Familial Support Should Be Nurtured
Grandparents - adored role models or faraway shadows?
Some of us knew little about our grandparents. Separated by distance, family rifts or death, they were just faces in a photo album. For others, Nanna was a nurturing cookie baker, a comforter and confidante, the family matriarch. Maybe Grampa was a fishing buddy and backyard baseball pitcher full of war stories. Modern grandparents might be quicker to Rollerblade and exchange e-mails than to teach knitting. The roles change a bit over time, but the potential for lasting benefits remain.
In a recent AARP report, about half of America’s grandparents describe themselves as companions to their grandchildren, and onethird regularly serve as advisers.
Four million American kids are actually being raised by their grandparents - up more than 50 percent in the past decade. In nearly a third of these families, the parents are completely absent.
Lucky are the children who have the unfaltering love and positive influence of grandparents in their lives. For some it’s their only source of grounding stability. Grandparents can offer family continuity, time to love and listen. Some cultures are quicker than ours to recognize elders’ worth as family historians, wise counselors, patient teachers of tradition and skills, but few can dispute the immeasurable value of a grandparent’s love and support.
On the surface, then, the Supreme Court’s blow to a Washington law which had authorized judges to order visitation rights to grandparents might have seemed sad. This decision resulted from the case in which Anacortes, Wash., grandparents Gary and Jennifer Troxel sought frequent, court-ordered visitation with their late son’s two young daughters. The Troxels initially had been allowed monthly weekend visits and one summer week.
The girls’ mother appealed. This courtroom volley, begun in 1993, ended with the Supreme Court’s decision that fit parents have the “fundamental right” to decide what’s best for their own children. Amen to that. The too-broad language of Washington’s law was such that any third party could seek visitation if they felt it was in the child’s best interest. How pitiful it is that what should be a private family issue even makes it into a courtroom at all. This wasn’t a battle over custody. Civil families with communicative relationships ought to be able to sort out questions like this on their own. In the Troxel case, the girls’ mother didn’t initially deny visits with the grandparents. One can’t fault them for wanting more than one day a month, but it’s hard to imagine how a big infusion of litigation-induced animosity might enhance family harmony. Forced visitation would surely be strained and unnatural, thus negating much of that “best interest for the child” argument. What a shame it had to come to this.
In today’s mobile world, it often seems atypical for children to have a large, supportive family network close by. Bring on the complications of single parenthood, divorce, incarceration, adoption, lost custody and/or remarriage and it becomes even more difficult to include grandparents in a child’s life. It may not be easy, but families should try to work this out. For our children, as well as grandparents, no opportunities for unconditional love and support should be denied.