Grandparenting – an adventure in faith and love
Dr Hui (standing, centre) with his wife Geraldine (4th R), celebrating a birthday in the family with their children and grandchildren. Photo: Dr John Hui.
Grandparenting – an adventure in faith and love
Dr Hui (standing, centre) with his wife Geraldine (4th R), celebrating a birthday in the family with their children and grandchildren. Photo: Dr John Hui.
Grandchildren. The thought of their hugs, kisses, and developmental milestones would put a smile on any grandparent’s face. But for many, grandparenting often goes beyond mere sentimental thoughts.
In July 2023, an Op Ed in the Straits Times titled ‘Grandparents could solve Singapore’s child-bearing woes, but are they willing?’ highlighted the important role that grandparents can play in helping parents with childcare.
Grandparents can provide a dependable, not to mention affordable, means of childcare.
When grandparents are available to help, parents have less need to take leave from work to look after their children when the latter fall sick. They would also have more flexible childcare options should they themselves fall ill.
On the flip side, problems unique to this arrangement can arise, and when these happen, grandparents can sometimes appear to be more of a problem than a solution for parents.
As a grandparent myself, I must admit a propensity for wanting to pamper my grandchildren, and I know of other grandparents who share the same sentiment. Yet, tempted as we are, it is important to recognise where our limits lie.
After all, love is not merely a sentimental feeling that makes us want to do things to make others – or ourselves – feel good. Rather, as explained by Saint Thomas Aquinas and defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), love is the commitment to will the good of another (CCC 1766), and the greatest good that we can wish for our grandchildren is to be ultimately united with God in heaven.
As such, we must constantly ask ourselves – if we truly love our grandchildren, will what we do bring them closer to God?
This brings us to the issue of discipline, and a rather sticky one at that.
In the past, my wife and I have had our fair share of disagreements while raising our own children. As grandparents helping our children with childcare, things can be even more challenging.
Not only may our own children disagree with us in how we can – or cannot – discipline their children, the task is often complicated by having to consider the viewpoints of our son- or daughter-in-law, who may have been raised in an entirely different way, and whose idea of discipline may be quite different from our own.
In our case, my wife and I have observed how our daughters discipline their children. Instead of merely implementing rules and disciplinary measures without explanation, they make immense efforts to listen to their children as to why they did what they did. Then, having connected with them emotionally, they explain why a certain action was wrong, before implementing a consequence, be it reduced TV time, or having some time-out in a safe and supervised corner of the house.
Because of this stark difference in parenting styles, we often had to talk with our daughters and their husbands about their parenting expectations, and how we can be consistent with them in setting boundaries, standards of behaviour, and disciplinary measures for our grandchildren when they are not around.
Sounds easy? Not at all, which is why we pray often for the grace to be the grandparents that God wants us to be in helping to raise the children He has placed in our care. Along the way, we have made mistakes – lots of them – but we continue to pick ourselves up and ask for our Lord’s strength and wisdom to help us through.
Support from other grandparents helps, too. It might not be a bad idea for grandparents to network with other grandparents, especially like-minded ones, to share experiences with and to pick up grandparenting tips.
Finally, grandparents can, and do, play a big part in handing on that most important of treasures to our grandchildren – the faith.
As Pope St John Paul II once said, “In how many families are grandchildren taught the rudiments of the faith by their grandparents!” (Pope St John Paul Il’s 1999 Letter to the Elderly)
Pope Francis, too, has said “Very often it is grandparents who ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren… many people can testify that they owe their initiation into the Christian life to their grandparents”. (Pope Francis’ 2016 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia [the Joy of Love] 192)
So, yes, grandparenting is a challenge, with its many ups and downs. Yet, it is also a privilege and an adventure. More accurately, it is a God-given vocation to help our grandchildren attain their ultimate goal in life – to be with their Heavenly Father for all eternity.
Dr John Hui is a father of four and a grandfather to five grandchildren. He is a family physician in private practice and host of the podcast series Catholic Parents Online. Dr Hui holds a graduate diploma in Bioethics from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family.
He will be speaking on the role of grandparents at Catholic Family Life’s Family Conference on Jan 27, 2024.
At Christmas, we celebrate the entry of Jesus into our world and into our lives. As we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family within the octave of Christmas, we are reminded of how Jesus entered into human history and came into our lives in and through a family! We cannot adequately celebrate Christmas therefore, without celebrating family.
The reality we face today is that family is often defined merely as being a unit of society, whereas, even more than that, it is the entry point God chose to enter our world! It is within the experience of family that we first get the chance to experience the reality of unity in diversity.
The ideals and lived experiences of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, provide us a model response to this initiative of God to enter into our world.
The Gospels tell us of “how Jesus Christ came to be born” (Matthew 1:18), by detailing the availability to God on the part of Mary (Luke 1:26-36) and Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25), going beyond their fears and reliance on own human thinking, to trusting and investing in the plan of God.
To what extent do we align our plans for the well-being of our families, to the plan of God? How available are we to change our plans (when called to) in favour of his plan?
Even as the Holy Family listened to God through prayer and discernment, we are reminded of the need for praying as (and for) family.
What priority do we give to prayer-time as a family? How important is it for us to reflect, as a family, on the Word of God and its implications when making decisions that affect us as family?
The Holy Family shows us the necessity for respect (reverence) for the dignity of each member. It is said that Mary and Joseph were unable to understand what Jesus meant when he told them that he must be in his Father’s house (Luke 2:49-50), and while they respected what he said and had to do, the boy Jesus respected their duty as parents and “he went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.” (Luke 2:51).
How willing are we today to respect each other in the family, in our respective roles and calling? How well do we cooperate with and support each other?
We see the life-giving aspect of family-life in Mary and Joseph when they find out that Jesus was not with either of them on their return from Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-50). Neither accused the other of failure nor neglect, but instead, both supported the other in searching for Him.
How prone are we, as family members, to find fault and to accuse each other when things go wrong, rather than mutually forgive and work towards a favourable resolution?
Jesus, our Redeemer, chose a human family as the place for his birth and growth, thereby sanctifying this fundamental institution of every society. The feast of the Holy Family provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the value and sanctity of our family life and our relationships with one another. Just as the Holy Family had to flee to Egypt since King Herod was seeking to kill the child, families will also experience difficult and tumultuous moments. It is in these moments that we can learn how to draw lessons from the Holy Family towards growing in the strength of mutual love.
Let us be reminded of what Pope Francis wrote in Amoris Laetitia (On Love in the Family),“The covenant of love and fidelity lived by the Holy Family of Nazareth illuminates the principle which gives shape to every family, and enables it better to face the vicissitudes of life and history. On this basis, every family, despite its weaknesses, can become a light in the darkness of the world.” (AL 66)
Fr Vaz is the Spiritual Director of Catholic Family Life (CFL). He will be speaking on the Catechumenal Pathways of Married Life in CFL’s Family Conference on the 27th of January 2024. To register: bit.ly/CFL_FC2024
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