13 Mar Super Gran, where are you?
It takes some time before Amelia Sommer adjusts to, and appreciates, the role that her mother is prepared to play in her children’s lives.
Once, when my 10-month-old daughter would not stop crying, and I was trying to placate her as well as cope with her twin brother and my two-and-a-half-year-old son, I phoned my mum in tears. She appeared in 10 minutes like a Grandmother Angel to take the baby and calm us both.
When my mother isn’t wearing her Supergran cape, she is usually running her own business – a successful enterprise that she has gradually built since my brother and I left home. While being self-employed can provide Mum with the flexibility to come to my aid at a moment’s notice, it also means that my children’s granny is a very busy person. Often, I have felt let down – that because of her business, Mum is not the grandparent I expected she would be.
When I was a teenager, Mum’s future plans, as she explained them to me, were to: spend time with her grandchildren; not work; and volunteer for charities. Well now she has four grandchildren, seems to work a minimum of six days a week (with frequent interstate travel) and gives money, rather than time, to charities. There is very little opportunity for taking the grandchildren to the zoo, hosting sleepovers or helping me with the daily running of my kids’ lives.
There have been many times when I have felt resentful of Mum’s time commitments. I have listened to working mothers talk about the help they receive from their mothers. Such help includes dropping the children at school, taking the children to music lessons and minding the children for full days. (Free childcare. Free childcare. Free childcare!)
My mum can help in emergencies, but a tiny, regular arrangement? The answer is always, “Well, um, maybe I could help out sometimes, but I can’t guarantee it if I have an appointment or have to go away”. Because I am an adult, I grit my teeth and say, “That’s okay, Mum. No worries. We’ll work something else out.” But what I really want to do is to revert to being an angry, self-indulgent teenager so I can express how I really feel, and shout, “Just forget it, Mum. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about me at all!” Then I want to be able to slam a door and stomp away. But, as a parent now, I know that Mum has probably spent much of the last 32 years worrying only about me. I am realising that maybe it’s now fair that her priorities have shifted.
There is a grandparent at my son’s school who I dream about. Her name is Nana Jan. Nana Jan is the grandma I always thought my mum would be. She not only helps out with the daily school run, but listens to reading, facilitates craft activities and attends excursions.
Nana Jan is not a weary grandparent helping out because she feels obliged to do so. Nope. Nana Jan just loves being a nana. Ask my mum if she loves being a grandparent and I can guarantee the answer will also be an enthusiastic ‘yes’. The main difference between Nana Jan and my mum is time. Mum doesn’t have time to immerse herself in grandparenting, because she has chosen to invest time in her business – that is, time in herself.
The things that amazing Nana Jan does are all the things Mum did for me when I was at school. The memories I hold of Mum from my own childhood are the reason I expected Mum to be like Nana Jan. There’s a reason why one of my old friends from primary school has confided in me that at school she used to wish she had a mum like mine. Mum chose to stay at home with my brother and me because she believed that was the best way to be an effective mother and she was committed to being the best parent she could be. However, it makes sense that because Mum has already been that person, she is now enjoying being someone different. I need to remember that my kids are not my mum’s kids. She has finished parenting and has the right to choose how she grandparents.
My children adore their granny. She regularly presents them with gifts, constantly tells them they’re wonderful, frequently phones to discuss special events, occasionally whisks them off for babycinos after school and often drops in to watch parts of school sports days and assembly presentations. This is a different role from the one that my own perfect granny played.
My granny had a children’s bedroom set up for our regular weekend stays. There were a few toys and books and we were always made to feel that the room was ours. In the mornings I would climb into bed with Granny and chat about life. When we got up, she would make us mock fish and chocolate milkshakes for breakfast. She would then cut out cardboard fish and fit them with paperclips for us to catch with a little magnet on a string. In the afternoon she would take us to the botanic gardens. I thought my mum would be the same.
I am finally beginning to understand that Mum is making different choices from those of her mum. It is not because of her business that she is a different grandparent from what I expected; rather, it is because she wants to be a different grandparent. She has chosen to approach the role differently. Are my children disappointed? Absolutely not. They love it when Granny drops in for 10 minutes on her way to work with presents acquired interstate. They love it when Granny appears at school to watch them sing at assembly. When she flies in to watch half of a swimming lesson, they don’t grumble that she didn’t stay for the whole class. My children don’t make comparisons between their granny and my granny. They don’t hold any preconceived ideas of how a granny should be and what their granny should do. They think their own granny is absolutely perfect.
I know that I need to follow my children’s lead on this one. Surely a grandparent’s role is to make their grandchildren feel extra-special and loved. My mum has perfected this skill. My mother is not the grandparent I thought she would be, but that doesn’t mean she is a bad one.
Several months after Supergran responded to my call, I telephoned her with a second emergency plea. Tears again from my now toddling daughter who had been pushed over by her twin brother and cut her head on the skirting board. There was a lot of blood, a panicked mother and a fairly small gash on my daughter’s head. Grandmother Angel appeared again, offering reassurance and a trip to the chemist to buy whatever dressing was recommended by the pharmacist. Half an hour later and my daughter was bandaged, my son reprimanded, a DVD was playing and Granny had already reverted to her Clark-Kent self and was back at work. Yes, it would have been nice if she could have stayed for a coffee, but all superheroes lead more than one life and I guess it’s really about time that Mum gets to choose how to live hers.
