A Grandparent's lot

For each of the months of this International Year of the Family we have focused on specific aspects of family life and it shouldn't be difficult to guess why July is being dedicated to grandparents? Jesus lived a human life, he had a mom and dad and grandparents too, St Joachim and St Anne whose feastdays are celebrated on 26 th July. We know very little about them or about Joseph, but it is good to consider Jesus' life and his mission within his human context. Did he pop down the road for some of his gran's delicacies or to escape from Joseph's carpentry shop for a bit?

Grandparenting in those days will no doubt have been quite different to what most of us experience now, and even in the last few generations it has changed and dramatically so in different ways and different places.

In a society that was still largely rural, African and otherwise, grandparents were part of the extended family, wielding quite a lot of power and commanding respect. With urbanization the extended family has disintegrated to a large extent. Migrant labour has been one of the strongest influences in African families where mother, father and children have not been living consistently in the same household. As a consequence grandparents have brought up grandchildren as a matter of course, something that is now sometimes taken for granted, against their wishes even, as they may also have other jobs, careers and expectations. One of the consequences of HIV/AIDS is, as parents and youth become infected, ill and die, many grandparents are left as primary caregivers. It is not uncommon for old-age pensions and child-grants to be the sole source of income for poor families and even in our relatively affluent country around half of the population is still living in severe poverty.

At the other end of the spectrum are families where grandparents see little of their children and grandchildren who may have moved away, left the country or are preoccupied with their own lives.

In between are many other situations.

The lucky families are those where old and young spend happy times together and the oldies feel as if they can even become young again.

The media constantly encourages us to provide well for our retirement and old age, in order to remain independent. I was challenged when I read of a situation where some older folk said, why should we hold on to our money in case of need when the younger family members need it much more now. Do we dare to share our resources with our children? Will they be willing to care for us should that become necessary?

As followers of Christ many of us are challenged by the irreligious lifestyle of children and grandchildren which nowadays is individualistic and far more materialistic than we might feel comfortable with. Working parents may be through necessity or choice. Some grandparents are actively involved, while most often children spend much of their days in child-care.

At a morning tea-party you may hear grandmothers – and grandfathers too from time to time – boasting how cute and smart their grandchildren are. But a society like ours that is so achievement-orientated puts a lot of strain too on families, who sometimes break under that strain. Family conflict, divorce, single parents, remarriage and step-families can be burdens for parents and for grandparents too.

It would be nice to sit in that old-fashioned rocking-chair with a nice well-behaved four-year old listening with great interest to one's stories. Instead we feel bewildered by multi-coloured hair and clothes that make you wonder whether you are addressing boy or girl, or by a frighteningly confusing physically endowed child-woman who reads Glamour magazine and knows more about sex and condoms then you do. We also worry about drugs, jobs and friends. And we often feel completely inadequately equipped gingerly to negotiate the technological maze through which our young grandchildren skip with such gay abandon.

I suppose all we really need is for an eleven-year old grandchild to come and say, “Don't worry granny, I'll help you ………with your homework!”

Toni Rowland

SACBC FAMILY LIFE DESK REPORT

Here and there we continue to hear of initiatives to strengthen family relationships and promote a family focus.

The Relationship Growth Series beginning with a BASIC PARENTING programme is being offered by the Cape Town Archdiocese. An information talk about this will be given in Johannesburg on Saturday 10 th July. Training will hopefully be given later in the year to get this programme running in and for parishes or regions.

It is becoming clear that some type of parenting skills need to be offered to an increasing number of children too who are caring for younger siblings after their parents have died, mostly of AIDS related causes.

As Coordinator of the Family Life Desk I run workshops on aspects of family life on request. During July there will be two workshops in smaller rural, far-away dioceses that are not as well resourced as the bigger urban ones. This is a major challenge for those communities. For example the Witbank diocese only a few hours away from Johannesburg covers an area of 57 000 sq km, has a total population of 2,5 million and 150 000 Catholics. There are some 30 priests, a fair number of sisters, 9 church schools, 20 parishes and many, many outstations where Mass is offered maybe once a month for the few families in that area.

PARENTING RESOURCES

Are we aware what is available or interested in using materials? Usually there is only a cry for help when problems exist.

Cape Town : Relationship Growth programmes beginning with “ Basic Parenting” as the 1 st in the series. Boys' Town offers Common Sense Parenting.

Some of the family movements like Couples for Christ, the Equipes de Nossa Senhora, Focolare's New Families and the Schoenstatt Family movement do include some parenting focus.

Most social welfare agencies linked to the Church of not and social workers in the communities can offer programmes or groups on request addressing particular aspects e.g. the needs of single parents, troubled families.

INTERNATIONAL PARENTING WEBSITES AND NEWSLETTERS

A websearch, e.g. through Catholic Online will bring to light interesting sites for parents and for family spirituality and the CERC Religious Educators site does the work for us and provides links to articles of interest to religious educators including parents. The most recent letter from CERC provided a link to an article about open adoption – where the biological mother gets to choose her baby's parents and can keep in touch. Another article discussed Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in children and whether drugs such as Ritalin were the answer.

CATHOLIC RADIO – RADIO VERITAS

This South African Catholic radio station has been on air, unfortunately only in the Johannesburg area this time, for the past month. Calling itself the station “that brings the Good News for a change” it has been very popular, bringing news from around the world with a Catholic flavour. The daily Mass is particularly welcomed and not only for the housebound.

The weekly programme FAMILY MATTERS which I presented over this past month has tried to highlight particular family issues and resources.

In a Catholic community as disparate as ours, having different languages and cultures it has been no easy task to provide programme material to suit all tastes but hats off as usual to Fr Emil Blaser and his team for their tireless efforts and good luck for future and hopefully permanent Catholic broadcasting. What do you think?

FAIR PLAY – the family that plays together stays together

The beautiful game of soccer has captured the news again. As South Africans, some of us owe allegiance to probably all the European nations in the Euro Cup, but no open warfare has erupted.

Closer to home a scandal is developing over matchfixing and dishonest referees, with one Sunday paper claiming there are only 7 honest referees in the country. But as one letter to the same paper writes, “the problem is not so much the referees as our society's moral values. Corrupt practices have crept into all aspects of our lives, including soccer. Administrators have taken a stand. The parents, siblings and spouses who are benefiting from the proceeds of crimes are also encouraged to take a stand.” And surely all parents, siblings and spouses should do so on all dishonest practices in the fullest context of moral regeneration.

FINALLY a smile for us confused grandparents:

319. Windows 2000
Abraham is trying to load Windows 2000 onto his computer. His son, Isaac, walks in and says,
"Dad, what are you doing? You can't load that on to your computer! You need more RAM.

You need at least a 1GHz processor with 128 megs of memory; you only have a pentium 2 with no available memory."
And Abraham said, "Don't worry, son, God will provide the Ram."

325. Chicken Dinner
After a community worship service, a farmer invited the local priest and deacon back to the farm for dinner. At the meal, each clergy was served a whole young chicken. As the three returned to their cars, a rooster was seen strutting about, chest puffed out and held high. "He sure seems full of himself," commented the pastor. "He has good cause to be proud," answered the farmer. "He just had two of his children go into the ministry."

Jokes from www.wwj.org.nz