This is a risky post. Risky because I’m going to violate one of my own rules of blogging. Don’t write about something you haven’t experienced because if you haven’t lived it, you probably don’t understand it. Grandkids fit into that category for me. While my wife and I have three great grown kids, two married and one in a long term relationship, we are bereft of grandchildren.
The thing is, I like it like that, at least for now. My incredibly fit and tough wife loves the outdoors. We share all kinds of outdoor hobbies and live in a state that has few people but lots of public wilderness to explore. We hike marked trails, there are hundreds of those. We bushwhack where no trails exist to find waterfalls and canyons and rock formations that have been tagged with GPS coordinates. We also explore the lazy way on our Polaris RZR off road all terrain vehicle. Arkansas has some amazing trail systems for ATV’s as well as thousands of miles of forest service roads that are approved for off road vehicle use. We love to fish and generally do pretty well at keeping our freezer stocked with tasty filets. Sometimes we even head out West to ski. We have been visiting national parks during their shoulder (less busy) months, including Big Bend and New River Gorge so far this year. And because we can, we rarely plan any of these things more than a week out. We’ll just be sitting at the breakfast table and one of us will suggest heading out on a several thousand mile road trip designed to either see one or more of our kids or a destination like a national park or both. We will head out with no reservations and no idea really of how long we will be gone or what we will add to our travel agenda along the way. All of that is to say we like the time flexibility that being financially independent and no longer tied to an employer provides us.
And what does that have to do with grandkids? I can explain it this way, I think. Forty-three years ago when my wife and I married we did not feel the need to have children. We enjoyed being able to do things with our childless couple friends. We could go skiing or travel spontaneously as long as we could manage the time off of work. Because, other than our jobs, nothing constrained our choices about how and where we spent our time. It was a glorious time of freedom and helped build our relationship and friendship into something that would last the rest of our lives. We had a great seven year period before we decided that we did indeed want to have children. We knew that it would constrain our future choices but when we weighed the costs against the joy we felt little ones would bring it wasn’t even close, we chose children.
We never regretted the choice, in fact we made it three times. Maybe a time or two in the teen years I wondered….but no, it was one of our best decisions. Like history, life repeats itself. And now in our early retired years we enjoy the same freedom as our early married years before kids. In fact we enjoy that in a 10X way because we not only have all our time free but we’ve got enough money to do almost anything we can imagine. And its wonderful. I kind of dreaded my sixties for most of my life because I’d be so old. But so far they have been the best years of my life. We are still fit enough to do whatever we want and smart enough to make wise choices. It reminds me so much of how we felt in our early married, childless, years. And like then, before we were ready to have kids, we didn’t want them. And then we did. I think right now that’s where we are, we don’t want grandkids just yet. But when and if they come I think it will be like when we had kids. We looked back and wondered how we got by without them to love on.
What little I know about grandkids comes from what I remember as having been one, and what I’ve seen in my senior adult friends who have them. And it is a lot like what I know about children. I have friends who have happy, successful children and I have friends who lost their children to drugs or crime or bad personal choices. Parents who rejoice in their children’s lives and those who are haunted by what could have been. I think there is a range of outcomes for grandparents too. I see two main camps of grandparent behavior. One is what I consider grandparent overload. I could name a few of our friends who fall into this camp. It might be voluntary or it might be guilt fueled but some grandparents I know have ceased to have a life outside of their grandchildren. These are grandparents who become de facto day care workers for their children’s children. Unpaid at that. In fact not only unpaid but expected to foot the bill for feeding and transporting their grandkids all week. And on weekends they often become babysitters so their kids can enjoy their days off of work. Some of these are people who we befriended before they retired and before grandkids. Even though they had demanding jobs they still found time to enjoy hobbies they loved. But something happened when grandkids came along, they stopped doing most of that because they found themselves with a new job, being parents to their grandkids. In extreme examples they actually took their own grown children back into their home and helped raise the grandkids because the grown child isn’t capable of adulting enough to do it.
Just last night on the pickleball courts two little grandkids of a couple we are friends with were running around on the courts unsupervised. They and their unmarried and pregnant mother are living with our friends across the street from the courts because our friends can’t stand to see the grandkids impoverished. I have another retired friend who legally adopted his granddaughter because his daughter was not a functioning parent. While he should be in decent financial shape he is putting a kid through college in his seventies. I do not blame the victims here, they really have no choice when their kids will not or can not adequately care for the grandkids. In fact they probably deserve medals for being selfless.
There is another way of grandparenting that appeals to me much more. And that’s what I observe our most successful grandparent friends do. In most cases these friends do not have local grandkids because our rural area doesn’t produce enough quality jobs to make it easy for kids to stay here after college. However, they go to great lengths to stay involved in their grandchildren’s lives. Two of my friends for instance bought condos in the same city as their grandkids. Their kids live hours away from here so they get to choose when they are local grandparents and when they are distant ones, I think that’s a pretty wise way to go. A third bought an RV and they go to a park close to their grandkids pretty often, that’s a less expensive way to accomplish the same thing. If and when we are grandparents, assuming none of our progeny return to our area, we’ll most likely do something like these friends have done. Probably more along the lines of VRBO stays. We are already building a cabin in the middle of nowhere and I don’t think we want three residences.
So if you are old enough to conceive of the idea of having grandkids or if you already have them what’s your take on how they fit into your life?
Is life after grandkids way different than your life before?
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Haha. I right there with you Steve on grandkids. I told my 30 year old son “no rush”. I’ll love’m if you have them, but if you decide not to, I’m OK with that, too.
I’ll be living away from my son regardless, because I don’t want to have to babysit full time either. We have some friends of ours that are raising their grandkids so the son can work (the mother is a drug addict and they are now divorced). The thought of raising grandkids like that… awful.
Thanks Hobo, that makes me feel like I’m not as bad as I thought!
My teen kids aren’t (well shouldn’t be) old enough to have kids so I’m going to speak from the perspective of my kid’s relationship with my parents and in-laws as well as my personal experience with my grandparents. Having both sets being thousands of miles away or overseas (in the case of myself and my kids), it was normal that our grandparents had their own lives and only met on special occasions like holidays, reunions and unfortuante funerals. Grandparents only made “special appearances” and were typically part of vacations. Everyone had fun and when the week was over, everyone went home to take care of their own business. It never occured to any member of our families that grandparents were there other than to see and enjoy. IMO, to expect grandparents to do anything beyond that is rude and entitled. Parents are responsible for their kids and no one else. That’s pretty normal for our family and the friend circles we socialize with.
OK, that is good to know Phillip. That’s how my parents were as well.
As a 51 year old grandma, I believe it’s the best promotion ever!! Both my daughter and I married at the ripe young age of 21 and had children in our early/mid twenties. It is a joy watching our daughter and son in law as parents. Blessedly my husband and I get to be involved grandparents but not TOO involved! We’ve contemplated moving closer but have decided our current couple hours away is fine. Our grandchildren are still preschoolers and we love spending time with them; video calls are so fun too! I hope to continue building relationships with them so we can enjoy time together when they’re older as well.
Becoming a grandparent has also made me think more about what kind of “legacy” I will leave. How will my grandchildren remember me? What values do I want to pass on? I’ve thought a lot about what I remember about my grandparents and what made those relationships special.
Steve, will you please contact me?
I have a friend who sounds like you, she became a grandmother very young and really has enjoyed it. In her case though the grandkids are local and over there all the time. I know she likes it but sometimes I do not think she has much time for herself. Her husband has his own chemical factory and she works there too, so super busy all the time.
Haha! I’m with you.
I’m very glad my boys haven’t reproduced yet. After 25 years of being a single parent, I’m enjoying the freedom I’m experiencing now.
Maybe in a few years time I’ll be happy to do some babysitting, but for right now? I’m loving being able to do my own thing.
I hear you Frogdancer! You do seem like a very happy soul.
We are still pretty new to the whole grandparent thing. We are fortunate to have two very self sufficient adult daughters. The oldest (31) is “married” to Uncle Sam (career Army Officer), so no spouse or grandkids in her short term future. Our youngest (29) and her husband (of five years) recently had our first grandchild. She’s a beautiful, wonderful, bright 20 month old. They live about 45 minutes away in another small town. It’s a perfect distance (too far to babysit too often, but close enough for regular sleep overs when we are ready for a visit). We adore her and cherish every visit, but also love our freedom of five years being early retired. It has made us rethink our travel. We were doing one month (or longer) trips 3-4 times per year before our grand daughter arrived. We have shortened our trips to 2-3 weeks, (but go more often now) because she changes so much that we hate being away too long and missing things. It’s really the best of all worlds! Trust me…you’re gonna love it!!
Thom, she sounds like a little angel, and that you are enjoying both your freedom and your young one.
This reminded me of a couple chapters I really liked in The Millionaire Next Door–chapters 5 & 6 (respectively titled “Economic Outpatient Care” and “Affirmative Action, Family Style”).
The authors talk about some of the mistakes wealthy people sometimes make when it comes to their adult children or their grandchildren (helping to subsidize the cost of a house, private school tuition, etc.). Such decisions, which are made with the best intentions, especially weaken those children who are less independent to begin with, and often end up inculcating lifelong dependence on the wealthy elders.
Seems that you may have seen some similar outcomes. Thought-provoking post, Steve!
Hey Froog, there are some sad cases for sure. Helping versus enabling seems to be a hard thing to distinguish for a lot of people. Emotional issues are always hard to apply logic to.
Great post Steve. We have one grandchild, we love him to bits and enjoy our time with him — he’ll be 2 this summer. We have been really clear with our kids that we’re happy to help out, but we’re not permanent, regular childcare and we aren’t going to change our lives to accommodate their decision to have a child. We travel out of the country 4-6 months every year and intend to keep doing so until we can’t.. We have had a couple of somewhat uncomfortable conversations to reinforce that point, but so far it is working out pretty well. I’m entirely with you on folks who end up sacrificing their lives to re-parent their grandkids. Of course there are families who have no choice—but too many folks get guilted into it by their adult kids. Our kids are all reasonably successful, none are wealthy, They went into the parenting thing with full awareness of the costs and benefits, their decision, not mine. Their responsibility, not mine.
Like everything else in life, being clear about boundaries and expectations, while not always easy, often prevents broken relationships. (I write this from Provence, in the middle of a 3 month trip to escape Midwest winter.)
Sounds like you are doing grandparenting right!
Wow, I somehow missed this post earlier this month, so late to the party responding!
We have one 22 month old grand daughter…so far. We have been early retired just over 5 years, so we have experienced pre and post grand baby in early retirement. Pre grand baby, we definitely took much longer travel trips. Now they are shorter, but purely by choice…(We can’t stand being away from that adorable baby girl for 4-8 weeks at a time now!) She is amazing, and our daughter and her husband, of five years, are wonderful parents. Fortunately, they live in the next town, just 45 minutes away. A perfect distance to let them have their own lives. Too far for them to see us as de-facto daily babysitters, but not so far we can’t easily come get her for an occasional sleep over at our house. We just changed our trips from 4-8 week trips to 4x as many two week trips! Spreading those shorter trips out just perfectly to still get our grand baby fixes (as my wife like to call it) in between trips! You’re going to love grand kids, but hang on to your freedom! Fortunately, we did a great job raising two independent daughters, who will both be fantastic moms, giving us the best of all worlds.
I’m sure we will eventually get back to our longer travels, once she’s not changing so fast. But for now, we enjoy the new normal of shorter (but more often) trips and lots of in between grand baby visits!