It started out wonderfully: a week of fun in the sun at a rental beach house. At the start of the weekend two of our daughters, our son-in-law, 9 months old grandson, and two of our dear family friends joined my husband, son and me for the Memorial Day weekend. When the other guests departed, my eldest daughter and grandson remained with my husband, son and me for the rest of the week.
We walked the beach with our grandson in a backpack on my husband’s back while my daughters slept in. We played games, gave kisses, in between cooking and cleaning for the group. Our friends sharing the work load while our “children” played.
On Monday, after most of our guests departed, those remaining headed to the beach. I noticed that most of the childcare for my grandson rests on my daughter. It is a traditional marriage, with my daughter a stay-at-home mom, so I wasn’t surprised. My son-in-law and I were the extra set of arms holding, feeding and preventing sand consumption as needed. There was a tremendous amount of work involved in bringing equipment, dog and baby to the beach and back to the house, but we seemed to have handled it quite successfully.
After cleaning up, we went to dinner at a local restaurant. By day’s end I was worn out. However, my daughter had requested I bring my sewing machine to sew a crib sheet with material she had brought, so we worked on that until past 10 pm.
And so it went for the rest of the week. My husband and I took turns cooking, cleaning and baby holding. It is a joy to be a grandparent in ways I hadn’t truly understood. The bond between mother and child is as precious to observe as it once was to be a part of. I am able to vicariously enjoy the closeness that my daughter has created with her son.
But it is also endearing to be able to feed him, change him, cuddle him–and there is the freedom to not have to be responsible for what, when, and how much he has slept or eaten.
On Thursday, I learned that all was not well in paradise.
Apparently my daughter had envisioned a week returning to the nest. In that nest, her son and she would be cared for as she was during her bucolic childhood.
It came to a head over lunch at Charleston’s Noisy Oyster restaurant, when she berated my husband and me for not being ideal grandparents. As she spoke, it became clear that she had hoped to be off duty for the week, while we took on the parenting role for her son so that she would not have to be first responder to his needs.
The old adage is true: you can never go home again. Unfortunately for me, my daughter is learning this lesson and is angry that it is so.
I am also somewhat confused about the difference between my daughters’ expectations and my own.
I remember leaving home for good at 18. I never imagined that I might return to the dependence of childhood. I was responsible for my college tuition, my car payments, my monthly bills. Whenever I did return home, my mother—a single woman on a fixed income – required that I cover grocery costs for myself, and later myself and my family.
Throughout my childhood, however, this same woman, expected and received financial assistance from her parents. Now my sisters and I cover her property taxes and legal fees, a gift she takes very much as her due.
Somehow I find myself caught between the me generation and the millennials. Both my mother and my daughter see themselves as able to receive from others because they deserve to get a break from life’s demands.
In the end, though, my daughter will always be my grandson’s first responder, and we will forever be backup.
Because once you become a parent, you can’t turn back time and return to those carefree days of childhood.
Mama Said... There'd Be Days Like This 