Can there be anything more precious than snuggling with your grandchild? To feel the touch and rejoice in the warmth and infinite pleasure of spending time together. But when miles and perhaps even oceans separate you, that pleasure is often only granted in small snippets of opportunity. Being a digital grandparent may present challenges but is a real fact of life for many in this age of globalization; myself included.
For years, the physical separation of the generations meant that the opportunities for bonding, for relationship building, for connecting, were limited to letter writing, the expensive phone call at birthdays and Christmas and the rare journey to visit. Now there is Skype, FaceTime, and other digital applications that mean grandparents and grandchildren are able to spend time together though they may be separated by many miles and oceans.
Parenthood
For the past 3 and half years Grandpa and I have spent many hours of quality time with our grandson Christopher, although he lives in London (with his new baby brother William), and we live in Richmond, B.C. We play together...he digs through his toy box and we root around in ours. Sometimes we are dinosaurs, or explorers or sometimes we just have a chat. He has taken us on “VIP tours” of his flat, explained how to get to the Natural History Museum on the bus (take the 345 to South Kensington) and invited us to come to his house for a vacation.
In many ways we may be closer to Christopher than if he lived in our neighbourhood. Although we are also separated by eight hours, we make a point of connecting with the London branch of the family almost every morning. Over our morning coffee and cereal, we touch base with our daughter and the two boys while they are enjoying their afternoon tea. Chris tells us all about Nursery, he often shares his biscuit with us (easy to share when the bite Granny or Grandpa takes is so small he hardly notices), and each call ends with many kisses across the miles.
At three and a half, Chris is definitely a child of the tech generation. Chris knows how to call Granny and Grandpa on the iPad and we've had the odd very late (or very early) call, when mummy wasn't looking; the time zone thing is still a difficult concept to master when you are only three and a half. We know that over time, Christopher may not be as interested in spending time with his far removed grandparents, so we try to make the most of our digital time together.
Although it is difficult to live so far apart, we are thankful that we live in an age of digital connectivity.
Long distance granny
Debby a.k.a. "Granny", shares how she stays connected to her grandsons, Christopher, (3 years) and William, (1 year) from an ocean away
"We play together...he digs through his toy box and we root around in ours. Sometimes we are dinosaurs, or explorers or sometimes we just have a chat"