The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

Grandparents' Wisdom:

Dessa Rodeffer-Quill Publisher-Owner

8 September 2004

I'm finding maturity gives you a lot more insight.

As grandparents, we might push our glasses onto the end of our nose, sit back, and relax and just take in all that our kids, and grandkids are saying without comment.

Partly, we don't respond but just listen because we are remembering when we were that age, saying the exact same things.

Partly, we don't respond because we also remember when our children did the exact same things that their children are doing now,

So, we just sit back, and we smile, and we remember, and we say nothing.

After all, did we listen when adults told us? We knew that they did not understand, that they came from another generation, and that they weren't familiar with being young. They were not in tune to the faster, upbeat world we lived in. Or, so we thought.

So we let our children get their answers from the latest books on "How to raise a Child (wish I had written one).

:and we listen with interest about our grandchildren views on life situations. :and we smile, as we see them driving their parents nuts.

We remember when we, as parents, worried about the same things, wondered if our children would ever grow to make us proud.

Their lack of acknowledging our wise advice, their constant laughing and bickering and teasing, and the crazy things they did and said. Would they ever get serious.

Of course, we know now, what our children have yet to learn :our children do grow to make us proud, so very proud. :and their laughter is replaced with their serious work all too quickly.

So, having the wisdom of a grandparent, we are relieved of the worries of a parent and we sit back and enjoy.

It's a different world, a more fast pace world. We've experienced live coverage of war, deaths, births, everything imaginable. Parents are more concerned, grandchildren are more aware, but grandparents know all will be. You just wait and see.