Grandparents raising grandchildren

[NanaJo]

I am a 52 year old grandmother (Nana) who is raising (along with my husband), our two little grandsons ... almost 6 and just turned three. We have had them for two and a half years. I'd love to connect with others who may be travelling this unexpected journey.

I have been encountering a phenomenon new to me. There seems to be a huge competitiveness and righteousness between parents that I don't remember from when I was a young mother of my own two sons. We seem to so often tear one another apart. Can't we afford each other grace and acceptance?

Lovely post, NanaJo... and couldn't agree more. I know I'd have enjoyed my first baby so much more if I'd realised this sooner.

Good luck with raising your two little boys, they're very lucky to have such committed and sensible grandparents to take care of them!

Thanks, misshardbroom. Loved your profile page! A sense of humour is just so important in all this.

I think that you have to move with the times! Parenting has always been competitive among the middle and upper classes - nowadays, when the middle classes are such a large proportion of the population, many more people are engaged in the competition. So it's not a new phenomenon, just one that has become more widespread.

But there's something so liberating about just refusing to take part in the competition.

Didn't Eleanor Roosevelt say 'No one can make you feel inferior without your consent'?

I've been a much happier parent since I learned to trust my own judgement and love my children for who they are, not who they are in comparison to everyone else's children.

And it works the other way round too - nobody would condone the out and out abuse and neglect of children, but beyond that surely there's a point where we have to live and let live.

It's important to me that my children eat a range of fresh vegetables. Mrs Next Door might give her children baked beans for every meal. It's not my place to judge or decide that she's less of a parent or that her children will achieve any less than mine or be any less happy.

Exactly, misshardbroom! My point is that there appears to an almost desperate need to prove that your child is "special" in a way that puts down other parents and labels their kids as lacking, cheated, or scarred.

This is not to say that I don't have my own righteous assumptions. Of course I do. But when they bubble up, they stay capped where they should be ... behind a face of genuine support. No matter what my preferences and prejudices, the goal should be happy, healthy kids ... all kids ... not just mine because they're somehow more deserving or "special" than yours.

nanjo there is a lovely website called grannynet specially for grandparents and there are several in your situation

pranma, thank you! I'm very eager to check that site out ... going there now!

I might come with it sounds very sensible in comparison to some.

Hope you both found grannynet ok.