By Ehud Would
Poppa, God rest him, was a real grandfather. He passed on stories, fables, limericks, work ethic, how to throw a respectable punch, a fear of God, and respect for how the West was won. And he bestowed me my first pocket knife with all the solemnity of knighthood.
Mema, bless her memory, was a real grandmother. She did all that grandmotherly sort of stuff like baking cookies, knitting, needlepoint, and the like. Ever doting on her grandchildren, she yet reinforced Christian virtues with utmost severity.
I also got to know my wife’s grandparents quite well before their passing. And it was the same with them: they spoke good words, passed on wisdom, and reinforced familial legacy under God. I loved them too.
As in my case, my wife’s relationship with her grandparents superseded the relationship with her own parents in every way.
But this is, of course, a long recognized Gen X cliche. When we weren’t alone, or running wild with neighborhood kids, our “Latchkey Generation” wound up spending more time — and certainly more quality time — with our grandparents than with our parents.
But the topic is modern grandparents. Which, in context, primarily means Baby Boomers.
As Christians, the obligation to honor father and mother warns us against publishing their sins with abandon. And this writer believes that blaming the Boomers for everything gone wrong in recent years is itself a means for our enemies to further divide and conquer Western civilization. So all scrutiny between generations must be handled with discretion and cognizance of the fact that the dispositions of the generations are largely situational. Meaning, had my generation, Gen X, come up under the circumstances of the Boomers, we would have done no better, and would likely have come to share in their tendencies. So we are obliged to sympathize with one another and, as it were, to bear one another’s burdens. Albeit to a point.
That said, the subject with which so many Xers (and even some Millennials) presently wrestle, also requires a degree of candor, else the problem goes unaddressed. And if not addressed, what hope is there of remedy?
As the seasons of life roll on, we are confronted with further implications of the severance which punctuates the Boomer generation. Many attempting now to integrate our Baby Boom parents into the role of grandparents for our children are met with some harsh realities. Chiefly, perhaps, our own naivete. Even a generation of cynics like us entertain wishful thinking on occasion. Where many of us assumed their advancing age would, in conjunction with a Christian confession, fashion our parents into the mold of genuine grandparents, reality is disabusing us of that notion.
Writ across the breadth of their cohort, the radical upsurge in divorce and its associated spousal estrangement, as well as feminist-bent courts marginalizing fathers, has resulted in the nigh extinction of grandfathers today. Since so many Boomer men were dissociated from their children early on, and in so many ways inhibiting affinity for their own children, they wind up now with even less affinity for the offspring of those children. Thus the office of grandfather lies largely vacant now.
Grandmothers are another story. Albeit more common than grandfathers, Boomer grandmothers are largely denatured of all things grandmotherly. Due their rebellion early in life, they wound up severing themselves from family norms not only in the short term, but – in many inchoate ways – long term as well. Having spurned the image of the modest housewife and mother in favor of careerism, feminism, promiscuity, and general liberalism, Boomer women set a trajectory for themselves which would severely retard, if not totally curtail, their maturation into grandmothers.
Wherefore finding themselves now of grandmotherly age, the average Boomer “Gran” knows nothing of baking cookies, preparing holiday meals, or cooking at all for that matter; save perhaps, microwave dinners and boil-in-a-bag food facsimiles. Sad as it is, even into their 70s many of these “glam-mas” with boy haircuts subsist on takeout.
Neither do they sew, embroider, or crochet. They do not garden or know how to care for children in anything beyond the most superficial capacity. By and large, they cannot stitch a button, nor treat a cold, let alone nurture a little soul, or encourage young women to good works.
Not that Gen X has their act together entirely. Far from it, really, our cynical bent often gives way to Pragmatism, and in some extreme cases, Nihilism. But it is nonetheless the case that Xer gals are more acquainted with traditional maternal arts and affections than are their mothers. And for the simple reason that many Xers bonded with and learned from their Silent and/or Builder Generation grandparents, whom the Boomers so vigorously rejected.
So as Xers turn to facilitating relationships between their parents and their children many find ourselves quite befuddled. Because rather than the stabilizing force which we all expect grandparents to be, most Boomer grandparents inhabit an odd hybrid position between government agent and juvenile delinquent. To whatever degree they reinforce order, it tends only to be arbitrary, self-serving, self-refuting, and undermining of Godly order.
Almost every Xer and Xennial I know who allows interaction with Grandma have had to issue strict ultimatums against her preaching feminism, watching pro-LGBT and anti-White propaganda with the grandkids, and, believe it or not, even against showing their grandkids pornographic Hollywood films. Many find themselves putting grandparents on restriction for things like coaching their grandchildren on how to lie, cheat, and steal, teaching granddaughters to ogle “bad boys”, encouraging grandkids to get tattoos, or even to sleep around, and to experiment in terms of LGBT. It is surreal to even write those words, but it is real, and epidemic with grandmothers today.
Has there ever before been a generation of grandparents who proved such a bad influence on grandchildren? If so, it is beyond the scope of living memory.
Their attitude toward posterity is epitomized by the popular bumper-sticker, “I’m spending my childrens’ inheritance”. Though more are retiring than any generation prior, and with more liquidity, their pensioned years are being frittered away in decadence rather than building into their families.
And like all cases of unrequited love, it has an expiration date. Insofar as Boomers failed to bond with their children and now, with their grandchildren, their influence on posterity is self-negating. Which, under the circumstance, we are compelled to admit for a hard blessing.
Consequently, the Boomers already bear the dubious distinction of the generation most abandoned by family in old age. No other generation even comes close. The mass-disownment of Boomer parents has taken on a lexicon all its own in the form of “Going No Contact”. Inasmuch as their cohort repudiated the covenant, the covenant reciprocates, at length exiling them.
Most strange however, despite being otherwise disinterested in their grandchildren, they desperately desire to pass on their egalitarian liberalism to the same. Which if achieved, only dissolves their claim on posterity anyway. Because their standing in the family depends essentially upon anti-egalitarian, conservative, hierarchical, and dare I say Kinist presuppositions. This again, is another divinely in-built barrier against their corrosive instincts.
All of that said, we know exceptions to these trends and thank God for them. They are the remnant whose influence will impact future generations in positive ways.
Meantime, the majority of covenant households are prayerfully navigating the question of whether or not their children have grandparents at all. For the time being, genuine grandparents have gone extinct in broader society.
Only once the West returns to her cradle faith and the hearts of the fathers turn to their children, and those of the children to their fathers, will genuine grandparents return en masse. Then grandfathers will once more teach boys to box and grandmothers teach girls to sew.
