LIVE BY DESIGN | The evolving role of grandparents: From storytellers to tech-savvy mentors

Sunday, 28 July 2024, is South Africa’s day to celebrate grandparents – so I am informed by the SPAR Digital magazine that pops up in my email inbox. Grandparents’ Day: I did not know there was one. I am curious.

I discovered many countries have National Grandparents’ Day, but no international date exists. Mexico chose 28 August. Former American president Jimmy Carter introduced Grandparents’ Day in 1978, the first Sunday after the country’s Labour Day holiday, making this year’s commemoration fall on 8 September.

We have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day celebrations – what is distinctive about the role of grandparents in our lives? I did not have grandparents as an active presence in my life: my father’s parents died before I was born, and my mother’s parents lived in another country. We spent a holiday with them when I was nine years old. Soon after, my Oupa died, and I saw my Ouma twice more, decades apart, before she too died. I cannot say I had a relationship with any of my grandparents.

More frequent travel and the transformation of communication have reduced some of the challenges of long-distance and changed things for the next generation. My children saw their grandparents every other year, and telephonic contact eventually became audiovisual. We first used Skype and then WhatsApp video or FaceTime. Friends of mine whose daughter lives in the USA interact almost daily with their granddaughter.

As a child, you will never experience your parents as their grandchildren experience them. Some grandparents indeed take on a full parenting role – but for most grandparents, it is a very different relationship. Three generations rarely share the same house, and migration commonly means that the young family lives in a different city or even a different country.

While time spent together is irregular, I have observed relationships evolving between child and grandparent that are formative and deeply meaningful. When my mother died, I hosted an extended family gathering. In the invitation, I asked if everyone could choose one of their favourite stories about my mother that they were willing to share.

It was the stories that the grandchildren told that I savoured the most. They knew my mother in an entirely different way than her three children. They did not know her as the strict taskmaster who divided up the house and would not let you go out to play unless the chores were done, who insisted that my two brothers learn to cook and iron. She had famously run her fingers along the tops of the skirting boards to check that the dusting was done correctly.

My children and my brother’s children had activity time with my parents – enjoyable time gardening, sewing, baking and craft activities, and my mother passed down her love of jigsaw puzzles. Last week, I sat having lunch with my niece. She was wearing a newly made gingham checked dress. She noticed two loose threads that she had failed to knot and trim. “Ooops,” she said, “Granny would have picked up on that.”

Grandparents are often chauffeurs and aftercare providers who provide holiday daycare and pass on skills. This work can be physically demanding.

My husband and I have had the gift of five grandchildren being born in the last decade. I swear you do not need to do weight training for good arm muscles if picking up babies and toddlers is part of your life. You also need to be able to get down on the floor easily, especially in that period between sitting and walking. When they are finally bipeds, the ball games, scooters and bicycles begin.

I am currently ploughing my way through Outlive, the book written by Canadian author and physician Peter Attia. I use the word “ploughing” because it is long and hard going for a layperson. It provides technical information in considerable detail. Attia’s approach is that a long life needs quality of life to be truly enjoyable. He begins his book with a story of attending a friend’s mother’s funeral – the quality of life of her last ten years had been poor both physically and mentally.

He wonders what he will die of and discusses what he refers to as the four horsemen of death: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and neuro-degenerative diseases. His advocacy is about how we take care of ourselves in the early decades of our lives as an investment in longevity and quality of life in our elderhood.

The Einstein quote, “Begin with the end in mind,” is uppermost in my mind and requires living by design. Until I read Attia’s Outlive, I had not quite realised how much it mattered to start young by investing in how you want to be when you are old: exercise, eating mindfully, sleep and meditation. Prevention is better than cure. Here we are again.

I guess the secret to motivation is that you need to want something enough to give you support to resist overindulging in delicious, unhealthy food. I can easily become a couch potato, especially in the winter months.

But I want my grandchildren to have stories to tell about me at whatever family gathering that might be held when I have died. It is legacy work for me and requires intentionality. I plan my time and finances to be able to travel. But I also need to be fit enough to do the fun stuff.

My question to you is: How do you imagine your elderliness? What investments are you making now to make that dream come true?