BEING SMART ABOUT GRANDPARENTS RIGHTS

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neil

When my son Chuck and I began this site almost three years ago I told him I wanted to write about Grandparents rights. He knows being a grandparent is my greatest passion but we had a long discussion about grandparents rights. He wasn’t real sure about this rights stuff. As a parent he had some apprehension about just what Grandparents rights where and what I hoped to accomplish by pursuing this line of thought.

Since I am really solid in my relationship with my son and my granddaughter this was not about me but about the broader body of Grandparents that might take Grandparent rights to mean that they could assert their will and control on parents, especially when it comes to raising the Grandchildren. We talked a lot about just that. I can proudly say that if you read all 200 post on this blog, my book and the hundreds of articles I have published you will come to realize that in no case have I asserted or even implied that a FIT parent should have to yield any authority or responsibility in the rearing of their child unless they think that is the best course.

I have gone to great lengths and am willing to absorb the disappointment that some grandparents feel when the world just isn’t fair. Some circumstances defy logic or we just don’t know everything there is to know about the situation. It breaks my heart almost daily to read about estranged Grandparents that feel wronged. In my book I write that “Life is complicated, family life is a multiple of complicated and extended family life is exponentially complicated”. If we can just concentrate on the main issue, “the best interest of the child”, things would be a lot easier.

Here come the great “HOWEVER”. There are many reasons I have taken up this mantle. The two top reasons are 1) Family is being redefined at a faster pace and 2) Grandparents hold the key to the best antidote (A sense of stability) during these turbulent times.
The word complicated doesn’t even begin to describe the challenges that are facing Grandparents in today’s world. The more I research and learn i come to find it is a daunting task because of the many facets of life in the average extended family. If you take a family with 3 children, fast forward 25 years and take a look at that family now. Let’s just say, each child has 2 children and you have added 6 more grandparents. At least one of those three has been divorced and probably remarried which may add 2 more grandchildren and another set of Step-Grandparents. Well if I take this on further it may just get………..COMPLICATED. Keep in mind that we haven’t even considered inter-faith, inter-racial or inter-cultural factors. Oh yeah, how about Drug abuse, incarceration, death or deployment.

Okay, okay. Enough already you say. I am sorry to report but this is not uncommon in today’s society. We face some decisions here. Some wise person once said “When you come to a fork in the road, Take It!” I choose the fork that tries to find out what we can do for the kids. The first and foremost thing we need to accomplish is remaining in our Grandkids lives at all costs. Yes I said at all costs.
There are quite a few best practices we can execute to do just that. That is why I used the word Smart in the title of this article. I will tell you plainly that this is not about being right, it IS about the best interest of our grandchildren. I will share more about the things we can do in future articles. Stay tuned.

My hope for you is Great-Grandparenting. Grandpa NEIL