Children of Children & Grandparents

Coming to your from Eye on the Pee Dee

In the last year I have come across many situations of children having children and not being married and the reactions of grandparents.  As a grandparent of 5 beautiful grandchildren and two sons that are married these are my thoughts.  This article is about friends of mine living outside the Pee Dee area.

Being married at a young age and having children or being a single mom or dad is not an easy road to embark upon, but thinking your parents are going to babysit, feed you, house you, and give you free range of whatever you want to do when you want to do it is completely wrong.  I think you're playing on the emotions, especially, grandma-to-be, that they will always be there at your beckon call.  Grandparents have a life too.  They raised you, gave you an opportunity to have an education, probably provided you transportation and insurance for a car, in many cases, clothed you and took care of you when you were sick.

In the last two years I've watched two specific cases where the mom's go along their merry way and grandparents have taken the responsibility of being the care-giver and provider for the baby. How fun it is to go out and party and not have to worry about "the baby". When are we going to teach our children responsibility and be to be responsible for their actions?  Grandparents end up becoming enablers for these children.

Now, if grandparents want to be involved in their grand children's life and want to do and offer to do these things freely that's another story.  I will agree with the saying that grandchildren are the best.  As a grandmother, I can see my grandchildren, play with them, spoil them and then send them on their merry way.  Not the case if they were living in my home.

What's a grandparent to do?  What if they were young and came to us and said they were going to have a baby?  I would not have responded with a very open heart and probably would have be the "tough love" person in that situation.  As for the child, that child didn't ask to be brought into this world but I'm sure I would soften a bit around the edges.

Teaching children that they are responsible for their actions and that they need to be prepared for the consequences in whatever they do, was a deterrent for me not to stray to far from the "straight and narrow".  We as parents can't pull our children out of every bad situation.

I hope you as a parent are never faced with a situation when your child tells you there is a baby on the way.  It's a heartbreaking story to hear and it's a struggle to go through it.  Let's help young people make better decisions and wait to have 2 parents in a child's life.  It's not easy even then but some of the burden can be shared.   Parents raising grandchildren is not the answer but it is an option.