What Kind Of Grandparents Do You Have In Your Family?

5 April 2017 by Lesley Dewar 2 Comments

Nana-and-Pop-Beaton — Nana and Pop Beaton – Grandparents on my mother’s side.

What Kind Of Grandparents Do You Have In Your Family?

The role of grandparents within the family has changed dramatically, for many, over the past thirty years or so.

Family life is very different now to the way it was when I was growing up. People are living longer; families are often “blended” families – having been through changes due to death, divorce or separation of the children’s parents. Families are often spread across the country or even the world. This can make it harder for Grandparents to provide the traditional role of days past.

If both parents are working, often Grandparents are needed to help with primary childcare or the support of a child who has special needs. With the rise of the Fly In Fly Out (FIFO) workforce, Grandparents can be invaluable in supporting the individual parent at home.

It takes a village to raise a child.

The African proverb is that “it takes a village to raise a child.” So, the question is “Do you need Grandparents to successfully raise children?”

While they are not indispensable, Grandparents can play a key role in helping to successfully raise children – even though they might not always be present in the physical sense. They can have enormous degree of influence on their grandchildren, partly because the child recognises their early parental role and because, being one step removed from Mum or Dad, Grandparents can be fun!

Grandparents can be present in a child’s life by “being there” – physically, as a direct presence and emotionally, by being supportive when grandchildren reach out to them.

“Being there”

Being there physically means a telephone call, a visit, sharing an event together or making time to be with that child one on one. A note in the mail, an email, a birthday card from a Grandparent to an individual child has great value and is never forgotten. One of my step-granddaughters recently married, yet tells me she still treasures a book about flowers and fairies I gave to her nearly twenty five years ago. She remembers everything, she says, about the day it was given to her.

Other grandchildren still remember our Easter egg hunts in the bush at Stoneville; being allowed to eat Tiny Teddy biscuits or doing colouring in on butcher’s paper while we tried to draw pictures from fairy tales.

Nana-Robert-Jade — Lesley’s Grandmother on her 90th birthday, with Lesley’s Grandchildren, Jade and Baby Robert

Instilling good values by being there.

You also convey your personal values, ideals, concepts and expectations by “being there” in the child’s life. It is the way the child learns to trust you, for the day they may need to reach out and ask for emotional support. To feel safe enough to ask questions about life issues confronting them.

One national survey of grandparents reported that a variety of activities were engaged in with grandchildren such as:

* Joking and kidding
* Giving money
* Talking about growing up
* Giving advice
* Discussing problems
* Going to church/synagogue
* Providing discipline
* Taking a day trip
* Teaching a skill or game
* Watching TV together
* Talking about parent/child disagreements

Building respect for older people.

Having families which encourage intergenerational contact (grandparents; aunts, uncles, cousins) helps build respect for older people. Children become less fearful of old age, the elderly and to be more connected to other people. Grandparents help children learn patience and understanding with the frailties of the human body as it breaks down.

It also helps them learn to deal with death as a natural part of the life cycle. When accidental death occurs with younger people, it can help them cope, if they have already had to deal with the death of an older person.

Reducing the fear of the very old.

When children are very young, the very old can be a little frightening. My elder son was too scared to get out of the car and come inside to see my Grandmother when he was about five and she was about 80. He said to me “No one can be that old and still be alive.”

At the same time, a young cousin stroked his Grandmother’s arm and asked her “Is that really skin, Nana, or is it leather?”

Warren-Nana — Warren with his grandmother, Lesley’s Mum at a family dinner.

Throughout the years, with their Grandparents living well into their 90’s, my sons and their wives have supported them in many ways and love them dearly.

I have to say my first son didn’t always agree with my “tough love” approach with my Dad, who has recently turned 99. When their beloved Grandmother passed away recently, their support for the family was immense.

Even though other grandchildren don’t live close to them, they use social media and special occasions to make sure their grandparents know they are loved.

Step-grandparents have more challenging roles than natural grandparents, because their place in the family is less clear and often clouded by emotional disputes between the children’s parents and natural grandparents.

The tragedy of denied opportunities for grandchildren.

It is always a great tragedy when children are denied the opportunity to develop good and long lasting relationships with either grandparents or step-grandparents, because of the bitter acrimony which often arises during divorces and separation.

Not all grandparents are old and grey. — Nana Lesley – who writes Stories My Nana Tells – is indeed a grandparent.

Often, today’s Grandparents are a world away from their own earlier generations of the parents of their own mother and fathers. They may still be working; travelling as “grey nomads” or retired to a different part of the country or the world.

Sadly, some of them will already have passed away and their grandchildren will be the poorer for not knowing them. Not all Grandparents are soft and cuddly, either. Sometimes, it is their own choice to not develop deep relationships with grandchildren and, whatever the reasons, we should respect their right to make a choice.

What kind of Grandparents do you have?

Of course, you can always adopt a Grandparent if you are short of one or two – there are great community programmes for “Finding A Grandparent”. You might like to check it out.

We would love to hear from you, about your family. Tell us what kind of Grandparents you have and why they are special.

Your grandparents can tell these kind of stories all day long. — Stories My Nana Tells are the kind of stories grandparents love to tell

Every child deserves to have at least one personalised story, when they are IN the story. And the story comes from you! Click on the image and join us, today!

Be a Grandparent who is “being there?” Give your grandchild the gift of an adventure which helps build their self-esteem and confidence, by facing some unexpected creatures without fear.

Interview With Ben (age 10) About Saving Forests

6 February 2012 by Lesley Dewar 4 Comments

Today, we had an interview with Ben, aged 10, a school boy in New South Wales who is doing a project on rain forests and the need for conservation. Ben sent me his questions by email and we hooked up with Skype, so he could record the interview.

I would like to share his questions and my answers with you – along with some of the photographs I sent to him by email for his project. The questions were all set by Ben and I simply answered them as I saw fit. His mother was present during the interview and was very pleased with the information Ben received.

1) How can we best preserve our rainforests?

It is very important that we understand the depth of their bio-diversity and that habitat is not just trees. Many people overlook little things about habitat: it is the fallen leaf litter and the decaying logs in which the lizards and the beetles live, as much as the beautiful butterflies in the tree tops.

I have been to Cairns in Northern Queensland and to Sabah in Borneo, to visit rainforests and to try and understand how we can ignore their value as part of our environmental health. [Read more…] about Interview With Ben (age 10) About Saving Forests

Life’s Amazing Family Circle – Part II

11 January 2012 by Lesley Dewar 2 Comments

Life’s Amazing Family Circle (continued)

Part one of this series of blog posts can be found here: Life’s Amazing Family Circle – Part 1

30 years after 1941, when my Mum and Dad had a typical wartime honeymoon of a single night before my Dad was shipped off into the RAAF on a troop train, my Aunty Rae and my Nana Nancarrow became part of my future life and the well-being of my children – in a way we have just shared – 41 years after the event.

On The Railways

Many of my Dad’s family worked in the railways: West Australian Government Railways (W.A.G.R.) and the Midland Railway of Western Australia (MRWA). This meant job security but many moves for the families as the men went from one railway station appointment to another, the children to one school after another and wives and mothers made the best they could of making new railway friends as they moved about. My Dad often says until the Nancarrow family arrived in the tiny wheatbelt town of Caron , there were not enough local children to warrant a school teacher being stationed there – but it soon changed with the brood Nana and Pop brought with them! Up until a couple of years ago, he would still go to school reunions with people from Caron and his old school teacher (Miss. Wilma Peacock, who married Bill Dawson the StationMaster at Caron and also Mukinbudin) used to come along too.

WJN-Nana-Pop-Marry-17-9-1917 — News report of Ivy Ridley and George Nancarrow being married in Mullewa 17 Sept 1917

Nana and Pop moved all around the mid-West with the WAGR; from Mullewa (where they were married), to Day Dawn, Geraldton, Caron, Mukinbudin, Collie and other small towns. One brother (Teddy) went to work for the MRWA; his final posting was at Walkaway and Dad’s sister Phylis married into the Midland Railway company, too, when she became engaged to and later married Keith Milner. After many years in the railways, Nana and Pop lived their final working years in Middle Swan until my Dad’s brother “Rusty” (otherwise B. E. Nancarrow) bought a house in Homewood Street, Cloverdale, in which he, Nana and Pop could live after Pop’s retirement. My Granddad died from that home in February 1962, as did Uncle Rusty years later in June 1980 and my Nana – in 1988.

Rusty spent a lot of time working away from Perth, including being in the Snowy Mountains tunnelling with my Dad or working in the jungles of New Guinea and Malaysia, mining. In fact, three brothers, Blue (my Dad), Rusty and Jack were all working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme at the same time and for a time, they were each supervising a crew – so there was a Nancarrow in the same tunnel twenty four hours a day. Jack and Rusty were working there first and my Dad got a telegram: “Catch the first plane. Money for shit” and so, he too went to the Snowy to work. There was tremendous competition between the brothers and their crews, and earlier, working two on one shift and the third on another, they helped set a world record for hard rock tunnelling over a six day period. They were hard taskmasters – we are told.

House sharing

Because Rusty was away so much, my Nana advertised for a married couple to come and share the house with them. She wanted the company and it was a relief for the family to have someone close on hand keeping an eye on both Pop and Nana – because by then, their family was spread across the country. Indeed, when the house was purchased, there were cows in the paddocks across the road – a dairy operated where the Belmont Forum was later built, so it really was quite an “out of town” location. The couple who came to share with Nana were George and Kathy Andrews – newly immigrated from Scotland; homeless, jobless and terribly homesick. They came to love her as if she was their own mother. Nana had a huge party to welcome them into her home and everyone who was within “cooee” came to meet George and Kathy. They became part of the family; shared celebrations of births, deaths and marriages and stayed with Nana Nancarrow for some years. While they were there, my Nana suffered a burst stomach ulcer and with her nursing experience, Kathy saved her life. We were all immensely grateful for her skill and for being there when she was needed – and Nana lived on to be 93, still in her own house in Cloverdale, to die on Anzac Day in 1988. She also helped nurse my Pop, who died Feb 1st 1962.

I remember going to visit Nana one day with my own Mum and Dad and I had my three young children with me before they came back to live with me, full time. Warren would not get out of the car. He was about six. When I finally coaxed him to tell me what was wrong, he said “No one can be that old and still be alive!” How his view has changed – now my Dad is already 93 and his Nana is 90. Another great-grandson is known to have gently stroked her arm and asked “Is that still skin, Nana, or is it leather now?”

With no children of their own, George and Kathy set out to adopt. They moved from living with Nana and bought their own home in Lockridge, then a new housing area being developed by the State Housing Commission. They were able to adopt two children: Michael and Julie. When Michael was only a few months old, Kathy had major surgery and Michael needed to be cared for until she recovered. It was my Aunty Rae and her husband Terry who took him in – and she says they both cried when they had to return him home to Kathy and George after a couple of months. He was a beautiful baby and they came to care for him a great deal. Nana regarded Michael and Julie as two more grandchildren – though how she kept up with all of them, I really do not know.

Family support

In mid-1971, my three children were returned to me by their father after a separation of several years and after being evicted from private housing (for being a single parent with kids!) I found myself living in Lockridge in a high density block of flats occupied by mostly single mothers with children – and very few of their parents working. After a few months as an Avon lady and selling more product than I could package and deliver, I quickly found a good position at Metro Motors in Morley. I needed someone I could trust to help me care for the children, especially after school and started asking around for a friendly “Aunt” or family who could help.

George and Kathy lived only a minute or two away in their new house; their adoptions were in progress and they were delighted to “take in” my three – to be supervised before and after school, because I was working from 8:30am to 5:00pm every day and every second Saturday morning as well. Since they were Nana’s great- grandchildren, it was all the more special for them, though Kathy would have done it anyway. Annette was only four and a half and had nearly a year to go before she could start school, so Kathy helped take care of her for the whole time while the boys were dropped off there before school and returned home to her house afterwards, until I could collect them after work.

It was a very special moment when Rae was visiting my Dad and me this week and happened to mention George and Kathy – to which I responded “Surely, that’s not the George and Kathy who looked after Annette and the boys when I went back to work?” In fact, it was and we were able to fill in a lot of blanks for each other about those years. The same day, we both phoned Kathy, (sadly George has now passed away,) and she still lives in the same house. I will be going to see her very soon and bring this amazing family circle even closer. I think I should take my Dad, too. What do think about that?

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(c) Lesley Dewar July 2012 to current.

Life’s Amazing Family Circle – Part 1

10 January 2012 by Lesley Dewar Leave a Comment

The Youngest and the Oldest.

Today, my Dad’s youngest sister came to visit – to see her only surviving brother after his short stay in hospital last week. I am not allowed to call her Aunty Rae because she is only seven years old than me; she is 18 years his junior and he really is her “big brother”. We talked about family, places and people we have known or not. Rae had to remind my Dad that she will never remember living in Elvire Street in Midland – because she hadn’t even been born then!

My Dad (William James Nancarrow aka “Blue”) was born on 26 March 1918 at Nurse Lloyd’s Private Hospital in Coolgardie Street, Subiaco and an online search this afternoon at National Library of Australia – Digital Newspapers found a copies of notices posted in the three major newspapers of the day. Rae, his youngest sister, was born in January 1936 and she is the last of my Dad’s eleven brothers and sisters born to Nana (Ivy) and Pop (William George) Nancarrow, who were married on September 17, 1917 in Mullewa. Rae was born at K.E.M.H in Subiaco; my Nana made the journey from Mukinbudin for the confinement and birth.

Boys Doing A Man’s Job

In April, 1936 aged barely 18, Dad was awarded a trophy for his cycling exploits in Mukinbudin – along with his friend Jimmy Stewart and in 1937 after his 19^th birthday, he left when Rae was just over one year old to go to work in Caron to work on Reid’s farm for a couple of months. They helped him get a job with the Farrell family on their property at Perenjori; he spent a season there seeding and after a few months, my Dad went to Cue to live with his Grandma and Granddad Ridley. In Cue, he spent time prospecting and dry blowing for gold with Granddad Ridley but he says they didn’t strike it rich! His spare time was taken up with cycling, football (where he was written up in the local paper as “Nancarrow has shown some improvement over his usual game” and cricket (with a career highest score of 78 not out).

In early 1938, he went to Beringarra Station to work for Mr & Mrs Wood, the station managers, as a station hand – and I smile when I think of my 15yo son, Colin, embarking on a similar career on Cherrabun Station in the Kimberley many years later. There is a difference though: my Dad went to work with the sheep side of farming on Beringarra while Colin dismisses them as “ground lice” and his work in the North West was fixing windmills and to help round up cattle that had been running wild for the previous year. I have never been to Beringarra Station and the closest I have been to Cherrabun was to find it on the map as a Greyhound bus sped me through the night from Kununurra to Broome – on the memorable day that St. Kilda and Collingwood drew in the AFL Grand Final.

Sporting Heroes Go To War

After a year on the station – much of it spent by himself camping out in the bush with only his horse, “Jimmy Boy” and his waterbag, with Mr. Wood coming by every couple of weeks with light supplies – Dad moved to Big Bell. Work was very scarce; hundreds of men were still unemployed as the depression was slowly receding and after three weeks of turning up every day outside the mine office along with other men, he was lucky enough to be selected – but not only because he was a skilled metalworker. His sporting ability was a key part of him getting his job – because the mine management was keen to see the Big Bell Football Team strengthened and go up against Cue, Reedys and Mt Magnet. In 1941, my Dad enlisted in the RAAF while still working in Big Bell; married my mother and left to go to Adelaide. It was a short honeymoon: they were married at 5:00pm on Friday in St. George’s Cathedral and Dad left on a troop train from Perth Central Station at 12:00noon the next day. My Nana, Nana Nancarrow, came down from Mukinbudin with Rae – then a little girl of five – to see him off. Nana went back Mukinbudin and my Mum went to stay with her own sister, Marian until she could sail to Adelaide under full wartime conditions, to be my Dad’s wife. Marian is now 99, my Mum is 90 and they are the only surviving children of their own family.

The Past Is The Future Is The Present

Tomorrow – I will tell you how, 30 years later in 1971, my Aunty Rae and my Nana Nancarrow were involved in a critical part of my life and that of my children – something that I only discovered today – 41 years after the event itself. Like Dr Who, we keep bumping into our future as we live each day, but without a sonic screwdriver, we neither recognise it nor change it,.

Over 70 years, I can see Life’s Amazing Family Circle at work. I just love the way that life actually lets us tie up all the loose ends – if we will only listen. Instead of having a tangled web of discordant memories and perceptions – there is a great deal of unseen order in our lives.

The trouble is, we are too impatient to wait for it to reveal itself, or too unbelieving. It’s not karma – but I am becoming more convinced that we can take charge of mapping out of lives for better results – if we just have more faith that all we need will be provided. We need that sonic screwdriver of trust!

“Nice day, isn’t it?” said the bobtail. “Now, get out of here!”

6 January 2012 by Lesley Dewar Leave a Comment

Her: “Oh, it’s three o’clock already.”

Him: “I haven’t noticed it yet. I wouldn’t say it’s hot.”

That’s how it can begin: another interchange of misunderstanding, frustration and if you are not too careful, harsh words that come from the exasperation of living with someone who is deaf, especially if they have hearing aids and refuse to wear them.

My own experience of being deaf is limited indeed: pressure from a descending aircraft; a temporary blockage with the flu or, as recently, an oversupply of wax that was painlessly and quickly removed at the nurses’ station of my local GP.

The first time my ears were syringed to relieve deafness was five years ago and it elicited such a feeling of relief that I was moved to write and post in a old blog on MySpace:

Give a cheer! I can hear!
Yes, it’s true – I can hear!

Just a silly bit of wax
Stopped me in my tracks;
You can ring out the bell
It’s been seven weeks of hell

I can hear, I can hear, I can hear.

How well could I hear? At the time, I posted a picture of a bluetongue lizard I disturbed when I walked into my shadehouse that morning. He was having a drink of water and he growled at me to go away. I had never heard of a bobtail lizard growling before – but I heard him, clear as a bell!

For the previous seven weeks, my left ear had been totally deaf – it had been oiled, washed out and had more eardrops than you can imagine. Three separate Doctor’s visits failed to diagnose the problem. Finally, the nurse syringed it – and I could hear! In stereo – even!

The photo I can no longer find – although it will probably turn up again, archived away in one of the folders I continually create in my undisciplined filing! I did find a lovely picture of Teng Sing Tung sitting on the side of the pond – so that is a bonus. Having just wasted about 25 minutes searching a variety of folders looking for the picture, I am reminded of my three star words for 2012: Commit, Plan and Trust and the very first of those is that I am committed to becoming more efficient every day.

That does require some careful planning. In this post, do you think these are simply random threads of apparently unrelated thought – or is it that I actually had a plan and knew where this post would end?

Trust me – I always begin my posts with the end in mind! Every writer has to know how the story will end, before they begin.

I have attached some interesting information for those of you who would like to know more about Bobtails and other Australian critters. There are also some activities for kids to do, so feel free to share.

You simply need to click the link below, which is published in Adobe PDF format and will open in a new window. If you don’t have the latest Adobe PDF reader, you can download it here, free. (here)

Tell me about a Blue Tongue (Bobtail)

For me, I am now heeding the bobtail’s advice. “It’s a nice day, and I am out of here!”

About sharing this post:

Lesley Dewar is a well known blogger and workshop facilitator who writes regularly on Social Media, marketing and customer service in the category of Business Tips and she is the principal author at Stories My Nana Tells The attached document is attributed to its original author and no claim of authorship is made by Lesley Dewar.

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