thisnewday | Entries tagged with grandparenting

The grandson finally made it back to soccer training, last night, after being out for several weeks with an ankle sprain. I know such injuries can be of long duration, and setbacks frequent, but there have been times when he's been less than completely honest about such things because he's "had other plans" or "was just too tired" or "simply didn't feel like it."

As a result, I've had many conversations with him about the necessity of being honest and of honoring our commitments, whether to a job, a sports team, or a personal relationship. And how one lie or one broken commitment can jeopardize our standing with an employer or a team and forever compromise a personal relationship. All of which has seemed, at times, beyond the comprehension of this now-15-year-old kid.

But I've kept at it, hoping that the seed once sown will someday germinate and eventually blossom into something akin to a conscious, considerate, dependable young adult. Preferably sometime before his grandfather is permanently asleep beneath the wind-swept grasses.

And it may just be that he's finally becoming aware that this old man is on this earth for something other than giving rides, when his mother won't, or buying the latest footwear, when his mother can't. Because, on a couple of recent occasions, he's asked about coming over for dinner. Although, when I've tried to pin him down, about the where and when and why of it, he's reverted to that non-committal self that we know and sacrifice our sense of purpose and self-worth to love.

But last night, during one of those rides to a friend's house that I seem to have been put on this earth to provide, he asked if I was doing any more projects in the basement workshop that we'd built.

And when I said, "Yeah, why, do you need to earn some money?" he surprised me with, "Well, yeah, but I never hardly see you anymore and, if I came over to work, we'd be doing both."

Then, as I recovered in time to avoid running up over the curb and hitting a little old lady who was actually several years younger than me, I finally realized what he'd been asking.

After which he again reverted to his noncommittal self, as if pushing such a proposal beyond the realm of mere conjecture was still outside his zone of comfort.

But maybe this means that there's actually some hope. For a more meaningful sort of contact than just his backside slouched against the passenger seat of my car. My hope, for both of our sakes, is that it comes to fruition soon.

Because, you know, I'm not getting any younger...

LPK
Dreamwidth
3.30.2018

It's almost 10 AM and I'm just now sitting down with my first cup of coffee, my first cup of ANYTHING, for the day.

I'd gotten up at 7, made breakfast for my grandson, texted my wife to remind her I had to drive our daughter to work, dressed, picked my wife up at work, dropped her at the house, continued on to the daughter's boyfriend's, drove her downtown, got back home in time to get my son's text asking me to pick up his other son at the other grandparents, brought him home and texted the older grandson's teacher to let her know he would not be in school because he's coming down with a cold (with respiratory complications), caught earlier in the week from the younger grandson, and to ask when I could drop off his homework and reading log and pick up today's classwork.

I need to find a regular, fulltime job where I'd get a lunchtime, coffee breaks, and a paycheck. And maybe even the status of a working mother, LOL...

LPK
LiveJournal
6.13.2014

My grandson and I have been slacking off rather badly, as far as reading at home, for about the past month. It started, I think, with the end of the "Book-It" program at school which required that he read a given number of minutes per month, beginning last October. The minutes per day were then recorded on a monthly report form which was then signed by the student and the responsible adult and turned in to the school.

Students who successfully completed the monthly quota, which increased incrementally over the course of the school year, were given a certificate for a personal-size pizza from Pizza Hut and were also recognized at the monthly 3rd grade award ceremony. And at the end of the program, students who had met the monthly goals for the entire year were given special recognition. Which, I'm happy to say, we accomplished as well.

That's not to say that it was especially easy for either of us. I've remarked in the past how I was one of those "natural readers" when I was a kid and Jason and his father were not. Which meant that Jason often had to be prodded to do the reading and I was constantly looking for signs of some sort of epiphany whereby Jason would suddenly and miraculously come to appreciate the adventure of reading.

And I think it's fair to say that we've done more than just hope that this would happen. The most important investment I've made, especially over the past two years, is that of time. And based on my experience as a daily, part-time helper in his cassroom last year and an occasional one this year, it's the most important investment ANY parent or grandparent can make toward their children's success in school.

Now I appreciate that there are parents, grandparents, caregivers, with far less time at their disposal than I'm lucky enough to have. But to anyone who says they can't find 20 minutes a day to read with their kid, I'm gonna call bullsh!t. First of all, these kids are the reason that we do everything else that we do. And if you don't understand that, then you need to take a step back from your self-absorbed life and think again.

Smoke one less cigarette (C'mon, you know you stretch 'em out since they went up to $10 a pack.), turn off the TV for twenty minutes, do a few less reps in the gym. Have the kid read to you through the bathroom door while you've got that needle jammed in your arm. (I'll bet you think I said that for effect. Pffttt. Spend a day watching what walks into a city school if you think that.)

The point is that somewhere in your life you have that kind of time and, as a parent, it's up to you to find it for your kid.

Because his school has been identified by the state as one of many in need of improvement, there are actually quite a number of initiatives in place to help make that happen. But that's the state, working from the outside to try to help those on the inside who have to make it happen.

That would be you and me. Doing what we can. Maybe doing more than we think we can, because it's that important...

LPK
LiveJournal
6.11.2012

One of the good things about having to talk to kids, about things they're not getting right in their responses to life, is that it compels us to think about our own and, from that place, to thereafter teach by example.

In that way, being a parent or grandparent or adult mentor can help make us better people because we'll sometimes do for them what we might not otherwise do for ourselves...

LPK
LiveJournal
5.20.2012 (a)

I've had a lot of different jobs in my life. I've been a school teacher, an auto mechanic, a framing carpenter, a set builder and a structural designer, among others. And I've experienced the whole range of challenges, successes and failures that come with being self-taught at most of them.

But the most important job I've ever done is the one I'm doing right now. It's being a grandparent who is helping to raise a now six-year-old grandson. There's no money in it, except what we sometimes spend for school clothes, Hot Wheels cars and occasional trips to McDonald's. And it's meant putting off certain things that I once thought I might be doing at this time in my life.

Once again, there are the daily challenges of doing a job at which the skills are almost entirely self-taught. But, because I'm a grandparent, this is sort of my second time around, another chance to "get it right," for which I'm eternally grateful...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.2.2009

A week or so ago, I heard Ted Kennedy say in an interview that,"No effort made on behalf of a child is ever wasted." A few days later, I had one of the best days of my entire life. We'd taken my son and grandson to the casino and stayed in the hotel overnight. The little boy is three and loves to ride the elevators and escalators and eat at the food court and jump from bed to bed in the hotel room.

But his favorite place is the domed space at the top of the escalators where, if you tap your foot sharply or whistle, there's an amazing echo that goes on forever. He always asks to go there and if I happen to glance up there's always a passerby or two laughing at our antics. And when we leave he always says, "Bye-bye, Echo," as if there's somehow a personification of his own voice that's left there once we've gone.

I spend a lot of time with him--we fought for custody when his mother left--and work hard to be sure that he's comfortable and happy in this place that's always been his home. But somehow the other day was special among all the days we've had together.

After checking in at the hotel, I'd taken him to a park, where I sometimes go, in a nearby town. We wore each other out on the jungle gym--Poppa ain't as young as he used to be--and then went back to the hotel for dinner. Afterward, my wife and son went back to the gaming floor where they pretty much played the night away (along with an undisclosed amount of cash).

The little boy and I went back to the room and fell asleep watching "Nick at Nite." In the morning, we were the first, and only, ones up and went downstairs for breakfast. Now here's where his mom and I have always differed. Even in the best of times, the most fun times, the "let's both laugh and be silly times," you're still the adult and he's still the little kid. And he needs to know that he can absolutely depend on that. Because that's where his security really is--in your security as an adult.

I know it's because she's a kid herself that his mother has a hard time understanding this. In fact, I think that having this child was a way of empowering herself in the face of an adult world for which she otherwise felt unprepared. The result has been a predictably sad and difficult journey for the little boy.

Anyway, he decided to dig in his heels a couple times, when his understanding of the situation differed from mine. And that's really what happens. The child, understandably, sees things differently than you do as an adult. So what you have, as the adult, is an opportunity to teach. And you've gotta make the most of that, when you've got the chance.

(There are, of course, lots of exceptions to even the most general rules of child-rearing. Any parent, grandparent, or other care-giver, who's had to deal with a child who's hungry, over-tired, or otherwise out of sorts, knows that these are not teaching moments. At such times, it does help to remember that we are all, on occasion, unreceptive to reason, affection, or other inducements.)

Some people think that patience, like wisdom, comes with age. I think it comes from being too old and tired to blow off the volume of negative energy that some people routinely do with their kids. Instead, you save what you've got till the line has to be drawn, around some issue of safety or propriety or consideration of others.

And that's what happened on our very best day. It's not that everything was perfect. Neither of us was, and nothing ever is. But we handled those things and got back to enjoying each other. That's how you know that life is real and being well-lived. And even though he's very small, I hope my grandson will somehow carry that knowledge with him, as the years pass and the details fade and the face of his grandfather recedes, as it inevitably will, into memory.

LPK
LiveJournal
5.6.2006