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HELLO GRANDPA - IT'S TAMSIN
We live in a small country town in England. There are three types of people who live here - the natives, who've been here for generations; the people who arrived twenty or thirty years ago and are now grudgingly accepted by the natives; and the incomers, like us, who have arrived as the town grows with new housing developments and it becomes, in part, a commuter town. Most of our friends are among the incomers, most of whom have moved here from other parts of Britain because of their husbands' jobs. The mothers mostly stay at home with the children. Consequently, most of the parents we know are not from round here. Even so, quite a few are still within striking distance of their roots. I know a number of people who grew up no more than an hour's drive from where we all now live, and whose parents still live in or near their childhood homes. The issue of grandparents often comes up, and these people are the lucky ones in this respect. We live in a time of great social mobility. People move around, all over the country, maybe all over the world. Tamsin has friends whose parents grew up in our town, and friends whose grandparents can be seen at the weekends, if not during the week. She has other friends who, like us, live a long way from grandparents and other family connections. We live a little further away than most. Tamsin's grandparents live in Australia. Her father is fifth-generation Australian, and I migrated there when I was seven. She has met her grandparents twice, but when she was ten days old and ten months old. She doesn't remember. She enjoys looking at the photos, but it isn't the same. We keep in touch by phone, at great expense. One of her aunts has email, but that isn't quite the same as talking to Nana or Grandma on the phone. Tamsin now demands that they been phoned so she can talk to them! Grandma is coming over for Christmas, and she is very excited. Grandma, like the rest of the family, has never even met Angus, now two. He smiles politely and uncomprehendingly when Tamsin chatters excitedly about meeting Grandma. I don't think he actually knows what a Grandma is, yet! We talk to Nana and Grandpa once a week, a Sunday ritual that Tamsin wouldn't miss for the world. We talk to Grandma a little less often. You should see the size of our phone bill! Tamsin has been asking about her 'other Grandpa' recently. We've not had much connection with him in recent years, though he does send her and Angus books for Christmas and birthdays. We've sent him some photos from time to time, and he knows all about Tamsin and Angus from these. I started writing a letter to 'Grandpa T' recently and I've told Tamsin that she can add to it at the end. (She has been writing and drawing pictures and sending them off to Nana and Grandma for a while now). Yesterday she conspired with Daddy and, together, they telephoned Grandpa T. I think he was a little surprised, to say the least, when he answered the phone to hear a small voice say cheerfully, 'Hello Grandpa, it's Tamsin'. They had a lovely chat. As soon as the conversation was over, he apparently rung Grandma to tell her all about it. We would like to return to Australia for many reasons. One of the main ones is that we want our children to grow up knowing their grandparents. It seems such a shame to have such lovely relationships waiting to happen and be frustrated because of the 12,000 miles between us. No matter how many phone calls or letters are exchanged, it isn't the same thing. In this respect I envy those of our friends and acquaintances who have family nearby. I don't necessarily agree with using grandparents as an extended, free baby-sitting service. I knew one family in Australia who expected Nonna to care for their child, ten hours a day, five days a week, no payment, even though it took her two hours each way on public transport to trek across Melbourne to reach them. But grandparents are a wonderful resource. They offer unconditional love, a wealth of experience, a different way of looking at things. Tamsin and Angus have a treat in store for them if they ever get the chance to listen to some of the things that Grandma, Grandpa T, Nana and Grandpa have done during their lifetimes. They have lived in interesting places, seen interesting things. They can tell her about times past (and I don't just mean the Seventies!) in a way that I can't. We no longer live in a society where we can expect to be near our extended family for all of our lives. In many ways this new society is a better one. We may be prepared to trade off living with grandparents for the increased space and better housing that we have now. But we should make every effort to keep those family relationships going. They have so much to teach our children. I didn't really know my grandparents for most of my childhood. In part this was due to deaths, but a lot of it was to do with living on the other side of the world. Those relations I do still have seem remote and unfamiliar because I didn't grow up with them. I don't want our children to suffer from this. I poke fun at Graham's close-knit family, their family reunions that seem to include the population of whole country settlements. But it's a heritage that I want my children to cherish. We should all be encouraging our children to understand their place in the world in this way. I don't know that we want to go back to a 'Golden Age' of pre-industrial extended family groups. I think we can accept that the advantages of modern medicine and female emancipation, to name but two advances, are worth having! But I do think it is vitally important for children to grow up understanding where they come from, in every sense of the word.
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