First, do no harm.
Wait, wrong oath. What I mean is: if you have grandchildren, your primary job is simple. Keep them alive. Everything else is optional. My husband and I remind each other of this on the drive over to babysit. Survival first. Gentle grandparenting second.
Support Their Parents
This one’s harder than it sounds. We are, after all, know-it-alls, raised by people who were even more certain of their expertise and far less interested in our feelings. My own parenting education began with Dr. Spock and a no-nonsense pediatrician who once suggested I needed some parenting myself. She wasn’t entirely wrong.
Whatever philosophy they’ve chosen—attachment parenting, gentle parenting, free-range, Montessori-adjacent, or some hybrid their tribe follows, our job is simply to follow their rules. We don’t have to understand it or even agree with it. We just must respect it and quietly marvel that there are now entire philosophies devoted to something we stumbled through without too much guidance.
And about the gear. The gear alone deserves a standing ovation. Car seats that become strollers. Cribs with blackout tents. Highchairs that practically run the house. (Still waiting on one that unloads the dishwasher.) Keep YouTube tutorials bookmarked. There will be folding, assembling, and collapsing involved, and none of it is intuitive.
Mind the Feed
We didn’t have the internet when we were raising our kids, which is probably why my girls survived without the horrible, rare viruses I’m sure I would have diagnosed them with. The upside now is that sometimes my daughters beat me by sending links about whatever horrific cruise ship outbreak is trending before I can send it to them. Good girls.
But the pressure today’s parents are under is something else entirely. Algorithm-fed, crowd-sourced, TikTok-approved, performative parenting. Moms holding newborns while canning their homegrown vegetables. Dads and sons summiting Everest on summer vacation. It’s a lot. The least we can do is not add to the stress by forwarding articles like, “Is your child reaching her milestones?” Stick with rare genetic syndromes based on their various rashes.
Bite Thy Tongue
No one wants unsolicited parenting advice, least of all from grandparents. Today’s parents are already drowning in it, and there are entire online communities devoted to navigating every developmental milestone. My occasional observation—maybe he’s a little old for the pacifier—doesn’t exactly compete but it wasn’t necessary.
For the record, one of my grandsons gathered his entire, beloved pacifier collection, marched it to the railroad tracks, and said goodbye. No tears. No ceremony. Just done. I must admit, I admire his steely resolve and believe it will serve him way better than a step-by-step guide by a Tik Tok expert.
Enjoy the Window
When I was raising my girls, I always felt the clock ticking toward the teenage years, when they’d turn into raging, feral, teenage mutants. Thankfully, that phase was brief and we all emerged mostly intact.
But with grandchildren, I’ve been warned: there’s another clock. Somewhere around middle school, grandparents lose their top-tier status to friends, sports, and whatever else pulls them away.
So, for now, I take the hugs. The full-body, run-across-the-room, knock-you-back hugs.
“That’s because you tell them the best hugger wins a prize,” my husband reminds me.
Well. Yes, there’s that.
You do what you have to do.
