What is it about Grandmothers? That’s it! They are “grand” mothers ... caring, coaching, encouraging ... even if it is the second time around, the next generation in time.
What mother doesn’t regret something about the first time around? What child doesn’t remember how mom made him or her angry? Yet what child doesn’t also remember how much mom kept things going? These same children grow up and often have children of their own. That child becomes a mother or father, and Mom becomes Grandmother (or Nana or Grandma). Mom gets a second chance to revisit the dilemmas and rewards of parenting.
Grandmothers have seen the life cycle turn. They have watched their “perfect” kids struggle, their mischievous offspring turn purposeful, their rebellious teens express gratitude. With wisdom earned the hard way, these mothers now help their adult children raise the next generation of children. With that position of being one generation removed, yet supportive and caring, the next generation may feel a different ease in loving their grandmothers.
Grandmothers are older, slower and grayer than a generation earlier, but that is what makes them wiser in facing the challenges of life. And through their position as older mothers, they get a chance to revisit the dilemmas and disappointments of young motherhood. And in coming to terms with the losses in life, as well as its joys, grandmothers remind everyone that the ideal of the “perfect mother,” much like the ideal of the perfect child, is an unrealizable cultural fantasy Something better than perfection is realized through the lives of grandmothers.
This wall is dedicated to my mother and to all the grandmothers who hung in there with their children and grandchildren, who spent endless hours entertaining, sitting, shopping, chauffeuring, cheering and, most importantly, loving the human beings around them. For, if there was ever an example of how to get it right, it was when God created Grandmothers.
- Albin Monroe Jubitz