Welcome to Grandparenting Unfiltered, a new monthly column by parenting author and broadcaster Kathy Buckworth. With wit and wisdom, she’s diving into the joys and jabs of being a grandparent today—no filter required.
Seven, 10, 16 and 18. That’s how old my four kids were when I wrote my first column for ParentsCanada magazine, back in November, 2009. I was 46.
A lot has changed…with the world in general, but also within my own world. If I’m doing the math correctly, those “kids” of mine are now 23, 26, 32 and 34. I’m 62.
But now I have four even better numbers to share with you: My grandkids are three months, two years, four years and five years old.
Back in 2009, I was writing about having young kids, tweens and teens, and the challenges that came with a busy household—juggling work, hockey, dance and having a life of my own.
Now I’ve reclaimed that life for me, but I’m gladly handing over large pieces of it to my grandchildren. Sometimes clichés are clichés because they’re true. It is absolutely verifiable that when you are a grandparent, you can hand back a crying child or a baby with a dirty diaper to their rightful owners. It is the best of both worlds. It is “grand” parenting. There’s nothing like it.
Plus, the way millennial parents are parenting today versus the way I did it in the ’90s and early 2000s is so different. First of all, they’re constantly under fire by social media trial. Sure, there are advantages of finding your parenting community on social platforms, but social media has also ramped up the Parenting Competitive Olympics to warp speed.
Your baby isn’t sitting up yet? Here are pictures of all the babies who can do that, while dressed in designer clothes on a white leather couch. You can’t get your six year old to sit still while you try to brush their hair? Here are hundreds of kids whose hair is a work of art, and might even include an array of fresh flowers, grown in their own fields.
There are as many parenting theories today as there are kids named Brayden, Jayden and Jaxxon. Your kids are wading through them and dragging you along for the ride. And what a ride it’s turning out to be. In an unexpired car seat, of course.
It was a year after I wrote that first column for ParentsCanada, in 2010, that Instagram was launched—meaning I didn’t have to deal with any of that. Apple hadn’t even introduced the iPad, meaning we didn’t have to worry about the decision to let our kids play on tablets in restaurants (or every other place they might claim to be bored).
Were things simpler? Maybe. But nothing is as simple as following the rules that your kids, the parents, give you, in order to grandparent the way they want you to.
This column will expose all the unfiltered thoughts, actions and corrections that grandparents today have to deal with, and guess what…we do it willingly. Because our kids hold the keys to the grandkid kingdom, and you certainly don’t want to be locked out of that. And I’m going to help you build that trust and keep that access.
The number one rule of grandparenting is, and always has been, to acknowledge that your kids, the parents of your grandchildren, are the bosses of their own families. You are more of a consultant, who will sometimes gets asked for advice but certainly doesn’t win by offering unsolicited words of wisdom.
Listen first to your kids, the experts on your grandchildren, and then maybe lend me an ear in this regular column, as we face the challenges of grandparents today. It’s hard for me to keep the filter on my own thoughts much of the time, and I’d love to hear back from you as well.
Let me know of your grandparenting challenges and we’ll try to address those, too.
It’ll be grand.
Kathy Buckworth is the award-winning author of six parenting books, including I Am So The Boss Of You (McClelland & Stewart). She is the Go-To Grandma on Breakfast Television (Toronto), CHCH Morning Live and the host and creator of the Go-To Grandma podcast, available on iTunes. She has written for hundreds of publications, print and online, and is absolutely thrilled to graduate from parenting contributor to grandparenting columnist with Parents Canada. She is presently at work on her seventh book, targeted at Gen X grandparents. She has four regular kids and four amazing grandkids.
