Dear Readers,
In earlier columns I have addressed the topic of grandparent favoritism. In one of my columns a young mother writes about her concern that her children will be damaged by their grandmother’s favoritism, and in a second column, a grandmother worries about the favoritism the other grandmothers shows toward certain of the grandchildren they share.
In this column I want to share a letter I received from a step-grandmother who writes about how she dealt with her own feelings of favoritism toward some of her step-grandchildren. (At her request, names have been changed.)
Her perspectives and reflections are important and relevant, especially in light of statistics released by The Stepfamily Foundation. They report that, “stepfamilies are growing by approximately 50,000 people a month. Each day 1,300 couples with children under 18 remarry. Seven million children, or one out of six, live in a stepfamily.” This means there is a lot of step-grandparenting going on!
I never planned to be a grandmother. In truth, I never planned to be a mother, either. However, I took on both roles when I married Ernie, who is 20 years my senior. I have four stepchildren, and at the time of our marriage, seven step-grandchildren – six girls, one boy – then ranging in age from 2 to 15 years old.
To this day, 12 years after we married, I’m more like an aunt or a family friend to my stepchildren, and that seems to works pretty well for us. When Ernie and I were dating, I joked that my name had been changed to “and Jane.” Whenever we were with the family, Ernie and I were always introduced as, “This is Dad . . . and Jane.” There were no qualifiers, no rank: It was never “Dad’s girlfriend Jane” (too weird?) or “Dad’s fiancée Jane” (too formal?). It was just “and Jane.” This is what my stepchildren and most of my step-grandchildren call me: Jane. Not Grandma Jane, or Gramma, or Nonna, or anything else like that. Just Jane. And that is the first and foremost reminder that I am a step-grandmother – the other grandmother is “Grandma.” I’m “Jane,” and this does not bother me.
Once Grandpa Ernie and I got married, my first biggest challenge was learning which step-grandchild went with which stepchild, not to mention learning their correct names, their birthdays, their favorite colors, and things like that. This may not sound like a big deal, but it was a very big deal to me. I’m terrible at learning names, and I had thirteen people (4 steps, 7 grands, and 2 other grandparents) to get to know . . . all at the same time! (I call the step-grandchildren the “grands”.)
Once I mastered the big family tree, I could focus on getting to know the grands. The easiest to get to know were also the youngest: Tina, 5, and Mary, 2, both very sociable girls. Their parents shared a house with Grandpa Ernie before he moved out to marry me, so I saw them pretty regularly. In fact, for a good long time, they were the only grands I saw.
That’s because one of my stepsons lived out of state, so it was actually a couple years before I met in person his daughter, Lisa (age 7 at the time). I mainly communicated with her via birthday and Christmas cards. Then there was Amy, 6, and Evan, 5, along with their older sisters, Ellen, 13, and Linda, 15, both painfully shy. At family gatherings they would go off to another room and bury their noses in books. They were polite, but didn’t always have a lot to say.
Back to Amy and Evan: As far as I could tell, Amy and Evan had no use for adults. When their family arrived for a gathering, they would blow right past the adults without so much as a hello, making a beeline for their cousins and the playroom. This was not how I was raised, so I always made an effort to greet them before they disappeared. I might as well have been talking to the wall! These kids just wouldn’t give me the time of day. I quickly learned not to take it personally as they did this to all the adults. Their parents seemed not to mind.
Here’s the bottom line on the grands: I wound up not liking Amy and Evan very much, and I don’t think they much liked me, either; Linda and Ellen were totally neutral, neither friendly nor unfriendly; Lisa wasn’t around; Tina and Mary were loads of fun. Did I have favorite grandchildren? You bet I did! Did I admit to that out loud? Nope!
This step-grandma was smart enough to keep her mouth shut about her preferences, at least, while the grands and their parents were around. Grandpa Ernie usually got an earful after family gatherings. He was frustrated, too, but didn’t see that there was anything to be done about it.
To deal with the obvious inequities in my feelings towards the grands, I adopted a “most favored nation” approach: what I did for one, I did for all. I might have had favorites, but I didn’t play favorites. With seven grands in the mix, this was a pretty big task at times. I had to keep track of everyone’s birthdays, school plays, and the like. When I traveled, I brought back gifts for all seven. Obviously, I spent more time with Tina and Mary, but that was just my logistical reality. Grandpa Ernie and I made many efforts to connect with the other children as well, and overall, I think we did a pretty good job.
I am happy to report that all of the original seven grands have grown up to be nice teenagers and young adults. They are polite, and can carry on intelligent conversations. I don’t take any particular credit for that; I was mostly a spectator, having entered their lives midstream. But I do feel good about not playing favorites when they were younger, because now I have a pretty decent relationship with all of them. Yes, I feel closer to some than to others, but they all seem happy to see me when the family gets together, and I’m happy to see them, too. My parting thought: It’s OK to have favorites, so long as you don’t show favoritism.
Ask Dr. Gramma Karen is published every other Tuesday.
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Ask Dr. Gramma Karen: Helping Young Parents and Grandparents Deal with Thorny Issues
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