How to be great grandparents: the joys and challenges of grandparenting today.

Our granddaughter Emma is only 5, but she has changed our world. In some ways grandparenting has echoed our experience of parenting. When Emma was five months old, I took two months off from work to go take care of her while my daughter-in-law earned her student teaching credits. Emma looked so much like her daddy as a baby that I found myself talking to her in exactly the same ways I had talked to my own babies.

As Emma grew, not only did I become more aware of the differences between parenting and grandparenting, but I also became more aware of differences between grandparenting in the past and grandparenting now.

The most basic differences between parenting and grandparenting are grounded not in biology but residence. In the past, when multiple generations regularly lived together in the family home, grandparents often shared basic caretaker roles for children. In the working class, parents often moved in with married children when they could no longer work and afford to maintain a house of their own.

My mother's maternal grandparents came from France after the First World War to live with her family, and in my mother's memories, Grandmere Jamet did much of the childcare and a great deal of household decision-making. My mother's paternal grandfather, who lost a fortune in the Depression, moved himself and his wife into his married daughter's house, and promptly reorganized it. In both cases, grandparents shared in the daily household work and helped to raise the children.

Today, with most families in nuclear households and grandparents and other relatives often hundreds or thousands of miles away, parents have to handle all the basics--the day-to-day feeding, washing, laundry, the doctor and dentist visits, church and CCD classes, homework and PTA meetings, and teaching basic courtesy and respect toward others. This takes up so much time and energy that many families, especially when both parents work full time outside the home, have limited time for "extras."

Providing the extras

Except for the significant number of grandparents, especially women, who are the primary or often sole caretakers of their grandchildren, most grandparents' main role consists of filling in with such extras around the edges.

Extras can be a lot of different things--extra attention, extra love, extra stimulation, or more connections with the world around us.

In my family--as with many of my Catholic contemporaries in the 1950s and '60s--mine was the first generation to grow up with grandparents as visitors rather than live-in members of the household. My maternal grandparents came to visit every Saturday afternoon, bringing sweets and often staying for supper. They also brought hugs and kisses and demands to see our latest projects and to know what each of us had been doing since the previous week.

Every summer each of us spent a week with Grannie and Grandpa. During those weeks Grannie taught me how to crochet and embroider, Grandpa taught me how to play chess, and both encouraged me to read. They taught me to say the rosary and grace before and after meals in French.

My paternal grandparents lived next door when I was young but were much more reserved and formal. Grandpa sometimes treated us to lemon drops for helping him tie up the raspberry bushes or other simple chores. Until I was about 12, Grandma always seemed too busy and tired to do much with us, but in the fall of my sixth grade all that changed.

Our parish PTA had voted in school uniforms over my father's strong objections. He and our pastor were good friends, and the pastor refused to exclude children who did not wear uniforms. We went to school the first week: five little girls out of 300 not wearing uniforms. We were miserable.

That Saturday my grandma, who was a very short, stout woman, waddled over and demanded to see my father. "Sonny," she said, "I don't know how I raised you to be so blind to your own kids' misery, but these kids are going to have uniforms. I'm going to make them myself. They are not going to wear clothes that make them targets for every bully at school."

So she plumped down on our living room floor with the material she had bought and started cutting out pattern pieces and fitting them on us, one by one. I think it was the only time anybody ever successfully opposed my dad about his kids.

But my favorite grandparent was undoubtedly my maternal grandfather's sister, Aunt Nellie. Every summer each of us spent a week at her house, too. She taught me to cook and sew. She and Uncle Simon took me to my first play, my first movie, and my first real restaurant. But the church picnics were the best. Both Aunt Nellie and Uncle Simon were very active in their church, so at these picnics they seemed to know everybody. Compared to my anonymous suburban parish, their world of downtown ethnic churches seemed warm, exciting, and personal.

Perhaps her best gift to me was her ability to stay connected with the living, especially the young; throughout her 99 years she remained beloved not only of my generation of great-nieces and nephews, but our children as well, traveling across the country to visit regularly.

A childless widow for almost 50 years, Aunt Nellie buried her siblings and cousins, her friends, and many of their children. She taught all of us a great deal about how to honor the dead; countless times we begged her to get out her albums and boxes of photos and tell us the stories about all the relatives I had never, or only briefly, known. When she died two years ago, I inherited many of her photos and her engagement ring, which I wear to remind me of the gift that her long life was to my whole family.

These are the kinds of extras my grandparents gave me and I want to give to Emma.

Grandparent dos and don'ts

Emma's parents are great parents. My daughter-in-law, in particular, is a far better parent for early childhood than I ever was, with a real understanding of child development that lets her educate through play. But even the best of parents get stressed out, and part of the role of grandparents is to give parents a respite from the demands of children so that they can return to parenting renewed.

Some of our friends complain that their relationship with their grandkids gets distorted by parents who treat grandparents like last-minute babysitters: "They don't want us dropping in to see them without planning it in advance. So we make arrangements to take them out on particular days, but half the time we get a call to cancel it at the last minute. But then some afternoons the kids will call and ask us to get the grandkids to spend the night that very night. And if we say we have theater tickets, how about tomorrow, they get miffed."

Most grandparents understand caretakers' need for respite and their role in it, and they welcome it: Many say that the best part of grandparenting is that by the time you are worn out by the little darlings, it's time to give them back to their parents.

But grandparents need to respect parents in this passing the kids back, too. Many parents complain, for example, that grandparents indulge children in sugar, chocolate, caffeine, late hours, and other forms of stimulation and then return tired, hyperactive children for parents to deal with. We learned quickly enough when Emma's smart mom once suggested that when we hyped her up, perhaps we would like her to spend the night with us!

One important part of grandparenting is reinforcement of the values that parents instill in children. Contemporary society is a confusing place for children, filled with conflicting messages about what it means to be independent, adult, successful, male and female. When grandparents or other "secondary nurturers" reinforce the parental values, children are less likely to reject those values when they are angered and disillusioned in the face of inevitable parental mistakes and inadequacies.

Even the best parents have lapses of judgment, moments of anger, tiredness, or irritation when we say or do unwise and seemingly unforgivable things to children. Many times as a child and teen I contemplated major acts of rebellion in retaliation for some grievance against my parents, only to drop them because I could not figure out how to explain such violations of our shared values to my grandparents and Aunt Nellie. To defy them was simply unthinkable.

One part of reinforcing parental values involves discipline. In general, grandparents should learn and enforce those rules. For young children, consistency--especially with scheduling--is a major source of security. Of course, on special occasions virtually all parents lift the normal rules around such things as bedtimes and food, and grandparents should be able to, too.

Just as the rules should be generally consistent at both the parents' and the grandparents' home, so the discipline should be, too. I can hear my friend Cathy saying, "But what if they get no discipline in the home?" Her two grandchildren, 6 and 8 years old, came to visit her for a week and literally wrecked her home. They launched themselves at furniture, ripped towel bars off the walls, knocked over glass vases, and had nightly food fights at the table. The parents seemed to think that this was a phase the children would grow out of. Cathy and her husband were appalled.

In these situations, grandparents have to make a choice. They can limit visits and tolerate such behavior in the hopes that the parents are right and the kids will outgrow it, or they can attempt to improve the behavior. The latter is risky. Some parents will see any attempt to improve children's behavior as meddling interference.

Grandparents should never directly intervene to discipline children in the presence of their parents without first talking to the parents. They might say, "At our table we expect them to sit in their seats, to speak in a moderate voice, not to throw food, and not to kick or hit. Do you want to make sure they understand this and send them from the table if they refuse to abide by it, or do you want us to?" Only if the parents neglect to enforce such basic behavior should grandparents intervene in the presence of the parents.

In the absence of the parents, grandparents have a right to set minimum levels of acceptable behavior within their own home or out in public with them; they do not have the right to set behavior ideals that the parents don't share. I can say I will not allow food fights in my dining room, and I can demand that grandkids respect with silence the saying of grace at my table, but I have no right to insist that Emma join in a nightly rosary or eat everything that I put on her plate, unless her parents either require or support such a demand.

Not simply stand-ins

One of the reasons that as a child I found it unthinkable to defy in any important way the values and standards of my home was that my grandparents and Aunt Nellie were not simply stand-ins or rubber stamps for my parents. As when my paternal grandmother stood up to my father on the issue of uniforms, there were instances that made it clear to me even as a young child that my grandparents and Aunt Nellie cared for me and would defend my interests to my parents. Very rarely did this involve intervening over against my parents as in the case of uniforms; more often they merely persuaded my parents to modify rules by presenting other arguments or offering to take responsibility for whatever was in question.

For example, when I was in eighth grade, my Girl Scout troop was going on a hayride and campout, and my sister and I wanted to go very badly. But it was our turn to provide a chaperon, and neither of my parents was able to go. So they decided we couldn't go. We cried and argued. My 62-year-old Aunt Nellie offered to chaperon the hayride and sleep out in a sleeping bag. She ended up being so much fun that our friends in the troop kept asking when she was coming again.

Grandparenting complements parenting in some of the same ways that parents complement each other. Parents fill in for each other, taking over the kids when the other parent is sick, feeling overwhelmed, or just too busy with things that have to get done. This passing of immediate responsibility back and forth is essential for good parental health and keeps us from making a multitude of mistakes with our children because we are not up to the challenge of meeting all their needs at the moment.

The role of grandparenting becomes much more crucial for single parents, but it also gets more complicated. Frequently when grandparents step in to take over some of the parental responsibilities for the missing parent, the lines of authority become blurred and have to be negotiated, a task that requires a great deal of trust and tact on both sides.

Parents need to remember that, if they can't do the parenting alone, they need to include the others performing the task in decision-making. And grandparents need to remind themselves that their children are adults. This reminder does not come easy.

For more than 20 years my father-in-law never failed to give my husband driving instructions as we left his home for ours three hours away, and virtually every time my husband, who has never had an accident, pulled away from the curb, waving and muttering, "Does he think I'm still a kid who has to be told how to drive?" But lo and behold, when our adult sons drive away from us, who gives them 10-minute lectures on how to drive safely?

Touchy issues

Just as many couples disagree on desirable models of parenting, so there are frequently conflicts between parents and grandparents about their roles. I think most grandparent-parent relationships have at least one or two very touchy issues.

When I was growing up, my paternal grandparents thought that my parents let us girls--the oldest five of our nine were girls--run wild as tomboys. Grandma and Grandpa always pointed to the dirt on our faces and knees and the tangles in our hair.

Although there was tension in the extended family over this difference of opinion, in some ways it was also good for us to be aware of the difference. Lots of people with whom we later came into contact had expectations of girls that were close to those of our grandparents, and dealing with the grandparents made us better able to deal with them.

The most conflictual issue in our own grandparenting has been religion. We think Emma should be baptized and raised a Christian. I don't say Catholic, because though both my son and his wife were baptized Catholic, many years ago my daughter-in-law and her mother changed to another denomination that accepted gay and lesbian couples. We could never ask my daughter-in-law to baptize her child in a church where her mother and her mother's partner are not welcome.

My son is opposed to organized religion in general, which he thinks promotes prejudice and exclusion, though he claims personal Christian faith. He reminds me that my husband and I left the church for a few years over the bishops' refusal to support Catholic conscientious objectors during Vietnam, that it took us a long time to find a parish that was comfortable for us and accepting of his younger brother--who is both African-American and retarded--and that for years I have been active in Catholic feminism.

We cannot fault the values of our son and daughter-in-law, and my daughter-in-law and Emma attend Sunday services regularly, though they are not a part of the communal life of the congregation in the way that both Emma's parents were when they were growing up.

Her mother supports, and our son is indifferent to, our taking Emma to Mass with us when we visit or they visit us. Included in her books and tapes are stories from the gospels and the Old Testament. She knows the Christmas and Easter stories, and has some grasp of Baptism and Eucharist.

If her parents had objected, we would not take Emma to church, give her religious books and tapes, or teach her quite as much. But we would still teach her that for us, faith and faith community are valuable, and that while we respect her parents' right to make the decision for her while she is a child, we think it was a flawed decision.

We feel that Emma risks losing a great deal in not growing up within a faith community. Many people who have become disillusioned with the church formed their values and consciences within the very institutions they now reject; they do not realize how indebted they are to these institutions. Many have simply accepted what the opponents of church reform have taught--that to be a member of a church is to accept all its current teachings without question.

We hope that Emma's parents can be persuaded that church is like family--not perfect, but requiring forgiveness--a part of who we are, and a primary arena for living out our values and commitments, even when that entails conflict. We may never persuade them. But it is a part of our role to try and, with her parents' permission, to supply what we can of a religious heritage for Emma.

It seems to me more and more that sustaining Christian faith is at least as much a matter of experience as it is a matter of teaching. The church is my home both because two generations of my family helped me experience church as warm, accepting, and supportive of personal communion with the divine, and because my Catholic education gave me the tools to translate and apply my church heritage in the decisions and events of my life.

But we are not Emma's parents, and perhaps the best we can do is to show Emma that if and when she feels the need for such a home, it is there for her.

CHRISTINE E. GUDORF is a theology professor at Florida International University in Miami and author of Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics (Pilgrim Press).