Grandparenting within a blended family
Grandparenting in present-day North America has challenges not faced by previous generations. The disintegration of family structures has fragmented the home and the roles of parents and grandparents. Divorce and re-marriage have grown to the extent that nearly everyone is now part of a blended family.
This ''blended-ness'' creates new challenges for grandparents. When two or more families are brought together through re-marriage they each bring a set of values, traditions, cultures, rules, and expectations into the new family structure. Each of these aspects need to be addressed through communication coupled with flexibility, forgiveness, and grace. When left unaddressed there will be hurts, withdrawal, surface communication and further fragmentation. However, when they are addressed, there can be healing, new levels of enjoyment, increased trust and acceptance, and a growing feeling of wholeness in the blended family.
Following are some of the new areas to be addressed. Grandparents, because of their age, wisdom and experience, may be the best ones to call together the blended family to address these issues:
Values
What are the values we want lived out in our family and passed on to our children and grandchildren? Hold a brainstorming session to post values, then agree on them and make a list of activities that will promote those values and schedule them into your calendars.
Traditions
How did each family celebrate holidays in the past? How can we blend those traditions together in order to best enjoy our holidays? Hold another extended family session to talk through these expectations. Include as wide a circle as possible in this discussion.
Cultures
Discover the culture that each family brings into the blended family. Humor, serious, work-a-holics, wealth, poverty, religious influence, strong male dominance, strong female dominance, forms and levels of discipline, prejudices, political preferences ... these are all cultural values we bring to the new family structure. Taking some time to discover these cultural insights will greatly help interpret each others actions and provide greater levels of acceptance.
Rules
What are the rules we bring into the new family? We all have a set of rights and wrongs by which we were raised and which affect the judgments we make about other people and their actions. Getting these out in discussion helps us know one another, understand what is influencing our behavior and accept one another.
Expectations
Expectations make up the ''warp and woof'' of everyday interaction. We all have expectations, even though we may not be adept at articulating them. They come from all the areas we have mentioned above ... values, traditions, cultures and rules. These things affect our world view and therefore shape what we expect should happen in certain situations. When life does not unfold in front of us as we expected, we become insecure, afraid, and feel out of control. We all have formed coping strategies to deal with unmet expectations, and we can't help but bring those strategies into our new blended family.
Expectations cannot be easily dismissed. They can, however, be identified in our new situation when we realize that something is not going the way we expected it to go. That can be a moment of recognition as we identify what we think should have happened, compared to what actually did happen. Identifying and then voicing our expectation can be helpful to all involved, as long as the voicing is controlled. Yelling, shouting in anger, pouting, insisting, manipulating and trying to control are forms of voicing that alienate and produce greater fragmentation, rather than bring people together.
Distance
Another challenge faced by most blended families is one of distance. It is just plain difficult to get together! (There is another section of material that specifically deals with Long Distance Grandparenting, so it will not be dealt with here.)
Dealing with differences of lifestyles
Another great challenge for blended families is how to accept people without condoning certain activities they might be involved in. This particular issue has separated many families and done a great deal of damage to young lives. These issues deserve a mature conversation, not a cold avoidance. If someone in the family is involved in activities or a lifestyle that cannot be condoned by other members of the family, there needs to be a caring, respectful conversation regarding the issue. This is not a confrontation. It is a communication of each others values and perspectives regarding the activity or lifestyle in question.
When someone is part of a family, they are always part of that family. We cannot get rid of our parents, our children, our grandchildren. They are part of us forever. The fact that one of them may make choices we do not condone does not mean we can separate them from our life and our love. We can, however, articulate our feelings about the activities we do not condone. This can be done - one time ... a conversation in which we make two important points: 1) This particular thing you are doing is not something I condone or feel is best for you. My reasons are ... (then enumerate your reasons for disagreeing or not being able to condone the activity.) 2) Regardless of your choices, you are my (grandson, granddaughter, son, daughter, mom, dad, etc.), and I will always love you, accept you, and be there for you. Who am I to withhold my love for you over this difference when I have so many areas of weakness in my own life, yet I still expect you to love and accept me. You have my unconditional love. You are always welcome in my home, and I want to be in yours. I have stated my disagreement with this issue, and that is the last time you will hear it from me. But I will continually reiterate my love and acceptance for you as long as I have breath. Be assured of that.
Having this conversation, with the right attitude and tone of voice, can potentially bring great healing and togetherness to a family. It works. It is healthy. It is liberating. It shows respect. It shows love. It models humility.
Acceptance
On the issue of acceptance, a blended family faces new challenges. Differing rules for discipline, what is accepted behavior, volume levels when speaking inside the house, cleaning up after one's self, getting along with new and different personalities - all create new levels of acceptance on the part of everyone. Just being aware of this goes a long way towards accepting one another. But it may not be far enough in some situations. This is when sitting down and talking through the acceptance issues needs to be done. Parents or grandparents can convene these sessions, depending on the family dynamic and those in question. The key is to have the discussion, rather than just hope these issues will go away, and in the meantime you become more frustrated.
Additionally, grandchildren need to learn to accept the new parental figures in their lives. Grandparents can be a great help to their grandchildren who are much more vulnerable and pliable in their younger years. Grandchildren have probably felt loss, pain, guilt and great insecurity through whatever circumstances have brought about the blended family. The maturity and wisdom of grandparents can be a great source of healing, of listening, of emotional medicine to help grandchildren deal with these hurts and questions. While dealing with their own grief and questions, grandparents need to step up to the plate and play their role in appropriately blending this new family.
Four Sets of Grand Parents
A blended family automatically means additional grandparents. If they are all still alive, a grandchild can suddenly have four sets of grandparents to relate to. Grandparents suddenly find themselves being called grandpa and grandma by young lives they have barely met previously. Grandparents have the obligation to understand this new dynamic in the grandchild's life and communicate appropriately. To expect the grandchildren to know how to manage this new family dynamic is unfair, but without an adult articulating the new relationships, the child, by default, is left to figure it out and behave accordingly. Part of grand parenting is to take the initiative in communicating about the new relationships to be developed and this communication must involve the parents as well as their children.
Grandparents must be cautious of showing favoritism to their original grand children which will create jealousy within the newly formed family. Respect must be shown, acceptance communicated and unconditional love demonstrated to all the grandchildren.
At the appropriate time one of the adults needs to initiate a conversation with all the newly blended family to say, "we are building a new family ... here are all the people in it and here are some of the things we need to talk about ... "
Summary
Being a grandparent in a blended family brings with it a new set of challenges. Most of these challenges are true in a traditional family, but the ''blended-ness'' adds an additional level of thought and care on the part of grandparents. Putting into practice some of the above-mentioned practices and events can bring strength and wholeness to the family and enable grandparents to intentionally contribute to the health and positive development of grandchildren.
