Denver Home Living from Your Colorado Home Group Fall 2018 | Page 19

"But none of us, when we really sit down and think about
it, have anything quite as delightful and as joyful as our
grandchildren. They are our flesh and blood. They are our
pride and joy. And ultimately, they are our only real legacy."
are the norm and not the exception in most of the world. And
the kids and the grandparents are the happier for it.
We don’t need to live in the same house, but we grandparents
can save the world by how proactively we grandparent our
grandchildren.
As baby boomers and grandparents ourselves, we write to
other baby boomer grandparents. We write as people with a
lot of interests and passions and priorities, and we write to
others of our age who also have a lot of interests, passions,
and priorities. We have our careers, we have our sports and
our friends and our hobbies and our travel and our music
and our other personal interests. We have our causes, we have
our bucket lists, we have our cars and our boats and our toys,
we have our politics and our clubs and our churches and our
other responsibilities. We have our siblings and our extended
families. And some of us still have our own aging parents.
And we have our children who, even as adults, are still our
children.
But none of us, when we really sit down and think about
it, have anything quite as delightful and as joyful as our
grandchildren. They are our flesh and blood. They are our
pride and joy. And ultimately, they are our only real legacy.
This attitude might lead you to downsize into a seniors-only
condo in sun city by a golf course where your days would be
quiet but boring.
2. LIMITED GRANDPARENTING.
Attitude: Love to see them but in limited doses and on my
terms.
In this model, grandkids are like amusement parks: you visit
once in a while to have fun. Or like dinner guests, you have
them over now and then when it’s convenient.
3. SUPPORTIVE GRANDPARENTING.
Attitude: My kids need all the help they can get with their
kids, and I want to be there for them.
With this approach, you become part helper, part martyr,
sacrificing your own life to be at the beck and call of your
adult children whenever they “need” you to help with the
kids.
4. PROACTIVE GRANDPARENTING.
Attitude: My children are the stewards for their children. But
I can teach these grandkids things their parents cannot, and
I can be an essential part of an organized, three-generation
family. And by thinking about it — hard — and coming up
with a strategy and a plan, I can make a real difference in my
grandkids lives, even as I add joy to my own life and keep
myself young.
How much of our time and our mental energy are we
devoting to those precious and perfect little kids who carry
on our name and our genetics and our view of the world?
And how deliberate and thoughtful are we about the time we
spend with them, about what we can do for them, about the
relationship we want with them, now and for the rest of our
lives? How grand is grandparenting? About as grand as we
make it!
We don’t get a lot of training about how to be grandparents.
It’s different than parenting, and there is no owner’s guide or
instruction manual.
When your kids have kids, you have a decision to make: What
kind of grandparent will you be?
There are several levels of grandparenting, and each comes
with a different attitude:
1. DISENGAGED GRANDPARENTING.
Attitude: I raised my kids and now it’s their turn to raise their
kids. I’m done.
Only at this fourth level does grandparenting become
effective, consequential, and truly fun. At this level, you
deliberately ponder the needs you can uniquely fulfill and you
set goals and plans to enhance your grandchildren’s lives. And
you do so in concert with the goals and stewardship of their
parents. This approach will stretch and test you, but it will
also reward you with levels of fulfillment and well-being and
love and peace otherwise unobtainable.
Meet Richard & Linda Eyre
Richard Eyre and Linda Eyre are the New York Times #1
best-selling authors of Teaching Your Children Values, as
well as a dozen other parenting books. They are now
focusing on writing and speaking to grandparents (see
lifeinfullcruise.com and lifeinfullonq.com). Their latest
book is Life in Full: Maximizing Your Longevity and Legacy.
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