I occasionally get aggrieved requests from my older readers who in despair, vex about their children’s parenting of their grandchildren. They send “help us” messages in the mountain load, to my inbox wishing that their children had read my column. In the same instance there are also requests by readers who are currently parenting smaller children who wish their parents or parents in laws would cut back on the interference.

Parenting is the only profession that will have you in a constant state of self-doubt. Having four children I do not claim to be the oracle to parenting in anyway. My anecdotes or insights shared amongst the public are in constant states of learning. I hope to find my readers the answers through my parenting trial and errors. I have bad parenting days like everyone else; I am constantly berating myself at the end of a long hazardous day on “How I could have handled THAT particular parenting situation better!” My children’s problems however, insignificant do keep me up at night, this is extent of my parenting woes. As the saying goes “Behind every great kid is a mom who’s pretty sure she’s screwing it up”. Parenting is indeed a complex game of twists and turns which will play havoc on your emotions and mental stability. After all, the prize to pay is high if you fail your children, but the rewards are even greater when you bask in their happiness and success.

Grandparents are an essential requirement in every child’s life. Like the plants need the sun and rain, having a grandparent in your life will make it just a bit better. Having grown up quite closely with my maternal grandparents in my formative years I always feel blessed to have known them and credit the person I am today because of their influence. The likeable quality about grandparents is that they have the “been there done that” invisible badge adorned on them. They have been a victim to the tremors of parenting and come out victors. In their golden age they can now relish in the spoils of their past parenting, for their relationship with their grandchildren is vastly different from the one that they had with their children. They have no direct responsibility in the upbringing of the child, so therefore they are able to spoil, to enjoy and to be bend to the child’s every whim and fancy disregarding rules and regulations much to the determent of the parent.

Parents tend to be the harassed party in the middle. Everyone wants to blame the middle man. They feel they have a responsibility to raise their children right but are constantly scrutinized by the grandparents. They are pushed from one party to the pulled by the other. And if anything goes wrong, everyone points the finger at the innocent parent.

Amongst this chaos and maddening warfare stands the prize that both parties covet, the children. Our children or grandchildren are our pride and joy, as parents we are amazed at the beauty that belongs to us and one particular quote by the famous Sri Lankan author Roma Tearne sums up how grandparents feel about their grandchildren. A character in her book “Brixton Lane” says “Looking into my grandchildren’s eyes I see my eternity”. Therefore taking the love that both the parties have for the children, they need to come to a compromise. Yes the grandparents might find fault with the way their children parent, but in reality its’ the classic case of a parent still parenting a child, we must find fault and criticize for in that way we feel that we are infact doing the right thing. Whatever the age we are still playing the never-ending game of parenting. The grandparent parents the parent and the parent parents the child. And as the child rebels against the parent, we tend to do it our parents, the grandparents.

So in conclusion, nobody’s right..or wrong. We are all just human acting out needs, desires and obligations. As long as our children are happy and healthy we are winning in this game of parenting and that is all that matters at the end of the day. Happy parenting.

By Mayuri Jayasinghe