Grandchild

“ Where family has meaning, interacting with a far away grandchild adds substance to a 'value'. Then, as the grandparent ages, communicating with the distant grandchild retains its strength as a positive force, and enriches the remaining years. ”

“ The old man and his sturdy grandchild were rare intimates, and never so happy as when wandering together about the yards and farm-buildings and pastures, the child, silent and absorbed, as he clutched his grand-dad's big brown finger. ”

“ If she has grandchildren of assorted ages she is especially fortunate, for she can then enjoy the various stages of babyhood and childhood at the same time.
Life is full of pleasant surprises. Our sons and daughters grow to maturity so gradually that we fail to realize the change from their childhood’s days. They are still boys and girls to us when they are so absurd as to suppose themselves men and women! They marry, and on some fine day present us with a grandchild! Then we suddenly realize that we are again to have the delightful experience—almost forgotten—of growing up with a baby. ”

“ Do you suppose that you are the only grandparent in the land? The only loving, the only proud grandparent? I am a grandparent. I can love as hard as you can. I can show just as bewildering a grandchild as you can. It is just as hard for me to say No to that grandchild as it is for you to say No to yours; but—excuse me—I can do it. She is five years old, but never touches candy. When she was three, a lady in an omnibus gave her a red and white peppermint stick, and she turned to me and asked "if it were not a pretty toy?" She knows now that candy is to eat ”

“ When he started she spoke to the earth, screamed out, as if calling to somebody, said: “You know my grandchild. He walks on you every day. He wants to be strong. I am not selfish, I give my grandson to you ”

“ To the lasting credit of human nature be it said that the grandparents of to-day measure as well for the most part as do the parents in these difficult tasks of family adjustment to a rapidly changing social order. It is often the grandparent who sees what the different life of his or her children have meant to the still greater difference in the condition of the grandchild, and can interpret to the latter the reason for the restraint of the parent. ”

“ The terms "grandchild" and "grandchildren" include children of adopted children, and children of stepchildren, but do not include step-children of children, step-children of stepchildren, stepchildren of adopted children or married grandchildren. ”

“ In so choosing, the youngster notifies the grandparents through his/her appeal that they, the grandparents, are wanted and needed. It's Grandchild reaching out and inviting Grandma and Grandpa into his or her world-with affection.
In single-parent families and in families in which both parents work away from home, there might not be as many opportunities to pass along traditions, awareness, and values. Be that as it may, throughout history the family and tribal elders passed their knowledge and codes of conduct on to those who, as part of the natural process, carry the torches into the future. ”

“ The first degree comprises the parents, and the children, and grandchildren, how low in descent soever, the nearer of whom exclude the more distant. Both parents, or one of them inherit together with a child, a grandchild, or a great-grandchild; but a grandchild does not inherit together with a child, nor a great-grand-child with a grandchild. ”

“ But it is a beautiful thing for a grandfather to be conducted by the hands of his grandchildren, and to be considered by them as deserving of every other attention. Hence, in the first place, we shall gratify our own parents, by paying attention to the procreation of children. ”

“ That no comfort may be wanting to the fulness of my years, I enjoy a kind of immortality in a succession of269 descendants. When I return home from my journeys, I am greeted by eleven grandchildren, the oldest eighteen, the youngest two years old; all the offspring of one father and mother. They all have good parts and morals, are blessed with the best of health, and fond of learning. I play with the youngest, and make companions of the older ones. Nature has bestowed on them fine voices. ”

“ Grandchild and grandparent know they enjoy being together, and storytelling is part of the fun; also, grandchildren know that grandmas and grandpas usually have fascinating memories of their childhood and about what happened to the family over the years. Grandchildren want to enter this little bit of grandma and grandpa's world. Perceptive grandparents see the world through a grandchild's imagination. Using the anticipation generated by a familiar opening phrase or sentence to set the stage works well for both storyteller and listener.
Grandparent-grandchild interaction is more than a custom ”

“ I suggested that his grandchildren have or will have families of their own and, in time, will also be grandparents. As elders, they will reflect on their lives and, with a perspective vastly different from their youth and middle years, recall that Grandpa, in his advanced years, had tried to reach out to them as a grandparent in deed as well as in name. ”

“ Grandchildren rarely realize it when they're kids-very often not even well into in their middle years-but the grandparents in their lives are forever. Most adults finally figure it out in their latter years. In time, grandkids figure it out-in their turn. *** A woman wrote to me about her pre-teenage daughter's repeated but futile attempts to communicate with her grandfather. He was in his eighth decade and resided in a distant state; the youngster was his only grandchild. Intelligent and caring, she had written to him regularly, sent holiday cards and gifts, and baked and mailed cookies. ”

“ Claritas patriæ.—Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps not forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies between; ”

“ In the give-and-take Grandchild learns a lot about Grandma and Grandpa, and everyone involved in the game broadens their awareness, and renew and revitalize family traditions and values.
Expect spontaneity and deep probing by youngsters when they are the interviewers. They are interested in the origins of people and things ”

“ Do you know, for example, that ONLY 58% of the fathers in America are GRANDFATHERS? Did it ever occur to you that only 39% of the grandfathers in America EVER HAVE GRANDCHILDREN? Honestly, now, don’t there come moments, after the day’s work is done and you are sitting in your slippers before the fire, when you would give any thing in the world for a soft little voice to call you GRANDPA? Be fair to your daughter Give her a College educated husband! ”

“ The grandmother was a lively old woman for one of her years, but she found her time now fully occupied in cooking the meals for her twelve small grandchildren, and mending their clothes, and washing their faces, and undressing them at night and dressing them in the morning. There was just a dozen of the babies now, and when you consider they were about the same age you will realize what a large family the old woman had, and how fully her time was occupied in caring for them all. ”

“ It is an alliance not to be treated casually; it demands nourishment, and storytelling by a family's elders is an essential ingredient.
Grandparent-Grandchild Interview
A fun way to open lines of communications while visiting grandchildren, be they nearby or far away, is the audiotaped interview. Living nearby, the grandchild knows grandma and grandpa, they're part of everyday life. Far away is different, geography causes gaps. The one-on-one interview builds self-esteem and confidence in a youngster. ”

“ Here a grand-dame is carefully assisted along by her son and daughter-in-law, preceded by chattering grandchildren in the gayest of dresses, tugging at extraordinary kites; or a father, in the doorway of his house, nurses one child, while the mother exhibits for the admiration of sympathizing friends another infant—probably one of the unconscious objects of all this rejoicing. ”

“ Instead he was addressing a large and stout lady immediately behind them.
“Separated from the family in the confusion, the grandchildren evidently—just see them in, please.”
And suddenly the orphaned children found themselves a part of the procession as grandchildren. The nature of a procession is to proceed. And the grandchildren proceeded with it. ”

“ You remember, dearie—Lester's uncle?"
Mrs. Horowitz looked up, her old face cracking to smile.
"My grandchild! My grandchild! She'm a fine one. Not? My grandchild! My grandchild!"
"You—mustn't mind, Mr. Haas. That's—the way she's done since—since she's—sick. Keeps repeating—"
"My grandchild! From a good mother and a bad [Pg 355] father comes a good grandchild. My grandchild! She'm a good one. My—"
"Mamma, dearie, Mr. Haas is in a hurry. He's come to help me walk you into a little room to rest before we go home in Mr. Haas's big fine auto. ”

“ The mother, Marcia Keith, the orphan child of a sister, committed to her care in early infancy and trained up by her to a lovely and useful womanhood, was as a daughter to her—her boys and girls as grandchildren to be loved and petted and rejoiced over after the custom of fond grandparents What a lonely old age for her without them! ”

“ When I come home I see before me, not one or two, but eleven grandchildren, between the ages of two and eighteen, all from the same father and mother, all healthy, and, so far as can already be judged, all gifted with the talent and disposition for learning and a good life. ”

“ Rent him out to a sideshow; there must be folks somewhere that would pay a dime to see him, then she cried more and kept saying my poor afflicted baby and I says yes he’ll be quite a help to you when he gets his growth not being more than one and a half times as high as me now and she says she’d be dead soon and then we’d all be better off and so I says all right, all right, have it your way. It’s your grandchild, which is more than any other grandparents it’s got can say for certain. ”

“ Sometimes it almost frightens me to think that they are grandchildren, my grandchildren—I, who only the other day, it would seem, was as heart-free, leg-free, care-free a girl as ever bestrode a horse, or swam in the big surf, or gathered opihis at low tide, or laughed at a dozen lovers. ”

“ They will never know. The way will be this:—dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. ”

“ Before her death she had seventy-one grandchildren added to the list of her descendants, besides fifty-seven great-grandchildren, and one of the fourth generation, making in all one hundred and forty-two descendants. ”

“ There are more than 60 million grandparents in the United States and their numbers are increasing as a portion of the general population. Enormous changes have taken place in longevity and lifestyles since today's older adults were, themselves, young grandchildren. ”

“ With increased life expectancy and life experience, grandparents of this era have more to offer youngsters than ever before. As life expectancy increases, our children and grandchildren, in their turn, will have more to offer their succeeding generations.
Grandchildren need easy access to grandparents. Casting the elderly into physically remote and psychologically passive roles works against the interests of grandchildren and their parents, as well as their grandparents. ”

“ It is known from many quantitative studies that in physical heredity, the influence of the paternal grandparents and the influence of the maternal grandparents is equal; on the average one pair will contribute no more to the grandchildren than the other. If mental qualities are due rather to early surroundings than to actual inheritance, this equality of grandparental influence is incredible in the royal families where Dr. ”

“ Grandpa, I remember that my brother wrote a piece last Christmas, which you called Brotherly Love.—I wish I could remember it.
Grandfather. I recollect it;—you shall learn to repeat it.
William. I shall like that; pray let me hear it now, sir.
Grandfather. You shall.
“The children of our family should [Pg 113] be like the fingers on a hand; each help the other, and each in his separate station promote the good of the whole. The joy of one should be the joy of the whole. Children in a house should agree together like the birds in a nest, and love each other.” ”

“ The children call her grandma, and I heard Archie explaining to the gardener’s son, the other day, that she was really his grandmother, because she was the mother of his first father!
To me the past seems all a dream, and when I look about me upon my home, and hear the voices of my children shouting on the lawn, and see their father coming up the walk, and know that he will soon be at my side, bending over me in the old, teasing, loving way, I cannot realize that I am she who once plodded so drearily through the London fog and rain, hunting for work with which to get my daily bread. ”

“ But one spring day came the news of a grandson, called Benjamin after his grandfather, and an urgent letter from their boy himself, enclosing a prettily and humbly worded note from the new strange daughter, begging for an English nurse. She told them that she had now no father and no mother, for they had died before the baby came, and if she might love her husband’s parents a little she would be glad. ”

“ A girl of thirteen often has the care of several younger children, besides doing much of the housework for the family. A grandfather or a grandmother, even if very feeble, is a great addition to the family life in furnishing the adult point of view in the absence of both parents. ”