The Gift of a Grandchild
A grandchild is certainly an amazing gift. The little one may carry 25 percent of our genetic code. Even in cases where adoption or stepparents may be part of the family history, a grandchild is a wonderful and new chapter in our story. More importantly, this child comes directly to us from the hands of God. It has been many years since we grandparents were children ourselves. Maybe we have lost some of our wonder along the way, or forgotten God’s loving touch. Maybe we have developed bad habits or failed in some way to be all God intended us to be. Grandchildren, however, can introduce us anew to God’s goodness.
Grandchildren invite us to a new youthfulness. We might worry that being a grandparent makes us old. Certainly, we will feel new aches and pains as we begin again to rock an infant to sleep, chase after a toddler, or grab a little one from harm’s way. But grandchildren also give us a second chance to live life with renewed hope, contentment, gratitude, awe, love, and joy.
Of course, some grandparent experiences are not all giggles, hugs, and joy. Some grandchildren arrive at inconvenient times. Some are ill. Some may be with us for too short a time. Some arrive in alienated or dysfunctional families. Some grandparents and grandchildren get to spend little or no time together. Yet, even in these saddest and most difficult cases, a grandchild can have a profound impact on our lives. Grandchildren — even ones we may never get to meet — can leave a lasting mark on our hearts.
An old legend says the indentation on a baby’s upper lip, right below the nose, is a mark left by God. Before God sends a child into the world, he gently places his finger on that spot to seal into our memories all the love, peace, and joy of the Divine. It is why, when we want to remember something, we may place a finger on this little ridge. The one thing we all long to remember is what God is like. Above everything else, grandchildren can remind us of that.
The Role of a Grandparent
Precisely because a grandchild may renew our faith in the glory of God, we have a joyful obligation to introduce our grandchildren to this wonderful God. But we do not have the ultimate responsibility. Almost every grandparent says one of the blessings of being a grandparent is not being responsible for raising this new generation of children. That primary responsibility belongs to the parents. We have tackled that tough job already, and we know it is demanding, exhausting, and frustrating. But it is also the most rewarding job in the world. And now our sons and daughters are embracing it. Where does that leave us?
We still have an important role to play. In fact, it may be the last big role we play in life. From the moment of our birth, we all play many roles. We start out as sons or daughters, siblings, grandchildren ourselves, possibly also nieces and nephews. We become friends, spouses, parents, employees, bosses, volunteers, and neighbors. But the last and greatest role we may play is that of a grandparent. This is a role from which we will never retire. It is not a starring role. It is only a supporting role — one in which we support the parents in their critical work of raising our beautiful and precious grandchildren. Yet, if we play this role well, we can have a lasting impression on the lives of our grandchildren. We can impart to them valuable faith lessons and introduce them to the joy, grace, and peace our faith can give us. Let us ask God every day to help us play this last role well.
In The Joy of Love, Pope Francis notes the significance of this role: “Very often it is grandparents who ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren, and ‘many people can testify that they owe their initiation into the Christian life to their grandparents.’ Their words, their affection, or simply their presence help children to realize that history did not begin with them, that they are now part of an age-old pilgrimage and that they need to respect all that came before them” (Amoris Laetitia, 192).
The wisdom of grandparents has always been critical to the survival of the family. Many anthropologists believe that thousands of years ago it was the grandparents’ knowledge which helped humanity survive. The older ones knew where to find water in times of drought or where to find food in times of famine. Today, our families do not need us to find food and water for them. However, they do need us to support them in other ways. This overbusy, over-stressed world places great demands on young families. Each family will need support from grandparents in different ways. At the very least, we can help prepare our grandchildren to carry Christ into a world which will be very different from the one we know — a world of new technologies, new challenges, and new fears.
Modern media lets us stay connected to our grandchildren no matter how far away they are from us. One woman has a Sunday afternoon story time with her faraway grandchildren. She reads library books to them over Skype every weekend. One little boy calls his grandmother “Grandma in the Box,” because they spend so much time together on Skype. One of my friends phones her out-of-town grandchildren every evening to say a quick “good night” and hear one thing about their day. Her son says the kids look forward to that call all day. They carefully plan what they want to tell Grandma. Staying in touch with our grandchildren is important. It sets the stage for letting us share our faith and spirituality with them.
Faith and Spirituality
If we want to pass our faith onto our grandchildren, we first need to take a close look at what we have to offer them. Today’s children expect everything to do something. By the time they are a year old, our grandchildren know what brightly colored buttons to push on all their toys to make them sing, dance, wiggle, or giggle. If a toy doesn’t do something, a child quickly becomes bored with it. Sadly, the same can be said of our faith.
Faith, quite simply, is what we believe. Spirituality is what we do with our faith. If we set our faith up on a shelf, point to it, and tell our grandchildren, “This is what you must believe,” it will inspire them little more than a toy with a dead battery. But if they see us living those beliefs, then we are giving them something of value.
We cannot hope to teach our grandchildren the faith merely by reading them a children’s book of Bible stories published thirty years ago. While those stories are beautiful, today’s grandchildren need to know how faith works right now. The way we live the Gospel in our lives — and especially in our interaction with them and their families — will teach our grandchildren the values they will need for a Spirit-filled future.
We cannot give, however, what we ourselves do not have. If our faith, virtues, and spirituality are meager, we cannot expect to pass them on in abundance to our grandchildren. At this grandparenting stage of our lives, it might be time to dust off our own approach to the Faith and give it a fresh look. We might want to spruce up our spirituality or make sure our virtues are sparkling. This could be the greatest gift we will give our grandchildren. Let us make sure it is the best it can be.
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul wrote, “You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all” (3:2). The apostle was referring to the fact that other people would consider the value of this new faith based on what they saw in the Corinthians. This has not changed in two thousand years. Years from now, future generations will be judging the value of the same faith Paul preached based on what they see in our grandchildren. We have an opportunity to let our faith be known by how our grandchildren see it lived in us.
Do we have the kind of spirituality necessary to inspire faith in our grandchildren? We certainly must make sure our spiritual batteries are freshly charged. We may go to Mass on Sundays and even pray a Rosary now and then, but is our faith truly vibrant? Do our lives sparkle with compassion and generosity? Is our acceptance of all people a catchy tune our grandchildren will want to sing? Do they see service shining through our lives? Is our respect for nature and all of God’s creation a joyful dance they want to follow? Do our grandchildren see us as loving, kind, and generous — not just to them, but to all those we encounter throughout our lives? Do we glow with trust, peace, hope, joy, and contentment? Do we walk in God’s mercy, showing forgiveness to others in the same way God forgives our own weaknesses?
These are the Gospel values and the teachings of today’s Church which we must pass on to our grandchildren. These are the standards by which they will consciously