How did you learn to be a grandparent? It’s probably from the example of your own grandpa and grandma interacting with you. Today that’s a challenge with modern families who can live thousands of miles away. Have you ever told your grandchildren what your life was like when you were their age? What activities and games you play? How often you visited your grandparents and what you remember about them. Have you considered writing a history of your life? It may be the only way your posterity will come to know their great grandparents through your history. (Photo of the first grandchildren and great grandchildren in our family-Dan and Tina's twin daughters.)
We can only be linked through the generations if we open our mouths and tell the stories of our experiences back in the good old days or write down what we remember of those times while our memory is still with us. It was really a different world and one that can amaze your little ones with how backward or primitive it may seem in comparison with their daily lives. Just imagine a world without computers!
Holidays are a good time to share your memories or at reunions. If you’ve written down your reflections or organized some kind of scrapbook or photo album even digitally you can interest your grandkids in the past. Maps or field trips to visit old homesteads or museums in areas where your grandparents or parents lived can open up a whole new world of history to your young-uns. One year for our family reunion we took our immediate family to decorate ancestral graves then ended up at the This is the Place Monument and State Park in Salt Lake City to tour the pioneer village and witness demonstrations of how our ancestors lived. Cove Fort has an annual Pioneer Day in Aug each year where they demonstrate useful activities in those days such as blacksmithing and blacksmithing, etc.
One year I went with some of my grandkids back to Plymouth colony in Massachusetts and toured a village there to observe what the early pilgrims wore, how they talked, what their homes were like. It was like a trip back in time. You can do that with your histories and photos too. Recreate the past of your family so they aren’t forgotten. It’s up to you. By writing your life story, you won’t end up being the forgotten generation one day. Isn’t it about time, to begin collect your stories of experiences you had with your own grandparents?
Would you believe my daughter signed Art and me up for Grandparents Class at Northwestern University Hospital? We enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. It is so important to tell those stories. I am glad you do. You are an inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI did not learn grandparenting from my grandparents, or from my own parents really. I created my role myself based on what kind of grandparent I wanted to be, one that actually played with my grandkids. While they are getting older and less interested and I am getting older and less physically able, that groundwork is there. We have fun!
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to it...I think I will be a good one...
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