Family
Grand Cultures: Strengthening Grandparent and Grandchild Ties
By Gina Stepp
Mar 31, 2008

A soft, comfortably-sized woman in a bib apron and oven mitts sets a batch of steaming cookies on a cooling rack: her grey hair is caught neatly in a generous bun, and she wears a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses and a warm smile. It’s a scene that appears in countless children’s books, and there’s no need to read the text to find out the woman’s name. It’s some version of “Grandma,” and when the page is turned “Grandpa” is very likely to appear as a similarly aged gentleman with twinkling eyes, perhaps peering around his newspaper at the pint-sized hero or heroine of the story. Why is it so easy to envision these scenes? Because the characters have long been part of Western society’s overarching “grand culture.”

According to Candace Kemp, a professor at Georgia State University’s Gerontology Institute, grand cultures are “patterns of relating between grandparents and grandchildren within families across and within generations.” These patterns of interaction are often passed down because each generation absorbs the example that came before and develops expectations of how they will behave (or how they will not behave) when it’s their turn to grandparent. Understandably, some families have positive grand cultures and others have negative ones. But as Kemp found in her 2007 study of grandparent-grandchild ties, social changes over the last century have dramatically changed relationships to the point that many families have no particular grand culture at all. In fact, this was true of fully half of the families she examined.

At first this seems odd at a time when advancements in health, wealth and education have so significantly increased life spans. Theoretically, grandparents should have more time to spend cultivating good relationships with their grandchildren, not less. But there are factors that undermine these potential gains.

Predictably, one of these is divorce. When the middle generations (parents) divorce, there is often a corresponding relationship disruption for at least one set of grandparents. If the primary custodial parent doesn’t value the grandparent-grandchild relationship enough to actively facilitate it, he or she may curtail visits from the in-law side, or cut them off entirely. Even if there is no direct intention of doing so, both parties may simply neglect the relationship if it’s the path of least resistance.

Remarriage of either parent in the middle generation can also disrupt grandparent-grandchild ties, and with them the transmission of a consistent grand culture. In fact, other studies have demonstrated that a parent’s remarriage can have an even more dramatic impact on children than the preceding divorce. But Kemp puts it very simply: “marital dissolution requires a reorganization of family life. Given the middle generation’s role in grandparent-grandchild relationships, the reorganization that follows divorce alters maternal and paternal ties.”

Favoritism is another noted barrier to the development of consistent grand cultures, and is as destructive a force in the extended family as it is on the nuclear level. Preferential treatment of one grandchild over another, even if they are cousins rather than siblings, creates division and weakens the family structure. As a result, the likelihood of establishing a positive grand culture is diminished as grandchildren determine to avoid the behavior they’ve observed in those who could have been their models.

Loosely speaking, the common denominator in all of these undermining factors is distance. Whether of a physical nature, or of an emotional and mental one, distance in relationships begets dissonance in relationships. Never mind the adage that “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” affinity between people grows as understanding grows—and understanding requires communication. Unfortunately, the modern family’s universe has experienced a “big bang”: people are more mobile than ever before and often find that economic and other concerns propel them outward from the family communities that were the original birthplace of society.

But even as modern technology contributes to the distance problem, it also offers some amends. Today the Internet, e-mail, and instant messaging have joined the telephone in the arsenal of tools used by grandparents to close the distance between themselves and their grandchildren, and the usage rate is steadily rising. According to a 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, a third of Americans over the age of 65 have Internet access at home, and this percentage rises to 64 percent for the 50-64 age group. Obviously, as the population grows older there will be many more grandparents who are comfortable using e-mail and the Internet as a way to maintain contact with their far-flung grandchildren. But even though e-mail can be quick, easy and frequent—for most grandparents it still falls far short of face-to-face interaction.

So, what is a grandparent to do? Here’s one radical suggestion: if you can’t grandparent your own grandchildren, why not grandparent someone else’s?

This may initially seem an unsatisfactory solution, even to those elders who are fortunate enough to have a few young people in their immediate sphere of influence. But a 2007 Brazilian study published in the Journal of Intergenerational Relationships suggests interaction with unrelated young people might bring grandparents closer to their own grandchildren than might be expected. During the six-months of the study, a group of previously unacquainted elders and teens were brought together for two hours each week to share life stories, participate in discussions, and take part in a range of activities related to reminiscence. At first, the groups had preconceived negative images of each other. The elders expected the teens to be rebellious, lazy, rude and disdainful of older people. The teens expected the elderly people to be critical, demanding, incompetent, and uncaring. However, by the end of the study, the attitudes of both groups had gone through some amazing changes.

“We changed,” said one teenaged participant, “because before we thought the elderly people were not able to do anything, that they were only able to stay seated watching TV. Now we can see they are able to do lots of things. Before, we used to see the elders as useless beings, without value. Now we see that our discussion with them is fruitful.”

Another teen said, “The project made us reflect that the young people of today do not value their parents and grandparents but we should consider that they used to work very hard to survive.”

For the teens overall, the exercise of crossing the intergenerational barrier and becoming acquainted with a few unfamiliar elders changed their outlook toward their own grandparents, and made it easier for them to communicate within their own families. The elders noted similar results.

“It changed our view,” agreed one elder participant, “because we thought they would look at us in a contemptuous way. But they were completely different, they talked to us . . . They gave us lots of attention.” Other elders commented that they were able to see a new, positive side of young people. They became more comfortable around teens, and noted other personal benefits as well: “We felt useful,” said one woman, “at ease . . . we were valued.”

Again, the teens and elders shared their life stories for only two hours a week during a few short months, but both groups took their attitude changes home with them. If such short-term intergenerational connections between strangers can make a significant difference in the way people interact with their families, is it a stretch to believe that strong, positive intergenerational relationships within the family can radiate substantial benefits outward to the larger community?

Taken together, studies such as these argue that strong grandparent and grandchild ties add important dimensions to family structure. Children need the unique perspectives born of wisdom and experience that grandparents can offer; and grandparents need the incentive to pass it on that comes from having someone to pass it on to. Will every family’s positive grand culture include a storybook Grandma who offers her grandchildren freshly baked cookies? Not necessarily. But there are far more important gifts that grandparents bring to the table. Fortunately, most of these are considerably more sustaining than cookies!