There is much more than meets the eye in grandparenting. In grandparenting is perhaps the single greatest instance of the active human life coming to fruition. If this seems an exaggeration, it at least bears closer examination.
We should not be misled by a popular caricature of grandparenting, where grandchildren are a pleasant accoutrement in the life of a couple pursuing their golden retirement. The grandparenting of which I speak—which of course for a number of reasons will not be possible for all couples—places significant and at times intense demands on the couple. It is not peripheral to their state in life. It is the natural continuation of what has been central in their identity and commitments, namely the raising of their own children.
But doesn’t raising a child come to a kind of conclusion when we send the child off into the world? Yes, surely, a key chapter is then complete. But a line from Thomas Aquinas has always struck me: “It is natural that the father’s care for his son should endure to the end of his life.” There is much to unpack here, as this assertion of the perpetuity of parenting does not imply it is one undifferentiated project from beginning to end. Parenting is notably different once a child is no longer under parental authority, but it would be a mistake to think that the role of parents is reduced to insignificance.
While not all our offspring will have children, central to how we continue to ‘parent’ those who do is precisely through grandparenting. What this looks like and how it plays out is as profound as human life itself. From our own child’s earliest days, our love for the child grows mysteriously out of our spousal love, the love from which the child was mysteriously formed! While love for the child always has its own integrity, we are in a sense loving our spouse in loving our child. In a wonderfully analogous way, while love for our grandchildren has its own integrity, we are in a sense loving our child in loving his child.
Here at the center of a natural plan for love—a plan we could never have made but can only discover and enact—we actually get a new angle on the incomparable richness of marriage. Grandparenting is the natural fruition of married love. Grandparenting can and should turn spouses toward one another in a new and richer way.
What might have seemed a time to wind-down begins to appear as a gentle but firm call to step up; to put out further into the deep—the deep into which we embarked so long ago.
Fascinatingly, when Aquinas makes the above quoted assertion, he is making an argument for the indissolubility of marriage. In other words, that parenting never ceases is a key sign that marriage never ceases. How wondrous. Just as from the start becoming parents draws spouses together in discovering and exercising what it really means to be married, grandparenting too as a continuation of parenting should draw spouses together in an ever-deeper way.
It is one of life’s greatest arts to determine the details of grandparenting, as surely as to determine the details of (the original and in a sense less-complicated!) parenting. Grandparenting is an exercise in relating to our children and grandchildren at the same time. The richness and importance of the grandparents’ role in the life of grandchildren is proverbial; and it is more important today than ever before in helping to form those little ones, and show them their place in this world.
And somehow this role is also an exercise of bringing about a new and otherwise unreached richness in our relation to our children, to whom we now relate as adults, helping them to be parents, even while always having the privilege of being father or mother to them.
But let us not forget the crowning aspect, which in all this richness might have been missed. In grandparenting my spouse and I can forge anew the incomparable bond of marriage. How will we relate now to our children-turned-parents? How will we best love and serve their children, our grandchildren? This is ours to discover, to discern, and to do, together. ~ ~ ~
TODAY’S NEW PODCAST is Optimizing the Role of Grandparents in Children’s Lives Join Sofia and me in delving into grandparenting, in its principles and details! Check out and share our other PODCASTS too.
NEXT LIFECRAFT ONLINE READING: Wendell Berry’s essay: The Pleasures of Eating. Join us to discuss this provocative essay about the place of eating in every household. Wednesday September 4th, 8:30pm EDT SIGNUP HERE
Husband, father, and professor of Philosophy. LifeCraft springs from one conviction: there is an ancient wisdom about how to live the good life in our homes, with our families; and it is worth our time to hearken to it. Let’s rediscover it together. Learn more.
