QUEZON City, Philippines (October 4) – In today’s “me, me, me” society, it is indeed a blessing that children learn through close inter-generational relationships that they belong to something larger than themselves. Having a close relationship with grandparents will be beneficial to the children for they can acquire wisdom and wealth experience through their grandparent and can also receive unconditional love and support from them without expecting for any reciprocal. As for the parents, it is a wise-parenting habit for it can also foster strong relationships between grandparents and grandchildren.
I, as a loving grandchild to my grandparents, agree that it feels good to have a strong connection with your grannies. Whether the geographical location is far as it may seem or the communication may not be that frequent but as long as you have this kind of self-belonging when you are with or talking with your grandparents is definitely a good thing especially when it comes to emotional fulfillment and being the closest grandchild with them [that’s what they are keep on telling me.]I can say that, that would be such a wonderful blessing!
My grannies aren’t the downright-strict type of grandparents that some kids have. They are like my buddies, when I was a kid whenever I get caught up in a fight, instead of saying “stop!” or “that’s bad!” they will just tell me how I could execute a straight, solid counter punch down to my enemy’s jaw. Ooops! Please don’t get me wrong here, they are not the bad-influence buddies that I’m talking about okay? They just want me to experience the most out of my childhood!They just want me to explore the world that I surely could’ve not done if I’m under my parents’ supervision [but that is just because I’m my parents’ only child and they surely don’t want something bad to happen to me]. But believe me, I have the craziest, most lovable and most generous grandparents in the world! [you can say that to yourself too, for us, our grandparents are way more awesome than any granny in the world, right?]
There are things that I haven’t learned from my parents that I learned from them, and who says that it is just in the school that you will learn everything? Absolutely not! There are things that my teachers didn’t taught me but my grannies did! With them I get to introduce to a lot of historical events happened in the past 60 or 70 years in their lives and with their cheesy love stories. I also come to the realization that it is them that really break the rules first before I do. I get to know and familiarized with the names and the attitudes of each of our relatives, all in just half of an hour talking with them. I experience things that I didn’t expect to happen to me but it did, like singing and memorizing the alphabet song as well as the alphabet song’s parody[never knew there’s a parody ‘til they taught me of it] how happy it is to play with worms that I dug up from the soil, how slimy it is, how it feels when it crawls on my palm and how does it tastes [believe it or not]. I also discovered my skill and how much enjoyment I could get if I would climb a Muntingia (aratilis) tree and take a fresh, ripe muntingia fruit on it, how sweet it is and how hard it is to resist the itchiness of the ant-bites that I got from climbing the tree just to not get scars from it and a lot of values and lessons of life that I still have and still imprinted on my traits and my mind up until now. I am most happy whenever I see my grandparents smile and appreciate the things that I’m doing. I really can feel that they are with me through each and every stage of my life. I appreciate that they value everything that I do for them. I can feel the genuine happiness whenever I see them happy [not kidding, unfortunately one of my grandparent don’t usually receive that much affection and attention from some of my cousins but despite all of that I still love her so much!]
We may be sick of our grandparents’ advice, they might scold us most of the times, and they might repeatedly mention our mistakes but remember that if there is one thing that we must be thankful for, that would be having our grandparents by our side and if there is one thing that I would like to look back at, it will be having a crazy and loving grandparents like them and if I were to thank them for one thing, that would be raising good, responsible and God-fearing children [that happened to be my parents].
Gratitude, respect, or simply offering to cut their nails or prepare foods for them is more than enough to thank them for what they have shared to us as grandparents. We may not always be in their side but always remember that a grandparent will forget everything but never will they forget their grandchildren.
“It’s the only relationship in which people are crazy about each other simply because they’re breathing, grandparents and grandchildren are hard-wired to connect in ways different from parents and children. They have this adoration and unconditional love and joy in one another’s existence.”
-Kornhaber
Sources:
http://www.lifeway.com/Article/Grandparents-indeed-grand-for-grandkids
(written by Donna Marie Rodriguez, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Lovely Ann Cruz)