Grandparent's Role
Grandparents generally accept and enjoy the many roles into which they
have been cast. One of the many is that they are the grandparents of all
their grandchildren, not just of one whom they chose to be their favorite.
Favoritism invites disaster.
A young mother of two posed the following dilemma to an Internet
discussion group devoted to family relations and child behavior. I
altered the text slightly, primarily to protect the writer's privacy. She
wrote:
'Since the birth of our second child our family has received lots of warm
wishes. Yet, often, in offering congratulations, well wishers remarked
along the lines 'You must be happy to have a boy now.' This confused
our older child, a four-year-old girl.
'Of course, she is a much loved and cherished child and we could not
love her any more if she were a boy. And we are very happy to have our
new son, but would have loved a second daughter just as much. But the
casual remarks about having a son are secondary to my concern about
my parents' relationship with our children.
'My parents reside within easy driving distance and we are a close-knit
family.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33