Grandparenting

My partner and I are disagreeing about how to grandparent.  I have always grandmothered as if it is an extension of mothering.  I raised my kids in a nutritionally strict household.  They will not and do not drink soda (beer is another matter, of course).  In my household, snacks are celery sticks and carrots; chip dip is often made with spinache.   As a matter of fact, everything is better with a smidgen of spinache.

I did not realize how serious this disagreement with my partner was until Friday night.  My partner and I were cleaning up after a very small party when I complained that most of the celery and mushrooms were still out, no one had eaten them.  His response was “why do you put them out when there are potatoe chips right there?”  To him, it is a silly idea to imagine that folks will eat vegetables on purpose.  It is as if all vegetables are only eaten if your mother is making you eat them.  So when the grandchildren were with us last night and they ate what they ate, I told him “what am I going to do when Rhea’s sons are here and they are not allowed to have soda for dinner?”  My partner only growled at me.  To be fair it was a low sound with absolutely no anger attached to it, more like a “we’ll talk later.”

I always figured (for at least 30 years) that if you give your kids soda, it is because there is something lacking in you.  In other words, you can’t afford fruit juice or you are too lazy to make tea, because who else would intentionally give their kids the evil concoction of soda?  Then I remember my mother and I hiding Coca Cola cans under her bed and the guilty, sneaky giggles when we would take two sodas out to savor and share in the afternoon, while the kids were outside playing.  It was a fun treat, made all the better because soda is so BAD for you.  So, I am guessing that soda may not(?) be the devil’s work.  I have since learned that some people do not even believe that soda is all that bad.

So here is what my partner told me this morning, “I only get my grandkids for an hour, their parents have them forever, I want my grandkids to say, I wanna go to grandpa’s house, he has ice cream and candy”.  I am thinking to myself that I want nothing more, and that there certainly is nothing better, than to have grandchildren stopping by, hugging, snuggling, kissing and hanging out talking.  I remember my partner telling me once after I explained to him that the youngest baby girl wanted ice cream, and so I asked her father, “can she have ice cream?”  My partner said “that’s your first mistake, don’t ask her parents, when she is here she can have whatever she wants.”  I remember thinking “how odd”, but now, I get it.