During a casual discussion about parenting in a First Teachers@home class in North Birmingham this week, a woman slouched in her chair sighed loudly. I asked, maybe not as carefully as I should, if this was a difficult piece for her. She murmured something about her mother; in response to my expression, said more clearly while shaking her head, “I ain’t nuthin’ like my mother”. “Oh”? She shuffled in her chair, as though she couldn’t find a way to get comfortable. She was barely audible when she said, “Ain’t going to be like my mother…”. “Oh”, I replied, “me neither”. She stared at me, and finally smiled. Polite conversation doesn’t allow for emotional honesty. In driblets, I discovered that she was raising her grandchildren, which she clearly didn’t want to do, but said, “If I don’t do the right thing with them, who will?” Hard to argue with that. What we didn’t discuss was the elephant in the room – where were her children? Why did the responsibility rest on her shoulders? Thought of the emotional injuries that she suffered in childhood, and the effects on her own parenting. She declared, firmly, “I didn’t do to my kids what my mother did to me”. I didn’t either, but that still didn’t make me a brilliant parent, either. Which is probably fine – there is a lot to be said for adequate. But the threads that run through what we experienced as a child and how that colors how we respond with our own children is oh so nuanced.
Grandparents raising children, again
Advertisement
