

Sensible people know they cannot write scripts for their children’s lives, but that doesn’t stop the longing, does it?

But it means you may have to shoulder many disappointments. Maybe a son fails to fulfil his early academic promise, gets in with the wrong people and drops out; perhaps a dear daughter turns her back on the stable life you’d hoped for her and ricochets around the world in hippy bliss; maybe they choose singledom; perhaps they go through acrimonious divorces…

What can we do? Nothing, I’m afraid. And if your adult children form relationships in

which the birth of children seems extremely unlikely , there is nothing we can do but accept the sense of disappointment with good grace.

This grace involves a silent acceptance of the end of dreams — an acceptance every one of us will probably have to develop at some stage in life.

When people ask you that ques - tion you hate so much you must say, ‘Well, who knows what will happen — or when?’ in a cheerful but firm voice which deters further intrusive comment.

And you know , that is exactly what I am going to point out to you too. Y our sons are in their 30s.

That means they enjoy that crucial advantage nature has given them over women: their fertility lasts much longer . Who knows whether a woman might change her mind? Or whether one or other (or both) might start a new relationship in ten years time and have a child?

How many men (famous and unknown) have started second families even in their 60s?

You’d rather not wait that long , but no matter. I repeat, none of us knows what fate waits around the corner, so it ’ s best to live in the present, hope your sons are fulfilled in their lives, and be sure you are too.

Read a wonderful novel, Grand - mothers by Salley V ickers, and realise there are many ways to be a gran.

Perhaps you could inquire about opportunities that may exist in your area to be a surrogate grandmother to a little family that needs affection and support.