We’re coming to the end of two weeks of substitute parenting. Grandparenting is still my favorite role, but this wasn’t a bad gig, either.
When I thought about the concept, the example which sprang to my mind was substitute teaching, which has so many challenges. Face it, the very concept of substitute teacher has yielded several movies which play the theme for laughs or tragedy. Yet substitute teaching has a few advantages, too: you’re not responsible for the ultimate success of the students, after all. You don’t have the built-in biases which develop seeing the same students behaving in predictable patterns day after day. There is a set term measured in hours or days, not weeks or months.
Substitute parenting has some of the same advantages. I don’t need to fix anything, just survive and ensure my grandkids do, too. Not that my Henry Danger and Quinn Rebel (real names, not aliases to protect the innocent) need any fixing, mind you. Oh, no, they were angels . . . of a sort. I believe Lucifer was one, too, once upon a time. For their part, I am sure they found this semi-parental version of “Gramps” far too stern. Several times they looked at me like “what, you can’t be serious” when I gave them some direct verbal order . . . they seemed unfamiliar with the concept. One time Henry even said the same out loud. That’s when the grandparent overcame the parent in me and I just laughed out loud.
Survival is a low bar, but necessarily so. Have you seen what passes for toys today? Henry got nerf guns for his birthday. They come with safety glasses, magazines (the kind for extra ammo, but the guns were revolvers, so what the heck?), a Captain America shield and a utility vest. “Great,” I thought, we’ll try a little live-action, first-person shooter game. Since I wanted Henry to “gear-up” I decided to wear the safety glasses, too. Good move! Within five minutes, I had an enormous fat lip and would have been short one eye if not for the glasses! My girls had nerf guns back in the day, but the nerf arrows flew so slow you could dodge them. Not so today: these nerf bullets were lightning fast, accurate to the sights on the barrel, and packed a punch (according to my swollen lip). Henry learned that if your head is bigger than your shield, you will get shot in the head. Valuable life lesson there.
We went to the Church picnic, where I confirmed that all Church picnics everywhere are similarly disorganized. Food was cash-only, but then you needed to buy tickets for the cash-only food. Except they were out of hot dogs. At the Church picnic. For kids. But we were able to let Quinn run free on the playground and practice her climbing skills (very important, as she is three and ready to escape her crib. No need to thank us, Mom & Dad!).
Mostly we just followed the routine set down by their parents, and when we deviated even a little, Quinn & Henry were quick to point it out. The grandkids were willing to accept some small changes, but vigorously protested others. Judy took to responding “oh, well” when appeals to rationality or authority failed to convince them. Quinn found that amusing enough to quote it back to us when she didn’t like the outcome. Did I mention her middle name is Rebel?
Like I said, a good gig, only a few melt-downs (the kids, not us), no emergency room visits, and now back to GRAND-parenting.