Joseph Joubert
I am a member of the “sandwich generation.” I'm forty-two, my children are fifteen and twelve, and I visit my eighty-two-year-old debilitated mother three to four times a week.
Widowed, she lives alone in her condo six miles from my home. She no longer drives and is dependent on others for transportation and social activities. I get very bogged down running two households. I'm either taking her to my home for a visit, to the grocery store or for a haircut, or I'm driving her around with me on my errands just to get her out of the house. She appreciates very much every small thing I do for her and tries hard to understand my busy schedule.
One particularly hot Texas day in July, I was driving my daughter from one errand to another when I realized I was running behindâagainâand needed to call Mom and tell her I would be late picking her up. As I sped down the road, I called her on my cell speakerphone. I told her we were coming by to get her but that we were behind schedule. Her Irish lilt filled the car. “I'll be ready whenever you come.” Then we ended our conversation with our daily, “I love you. See you soon.”
As I hung up, my precious twelve-year-old said, “I was just imagining that I was you and that my daughter was sitting next to me in the car and we were talking to you, the grandma, on the phone.” I was stunned. My prayers were being answered. As hard as it is sometimes, with all the running and juggling schedules, I am modeling something for my children after all, teaching them that nothing matters more in this world than the time we spend with those closest to us.
Yes, I may very well be old, one day, and all alone. I hope my daughter will then say, “I love you. See you soon.”
Tricia Short
L
ife affords no greater responsibility, no greater
privilege, than the raising of the next generation.
C. Everett Koop
In 1965, when I was a little girl, my family moved to a picturesque neighborhood in Pennsylvania. We were stunned to find a petition had been circulating to bar us from settling there. The neighbors, upon learning that a family with seven kids was elbowing its way into their territory, feared the worst. Perhaps they had envisioned seven times the mischiefâchurned-up flowerbeds, battered mailboxes, their sleepy lives unraveled by gleeful shrieks of children peppering cars with rocks and tripping up the elderly.
The petition was denied.
And so we moved into the colonial-style house, my parents' first home after fifteen years of transitioning from one army housing complex to another. What a luxury it was, owning a brick structure with two stories that we did not have to share with other families. The backyard, stretching on for what seemed like miles, tugged at my exploring spirit.
As one month flowed into the next, the neighbors held their breath. Finally, there was a collective sigh of relief as they began to see that their world would remain intact after all.
Then they began to wonder why. Why was such a large family so quiet? Even during Dad's tour in Vietnam, there was not a single hiccup.
What the neighbors didn't bank on was Mom's secret weaponâa weapon that would have brought Genghis Khan to his knees. Flattened evil empires. Rewritten history.
Her secret weapon, for lack of a more technical term, was “the look.”
I believe there was a patent pending on it at the time.
This is how it worked.
First, the eyebrows arched. Then the lips tightened into one thin, rigid line. The eyes, narrowed and unflinching, turned to glass.
Whenever I was caught in mid-mischief, there she was, armed with that baleful stare. I was a fish about to be slapped onto butcher paper if I dared twitch. None of my brothers and sisters had the nerve to challenge “the look,” so I could only imagine the consequences of crossing that line. I was certain that it meant being hauled away to a dark, damp place for bad kids, where a cackling witch pinched their fingers to see if they were plump enough to be on the menu. You can be assured that I never once attempted to confirm this.
There were even times Mom had the eerie ability to foresee mischief barely hatching in my brain. One look in my direction whittled my plans, along with my constitution, to sawdust. Like the Nat King Cole song, my only alternative was to straighten up and fly rightâfor the time being.
As it always is with army life, after three years and one more sibling added to the family, we followed Dad to his new assignment, where we were once again placed in generic housing on post. To this day, my parents cherish the friendships they collected while living on that treelined street in Pennsylvania. I've never forgotten the sweet man next door who always seemed to have a pocketful of butterscotch candy for us when he mowed his lawn.
A few years ago, my three-year-old niece was acting bratty at the dinner table, which solicited a five-star glare from her grandmother. Our forks poised in midair, we waited awkwardly for the little girl's reaction. Then . . .
“Grandma!” she said, giggling. “You're funny!”
We gasped.
She had breached the rules and . . . and she was still living!
Even more shocking, though, was what I detected on my mother's face. A trace of defeat. Just enough to make me appreciate how precious that tool must have been to her all these years, the pride she must have felt to be able to discipline a caravan of kids in church, in the store, the park, libraries and museumsâall with just one look. Especially in one particular neighborhood that dreaded our arrival.
It's been said that Mom was the only one in her family who successfully adopted her mother's glare to control the kids. It must be genetic. The other day my two-year-old was whizzing around at top speed on the Sit-N-Spin during naptime when I opened the door quietly and zeroed in on him with that look. He braked with his heels, hopped off and quickly crawled into bed.
Hmmm. Maybe it's not too late for that patent after all.
Jennifer Oliver
B
e ever gentle with the children God has given
you. Watch over them constantly; reprove them
earnestly, but not in anger.
Elihu Burritt
My son and daughter-in-law decided before their children were born that they would not spank. Both had been brought up with disciplinarian parents who believed in using the rod rather than spoiling the child.”
My granddaughter, Jessica, went to Montessori school for a year, and of course they are against corporal punishment as well. Her punishment was mainly time-outs.
One day little Jessica had pushed her mom as far as she could. Carrie was so upset she went to the kitchen and pulled out a wooden spoon from the drawer. Lifting it in the air she said, “Do you see this? This is what my parents used for me.”
Little four-year-old Jessica looked at her with big blue eyes. “They cooked you?”
Beverly Houseman
I
t is the will, and not the gift, that makes the
giver.
Gotthold E. Lessing
Some things never change. Take, for instance, the capricious nature of desire.
Will I never learn?
I wondered once more, remembering.
I had been pushing a shopping cart with my almost-four-year-old granddaughter through Target when Tiffany squealed, “Looky! There are shoes just like Dorothy's!”
Unmistakable excitement filled her voice. My eyes followed Tiffany's emphatic, pointing finger. There they were, a whole rack of them: ruby slippers sparkling as if sprinkled with scarlet fairy dust. Magical footwear transported straight from the silver-screen Land of Oz. There were gold and silver ones, too, but it was the ruby ones that mesmerized my granddaughter. Naked desire flared in Tiffany's eyes. When we stopped before the shoe rack, Tiffany reached with longing for a ruby slipper. She turned it over and over with reverence and wonderment.
I could so easily visualize my darling Tiffany dancing a regal waltz in them, dipping and twirling off into that elusive world of dress-up and fantasy that she so often inhabited. Tiffany was a luminous little girl who loved everything swishy and swirly. Glittery and glamorous. Tiaras, high heels, angel wings, taffeta and tulle skirts, feather boas, and sparkling jewelry of every description.
I had already bought Tiffany's birthday gift only days before. Dedicated to nurturing my granddaughter's appreciation for the more important things of life, I aimed alwaysâwell, almost alwaysânot to overdo the materialistic. But in this case, I pondered, how often does one get such an easy opportunity to fulfill a childhood desire?
Believe it or not, for three days I wrestled with this dilemma. Finally, I returned to the store for the ruby slippers that would surely fulfill Tiffany's heart's desire.
Standing at the cash register waiting for my change, I was so delighted that it took an enormous act of will to restrain myself from breaking into a spontaneous tap dance. I couldn't stop smiling. Strolling out of the store, clutching my precious package as if it contained the crown jewels, I felt absolutely triumphant. Surely there were springs in my shoes. This was one time an unquestioning certainty guaranteed I had found the perfect gift.
On Tiffany's birthday, I could hardly wait for my granddaughter to open the box containing the slippers. When at last she tore away the bright wrapping paper, the light flooding Tiffany's face said it all. In an eager instant she slipped her little feet into the sparkling shoes. It was as if they had a life of their own. Suddenly Tiffany minced. She swayed. She strutted. She sashayed. On and on she danced, oblivious to everyone. From all appearances, she couldn't help herself. She was lost in their spell.
All afternoon Tiffany wore the magic shoes. She couldn't tear her eyes from them as she played. As the day waned, it was as if she had drained every last bit of magic from them. Every last bit of wonder and joy.
At last dusk descended. Finally wearied by all the excitement, Tiffany crawled into my lap, as she so often did, snuggling close and giving me the best of little granddaughter bear hugs.
“You really enjoy those red slippers, don't you, honey?”
Tiffany nodded slowly, an expression of sudden gravity sobering her dear little face. Then she paused to ponder for a bit before offering her carefully considered answer.
“Actually, it was the gold ones that I really wanted.”
Jane Elsdon
T
he sacred books of the ancient Persians say:
If you would be holy instruct your children,
because all the good acts they perform will
be imputed to you.
Montesquieu
T
o know how to grow old is the master work of
wisdom.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Deep in my memory as a teenager is my grandmother's attempt to shake me awake on Sunday mornings. “Oh! Granny, please,” I'd plead. “I'm so tired and sleepy. I'll go next week. Promise.” At that age, getting in early from a Saturday night date so I could stay awake in church on Sunday morning wasn't on the top of my priority list.
But she'd taunt me, “Well, young lady, why am I not surprised you're weak from fatigue? Funny thing to me, you're not too tired to carouse around on Saturday night, but you can't give the Lord your time on Sunday. Come on now, it won't do to be late. Get up and get dressed.”
And I would.
Grandmother Nora was a tall, handsome, fashionable woman. When she came to live with my mother, older sister and me, she was active, creative, determined and eighty years old. She'd made a fine reputation for herself as a talented tailor in the early 1920s. It paid the bills as she raised her three daughters. In those days there were few elegant department stores and no boutiques available to women of fashion. Their in-vogue wardrobes came from talented seamstresses like my grandmother.
She still loved sewing and seemed always to be working on a project. She told me she had one more heart's desire, to make choir robes for her church and give them as her final gift before she died.
Tension reigned with three generations in one small apartment. Granny and I, the oldest and the youngest, became a support team for each other. But even then we often disagreed. Her rules and traditions didn't fit my generation. At times there was real door-slamming tension between us. I realize now it was because we were so much alike. She saw herself in me and used any effective means, from pressure to bribes, to ensure that her look-alike granddaughter would be equipped with God's rules. Over time, we formed a truce of love and respect. We were quite a combination: a teenager yearning to fly and a granny whose wings had been clipped by age.
My mother, newly divorced, was also trying to make the best of several difficult situations. Returning to the workforce after many years away, raising two daughters alone and the irritation of her mother's sewing mess severely tested her patience.