This week, we are pulling from the archives. Helen Ellis writes about how relationships can look different for global mobile families. As the holiday season is coming around, I felt it was a good article to look at and maybe learn from as we navigate those relationships from afar.
Editor’s Note: The following article is an edited excerpt from Being a Distance Grandparent: A Book for ALL Generations by Helen Ellis (Summertime Publishing). While the intended audience is the “Distance Grandparent,” there are helpful principles here for adult TCKs raising TCKs. This article gives adult TCKs a perspective we need to understand in order to foster closer relationships with our parents and grandparents who live far away from us.
Distance Grandparents” are often troubled by the question of how to foster strong relationships with their grandchildren who live far away. They want to build bonds. They want to be close to all their grandchildren, but there are obstacles between some.
As explained by Distance Grandmother Kathryn, “When the grandchildren were very young, between birth and two years, I was this strange woman who appeared for two weeks a year.”*
Kathryn’s experiences are normal. Sometimes, in the early years, you wonder if you are making any impact with your video calls, parcels in the mail, and visits. Please be assured seeds are being sown. Or, to use another metaphor, the dinner is cooking—it’s just in a slow cooker. Little things stick with children and later they remember and utter a random comment about something that happened years ago…and it blows you away. The last time my six-year-old grandson visited my home he was under two. However, he will still occasionally say “I remember your house” and describe a feature or two.
A couple of factors definitely affect Distance Grandparent/Grandchild bonds and relationships:
- Were the grandchildren born in the same country as the Distance Grandparents and do they remember your home and you? Or, was the grandchild born overseas with little understanding or connection to your home/ country?
- Does your Distance Son or Daughter (and partner) encourage and initiate all variety of connections with you? Are they intentional about this task? Do they speak well of you within the confines of their home…or do you have a gatekeeper scenario (in which they “guard” or limit access to you?
Both these factors matter and affect the level of bonding that can be achieved between grandparents and their Distance Grandchildren.
On our last visit to the States, our then four-yearold grandson was given an opportunity to stay with us in our Airbnb next door to his parent. He was used to sleeping in different homes, as his mum and dad co-parent. We chatted about this adventure and he was all for it. However, when it came time for lights out, a little voice whispered he wanted to go home. He knew us—we weren’t strangers—but this was all too foreign for him. We weren’t upset. We got it. Maybe next time?
My message here is Distance Grandparents need to accept, earlier rather than later, they will rarely have the same type of connection with their Distance Grandchildren as they have with those who are in-country, who sleep over and know every nook and cranny of your house. However, what you do develop with the overseas grandkids will brim with unique experiences and memories and still mean a lot to your grandchildren.
One other grandparent/grandchild relationship factor must not be overlooked when we focus on the overarching topics like globalisation, mobility, and distance familying: Kids are kids! Grandchildren the world over do not turn out the same. Some are drawn to developing a close relationship with their grandparents, while others are more matter-of-fact about it all. It is no reflection on their upbringing, or on you. Some children are inspired to keep in touch with Nana and Grandad, while others are not. Likewise, children go through phases of who and what are important to them. Some will experience a closer connection to your home country, while others will always consider it a distant place. Distance Grandparents who have more than one grandchild overseas will likely already notice a closeness, for no particular reason, with some grandkids and not others…and that’s okay.
So remember, Distance Grandparent/Grandchild relationships take time to develop, just like a casserole in a slow cooker. Never give up, never feel what you are doing is a waste of time—just be patient, accepting what it is, and make the most of what you have.
*Gosling, P & Huscroft, A. How To Be a Global Grandparent. Zodiac Publishing UK Ltd., 2009.
Helen Ellis M.A. is a New Zealand researcher, author, anthropologist, veteran of Distance Grandparenting, and the Founder of DistanceFamilies.com. Three of her four children and four of her six grandchildren live 16 to 30 flight hours away in America and England. Her book Being a Distance Grandparent: A Book for ALL Generations combines that experience with her extensive global research. This is the first of a threebook series about Distance Families—each publication focusing on a different generation (grandparents, sons and daughters, and grandchildren). You can find Helen here: www.distancefamilies.com @helenellis.author https://www.facebook.com/DistanceFamilies https://www.facebook.com/groups/distancegrandparent www.linkedin.com/in/helen-ellis-02590a16
