"I was no pushover," a friend tells me. "When my children were small, I had all my nick-nacks out in the living room and I taught them not to touch them. They never did." That said, she says her children's approach to disciplining their children makes her so uncomfortable she no longer enjoys visiting them. "Both my daughter and my son are so strict and about such minor things," she says. Moreover, when she is in their house, she is expected to enforce the disciplinary rules of the house. "They expect me to be a third parent. But that's not who I am. I'm the grandmother."
She has written her daughter a lengthy email on this point--written when she had calmed down after an unpleasant confrontation over what was expected of her when she babysat. In the aftermath of the email, promsies have been made to make sure she does not feel--and is not expected to be--a third parent.
She has come up with other solutions to her problem. Rather than visit in her daughter's house, she invites her grandchildren--they are 9 and 11--over to her house by themselves for a special treat with grandma. Or she arranges to take them out to a movie or for lunch--on their own.
Her son, however, lives half way across the country. His son--her grandson--is only two years old. Right now, she has decided to call a temporary halt to visits. She can't stand to see him corrected and punished for refusing to eat zucchini or forgetting to ask to leave the dinner table or misthrowing a ball beyond his indoor play area. "He holds out his little arms to me, crying--and all he's done is mis-throw a ball. He's only 2!"
It can be painful to watch your children parent. Either they don't impose enough disciplinary measures--raising your concern that your grandchildren will be brats. Or, the discipline comes with too heavy a hand--raising your concern that your grandchildren will turn into frightened robots. We also don't have the back story--which issues have been festering without our knowing about it.
One grandparent I talked to about the discipline dilemma made this point: "As much as we'd like to, we can't always come to the rescue of our grand/grands. All we can do is to make the best of what time we have with them without making them feel they can expect us to break their parents rules. This could cause conflict between parents and grandparents, and we wouldn't want this, as this may cause us not to be able to see them." It's also an issue discussed on About.com's grandparenting
Grandparenting may mean we get to go home before the meltdowns start. But it also means we have no say in how the kids are being brought up--no matter how painful it is to watch.
