Why grandparents are important and why parents don’t need to be jealous of that relationship

Science tells us that grandparents being involved in the life of their grandkids is good not only for the children but also for the grandparents themselves.

For example, a study released in June of 2016 from Boston College found that the rates of depression were less for grandparents AND grandchildren who had close relationships.

The unbreakable bond

I grew up with three loving and devoted grandparents who lived nearby. While my paternal grandpa died a month after I was born, my other three grandparents were a big part of my life. They lived just two houses apart from each other and were within five minutes of our house.

I was blessed to grow up with all three of them. My first grandparent loss didn’t happen until the beginning of my sophomore year in college. My last grandparent loss was two years ago. I miss them all so very much.

But my experience with grandparents is not over. Now I get to see my parents and my in-laws as grandparents. We have chosen to remain in the same city with both sets of grandparents even though it means that my husband has to drive a ways when he needs to go into the office.

On any given day, my children would have a 95% chance of choosing to be with my parents or in-laws over my husband and me! And I’m OK with that. (They don’t get to stay with them indefinitely, but they do get to see their grandparents usually at least once a week during the school year and often more during the summer.)

The love of parents

I will always be their mom. Nothing can ever change that or the love I have for them. Our relationship is our own and has nothing to do with their relationship with their grandparents.

I was close with all of my grandparents and loved them fiercely, but my mom and dad were still my mom and dad. Loving my grandparents didn’t mean I had less love for my parents. I just had all that much more love, and the same is true for my kiddos.

I am so very thankful that my children have grandparents who are investing in them. My husband and I were married for 10 years before we had children. As a result, all of our parents were retired by the time we started a family. And our parents were head-over-heels from day one.

An additional support system

My parents and in-laws are all a huge part of our kids’ lives. These grandparents show up for school performances and birthday parties. They love having the kids over to spend the night. They love spoiling the kids and buying toys they don’t need and offering extra sweets. These people are not the same people who raised my husband and me — and I love that!

I could be jealous of their relationship. I could resent the time my children spend with their grandparents. I’ve had a few times where my kids experienced something for the first time with their grandparents instead of with my husband and me. Honestly, it smarted a time or two.

However, long ago I learned to just be thankful. I’m glad that my parents and in-laws get a chance to experience some firsts with our kids, too. Because in the end, all they have in mind is our kids’ happiness.

As their mom, I love my children so completely and so fully. I would willingly lay down my life for them. I do my best to meet all of their needs and look out for their best interests. Aside from my husband and me, our parents are the people who most love our children and would do whatever the kids need, no matter what.

That’s a tremendous blessing. The relationship between a grandchild and grandparent is a precious one. I learned that as a grandchild. I see that now as a mom. One of these days in the future, I may learn that as a grandparent as well. I have been well taught what makes a good grandparent through all of my experiences. I’m thankful to be able to pass those lessons along to my children as they grow up close to their grandparents.

How grandparents are different

What I love about relationships between grandparents and grandchildren is that they are unique. Grandparents love their grandkids just as much as their parents do, but they have a different perspective and a different purpose.

While my husband and I are tasked with the job of raising our kids to be good people and discipline and do the nitty gritty work, our parents have the freedom to just love on them and have fun with them. Of course the kids love that and need that!

Grandparents are different in that they are able to just be present with their grandkids. Of course they have chores and tasks to be done, but many times those can wait until after the grandkids have gone home. I don’t get that luxury as often because in the midst of spending time with my kids, I also have to make sure our household is running smoothly and they have lunches packed, homework done, clothes washed, baths taken and on the list goes!

Grandparents are also different in that they have more patience. Nobody has raised kids and not understood how much patience it takes. It starts right from the beginning when they depend on you for every single thing, every single moment. I’m not sure it ever stops. While my husband and I can run short on patience in the midst of family life, our parents seldom do. They have patience in abundance for their grandchildren, which is something my kids thrive on.

Grandparents get to show up and cheer their grandkids on with pride. Parents totally do this, too. I enjoy going to the kids’ school programs and such. But while I can get busy and even stressed with the logistics of it all, my parents and in-laws show up with big smiles and are happy to cheer on our kids and brag about them whenever they get a chance. What kid doesn’t love that?!

Grandparents get to be the fun ones. I have seen both my parents and in-laws stop what they were doing and just play with our kids in ways I don’t even think they did with us. They have more freedom to be fun and have fun with the kids, which is a huge blessing for my children.

It really does take a village

Finally, grandparents also get to be an example to their grandkids. We are blessed that both my parents and my husband’s parents are incredibly great examples for our children. They all live Godly lives and model love, grace and faith to our children. I was blessed to have the examples of my own grandparents. All of that pours into my children. My children have a legacy of love and faith behind them, and I am incredibly grateful for that.

Raising children is a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure. Keeping them safe is more challenging than ever before. Keeping them connected with the real world and grounded in faith can be a struggle. Having people come alongside my husband and me as we raise our children is a blessing beyond words. I will never be jealous of the relationship my kids have with any of their grandparents. I will just be grateful that they have so many good adults willing to love them and invest in them and help us as we raise them.

What the story of two sisters in the Bible taught me about motherhood

This post first ran back on Feb. 5, 2015 on my former blog. While some things have changed — like the age and some of the needs of my children — everything else remains quite the same. In fact, God brought this post to my mind earlier this week as a reminder to not be so busy in doing things for my family that I forget to just be with my family.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard sermons or Bible studies or read devotions on the Mary and Martha story in the Bible. Probably more than I can count. But as God is known to do, sometimes He knocks me over the head about something in a new way and that happened last week. 

I read a devotion about Mary and Martha — you know, the story in Luke 10:38-42 where Jesus goes to visit the two sisters and Mary sits at His feet listening to Him talk while Martha stays busy getting everything in the house ready. When Martha asks Him to reprimand her sister for not helping, Jesus lovingly turns the tables on her and gently reminds her that Mary is doing the right thing. What He wanted and what she needed was to just listen to Him.

This passage has long reminded me to not be so busy doing things that I miss out on just being with and listening to God. But for the first time last week, it spoke directly to my mother’s heart. Zing! Right where I needed to hear it. 

I am the kind of person who thrives on a to-do list. Thrives! I feel most accomplished when I can look back at my day and see how I marked off item after item. On down times, I get antsy if I don’t get things done. I like a mix of being productive and resting when it comes to my downtime. I have a to-do list for every day. And, of course, with two small children there is always lots to be done: cleaning, cooking, laundering, bathing, diapering and on and on the list goes.

I have been feeling quite proud of myself lately for all I’ve been doing. As my son has gotten older and less clingy and more happy and able to play with his big sister, I have gotten a chance to get things done again. I have also felt well enough these last few weeks to do things. 

So I was feeling proud that I’ve been organizing my house in pockets here and there and marking things off my to-do list and keeping up with laundry and making healthy food for my family and on I could go. But you may also know what the Bible also says about pride going before a fall.

Just like that God smacked me over the head and pointed out to me that I needed to make sure I wasn’t only being a Martha to my children (doing all the tasks that surround caring for them), but that I was also being a Mary to my children (stopping to listen to and play with them). Ouch! It’s not that doing my kids’ laundry or making their lunch or cleaning our house are bad or wrong in any way. Certainly those things need to be done. If I don’t do them things get crazy! 

However, God reminded me that I need to stop doing sometimes and just be with my kiddos. Of course I play with them. Of course I interact with them, but how often do I just sit down with them one-on-one and say, “Let’s do whatever you want to do for the next half hour?” Not all that often. 

More often than I’d like to admit, when I play with them I feel antsy to be able to move on to my next task or I think about all that isn’t getting done or I even just think how much I wish I could be doing something else for myself. And many times, I’m half playing and half keeping an eye on the time so that we don’t get off our precious schedule.

The games a preschooler and toddler come up with aren’t always intriguing and fun to me. How many times can I make a Ninja Turtle on a motorcycle run into Batman on a motorcycle before I start to want to pull out my hair?  But isn’t God patient with us? Aren’t I supposed to model my life after Him? He sees me wandering around making a mess of things or doing the same tedious, ridiculous things over and over. 

Fortunately He doesn’t think like I sometimes do and get impatient with my childish ways. Sometimes I think He finds delight in the little things that delight me. Because when I really just let myself and my agenda go and am present in playing with my children with my mind and body, then I am happy to make a Ninja Turtle on a motorcycle crash into Batman on a motorcycle over and over again because I see the joy it brings my son. He is delighted, so I am delighted.

Today I will make progress on my to-do list. I will get laundry done. I will make dinner. I will make sure that the big kid gets to and from preschool on time. I will be a Martha managing my household and family. But I will also work to be a Mary and make sure that I stop to just sit and play with my children. 

I have learned this in my spiritual life (though I am FAR from perfect!). I make time to stop and hang out with God in the mornings (unless my kids are sick and up all hours then I find Him in other ways throughout the day). I need that time with my Father. My kids need that time with their mother. 

I will work to find the best balance I can between Martha and Mary. Some days I may be more one than the other in the natural ebb and flow of life, but I will plod forward doing my best.

The words we say and attitudes we hold influence our children so much!

Each week my son goes to a ninja class where he learns tumbling and parkour (think “American Ninja Warrior” for little ones). He loves it! Last week, his class with filled with all boys who were age 5 to 7. They jumped and tumbled and ran. During one of their water breaks, I heard another little boy talking with his family. He said he was tired.

The kids had just finished jumping and running over and over, so it was tiring. He wasn’t whining. The grandpa leaned over to the child, pointed to the all-female competitive cheerleading team practicing on the next mat over and asked his grandson if he wanted to go to the girls. When he said no, then the grandpa advised him to stop complaining or he’d have to.

Undermining the value of women

I bristled. It bothered me. The message he just sent his grandson is that those girls aren’t as valuable. He told his grandson that going to a group of girls is a punishment. He told his granddaughter, who was sitting right beside him, that boys only do something girls do as punishment. Boys are better. Even crazier to me is those girls were older than his grandson and a heck of a lot better at their skills of tumbling. The grandpa was undermining the value of women.

OK. So it might sound like I’m over-reacting. I don’t want to rant and rave. But, as the mother of a boy, I want to be conscious of what I’m teaching him through my attitudes and words. As the mother of a girl, I want to be conscious of what I’m teaching her through my attitudes and words.

I don’t appreciate the idea that for a boy to go into a girls’ class is punishment. And I wouldn’t appreciate it in reverse either. I am aware there are differences between boys and girls and men and women. We tend to have different strengths and such, but that doesn’t make either gender less than the other. I never want my daughter to feel she is less than a boy just because she’s a girl. I never want my son to feel superior to a girl just because he’s a boy.

What was very interesting to me is that very evening on the way home from his ninja class, my son and I had a discussion right along these lines. He wanted to know if Adam and Eve had only sons, because he’s didn’t hear about their daughters.

I explained to him that through the years, as men wrote down history, including the Bible, they didn’t take women and children into account because they didn’t think they were important. We talked about how Jesus fed the 5,000, but that 5,000 was only the number of men. He actually fed way more than 5,000. My son was incredulous that they didn’t care about women and children. How could they not, he wondered.

God’s plan for the value of women

My best answer was unfortunately that’s just how it was. I did tell him God didn’t plan it that way from the beginning. Yes, He made Adam first, but that doesn’t mean that Eve wasn’t just as important. I reminded my son that God loves all of us the same, and seeing any one of His children being treated poorly based on gender or skin color must make Him sad.

I didn’t bring up this topic. But, I did find it quite timely that my son did. He didn’t hear the grandfather’s words. I didn’t say a word about it to him. In fact, I didn’t even share it with anyone aside from a friend I met for breakfast the next morning. However, the two conversations go side-by-side.

The power of our attitudes

The grandfather didn’t tell his grandson that he was superior and girls don’t matter or aren’t as important in those exact words. Not many people would say that, especially these days.

But his attitude showed a different picture. His attitude showed that he clearly thinks women are less-than, weaker, whinier and wimpier than boys. And THAT message offends me for myself, my daughter and my son. I don’t want to raise a boy to be a man with that attitude. His father doesn’t have that attitude. His Heavenly Father certainly doesn’t have that attitude.

The words we say hold so very much power. We live in a world of political correctness where people are often chastised for the words they use, sometimes to the point of what seems ridiculous. I understand that maybe we get tired of posts just like this one. Tirades exhaust us, and we roll our eyes at what seems an over-reaction.

But until these kinds of attitudes stop and aren’t accepted, they must continue. I will stop myself from getting off on a tangent about how women are treated and perceived inside the church. In fact, I’d daresay many churches are the greatest offenders of gender equality. I want to focus instead on thinking about the hidden messages in the words we say to our children. They are soaking every last one of them up.

That little boy didn’t go home last week thinking he was better than girls directly. He did go home having absorbed some of his grandpa’s attitude about the value of women. If he is given that attitude enough times, it will fully soak in and shape his views. That is what we must do our best to change and do better than generations before us. We’ve made progress, but so much more progress needs to be made. The message we are giving our sons (and daughters!) shouldn’t be one of superiority over any one for any reason.

Ideas for quality one-on-one time

A study in March 2015 showed that parents are spending more time with their children now than ever before. In fact, the amount of time we’re spending with our kids keeps increasing. But, if you talk to most parents they don’t feel like they are actually spending enough one-on-one time with their kids. I’d guess that’s because the research is looking at quantity of time more than quality of time.

It’s a struggle that my family faces. Both of our kids are in school now. With a third grader and kindergartener, we are careful of monitoring their after-school activities so we don’t get too busy. Each of them are allowed to pick one extracurricular activity that goes for the entire school year. We recently agreed to let them both participate in a school play knowing that it would increase their activities for a couple of months, especially for our daughter who, as a third grader, has a larger part than her kindergarten brother.

Once you add in things like homework, making dinner, making lunches and cleaning up from everything, our evenings are pretty full even when the kids don’t have any activities. We are together and have family dinner almost every night. We chat around the dinner table, which is something my husband and I set as a priority when we first became parents. But when it comes to actually having one-on-one time with our children, we have to be more intentional.

One-on-one time is so important for our kiddos. I can literally see the difference in my children’s attitudes and mannerisms when they learn that they get one-on-one time. They perk up. It doesn’t take a long time or something complicated to make a difference. It just takes a bit of planning and undivided attention (no cell phone!).

1. Share a meal.

I can almost bond over food with anyone. I love food! But, this is true with my kiddos. I love getting a chance to eat with just one kiddo at a time. We’ve done this both as one-on-one time with each other individually and also as one-on-two time with both my husband and me but only one kiddo.

Right now in being busier, we actually are able to accomplish this one more. One night this week, for example, my daughter had play practice until 6 and had to be at gymnastics at 7. My son had to be at his Ninja Zone class at 6:30. My husband and I divided and conquered. He took my daughter and had dinner at Subway in between activities. I had my son who wanted frozen pizza at home before his class. It was a great opportunity to connect with our kids individually.

Another way I’ve found this works well is going into have lunch with them at school. My kids’ school is open to having parents come in for lunch whenever they’d like to as long as we sign in. My son’s lunch ends right as my daughter’s is beginning. And there are special tables just outside the cafeteria we can sit at, which really does give us a chance to connect one-on-one. I also really enjoy seeing them in their element at school and interacting with their friends. I also keep it simple and usually just have them eat their lunch that I packed for them.

For the one-on-two dates, we have even left one kiddo with a babysitter and gone out. A babysitter for us means grandparents because we are fortunate to have both my parents and my in-laws living within 10 minutes of us. But, even with grandparent time, our kids still make us promise that they’ll each get a turn to go out with us one-on-two. They enjoy having our undivided attention.

2. Take advantage of time in the car.

That scenario above where the kids have classes within a half hour of each other happens every week. My son’s Ninja Zone class is 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and my daughter’s gymnastics class is 7 to 8 p.m. Both classes are in different buildings about 10 minutes away from each other. So my husband and I split up to take them. We alternate who goes with whom so we have a chance to see each of them do their thing.

I’ve had some great conversations with both of them on the way to and from classes. Sometimes they share more about what’s going on with them at school. Sometimes they tell me something they’ve been worried about. And sometimes, especially with my son, they tell me about all the plans they’re making. (I call my 6-year-old son “my little man with a plan,” because has a plan and explanation for everything, even if he’s taking creative license with it!)

3. Go on dates.

We get to have dates every so often around here with our kiddos. For the past two years, a local community organization hosts a daddy/daughter dance in the fall. My husband takes my daughter and they always have a great time together. My son and I plan our own date during that time. In fact, I wrote about our most recent back in October. We don’t have to do something extravagant. My son really just wanted to go to the playground and out for ice-cream. But we have fun and get to connect in a different way. We get to chat about what’s going on with them and we try to make sure that we are doing something they are interested in and want to do, which is also incredibly important.

4. Take turns playing.

Our kiddos love for my husband and I to play with them. Now that they are both in school and have more going on, we don’t get to play nearly as often as we once did back when they were itty-bitties. But something we started back then has continued until now and is still one of their favorite things: one-on-one play time. We set a timer and spend time with each kid playing whatever they want to play and then switch.

My kids love this so much that it was their only requested activity over winter break when I asked them what they wanted to do during their time off from school. Even just a half hour each is enough and they love it. My husband and I do, too.

5. Go shopping together.

You don’t have to love shopping for this one to work, because I certainly don’t love shopping! I’ve enjoyed numerous shopping trips with one kiddo at a time picking out presents for the other or even just shopping for clothes. There’s something special about being out with just one kiddo at a time for both them and me. A couple of weeks ago, my son and I went to Target to have him try on jeans. It was sort of laborious and shouldn’t have been fun, yet we had a good time together anyway.