Expecting your first grandchild? I remember when I received the
phone call that my firstborn was expecting his first. My head
and my heart were full. I remembered back when we had placed
that phone calls to our parents. I had expected hoots and
hollers on the phone, and instead there was a long silence. Now
I know what was going through their minds! We lived miles from
family and existed on my paltry earnings while my husband was in
med-school, and they were worried.
It has been said that procreation best belongs to the young and
impulsive because after a certain age, you’d never have the
nerve to have children.
“When you have children,” my mother told me, “you become a
hostage to fortune.” She may have misquoted, in a way fitting to
her caring personality. I’ve also heard, “When you have
children, you give hostages to fortune.” We who have parented
long enough to have a child able to produce a child know all
about this. As the sign in my local plant nursery so succinctly
puts it: “There is no guarantee on the life of this plant, or of
any other life on this planet.”
Our hearts and minds are full because the job of parenting
doesn’t end when they leave home. It must become more subtle as
we allow our adult children to make their own decisions, but our
influence remains and there are information and wisdom to
impart. Thus the call for whole-brained grandparenting.
For instance, your adult child may read the same financial
advice article for new parents that I read, which contained the
following: “At a glance the question of whether one spouse
should quit work [and stay home] is clear cut: If the spouse
earns only enough to cover child care costs, staying at home
probably makes sense.” Looking further yielded only that
“benefits” were often 35% of the salary package.
Like the mythological Cerberus, who guarded the gates to the
Underworld (metaphorically, the things just below the level of
cognition), I have three heads, and all 3 were wagging: (1) the
heart that feels a baby benefits most when cared for by its
parent; (2) the head that thinks the article-writer was
irresponsible not to point out this wasn’t a decision to make
strictly on the basis of finances; and, (3) the whole-brained EQ
coach who believes important decisions require EQ as well as IQ.
So what gifts will you give the new baby? As a grandparent, our
parenting modeling continues. Our choice of gifts will say a
lot.
Do you rush out and buy the $300 stuffed duckie or take care of
half their Wish List at Toys R Us? Or do you symbolically get
the show on the road for Responsible Parenting? The birth of the
first child signals a huge transition – taking on the emotional
and financial responsibility for a new life. You want to
oversee, in a respectful and hands-off fashion, that all the
bases get touched.
Financially, here are some topics you might bring up:
1.A parent must have a will, unless you want “the Court”
deciding who raises your child (the Guardian), and who
administers the finances (the Executor). They need not, and
often should not, be the same person. 2.Insurance. Some “rules
of thumb”: a.You insure the life of someone according to their
ability to provide income. This doesn’t include babies. b.An
adult in their 20s, 30s, and 40s is statistically far more
likely to need disability insurance than life insurance. c.
Group insurance plans through jobs aren’t portable. Individual
policies are. 3.College education. 529s are great – you can use
any state’s plan and the beneficiary can attend school in any
state – but college is “gravy.” Like they say on the airplane –
apply your own oxygen mask first; then your child’s. An 18 year
old can, if necessary, provide her own college funding. The
higher priority for the parents (and the future benefit of their
children) is to provide for their own retirement. 4.Uniform
Gifts to Minors. Do they (or you) want to establish a savings
account in the child’s name? As a grandparent, I doubt you do –
it reverts to the child’s sole discretion at age 18 or 21, and
you know this is putting a weapon in the hands of a child, but
your grown children may not. Best-case scenario, your 18 year
old grandson argues with his parents about whether to spend the
$200,000 on college or living for a year in Tahiti with his
girl-friend. Worst-case scenario, he just does it; it’s his
money. 5.The $600 matching crib set. Can the baby exist without
it? I imagine yours did!
Giving the gift of sitting down and going over the realities is
not very glamorous, but then neither is changing diapers. Your
daughter may have her head in the clouds, and her husband, his
feet on the ground, or vice versa; or both may be in either
position together. You, on the other hand, can see and share the
big picture.
What if you gave them a giant stuffed duckie and tied around its
neck some gift coupons — a paid visit to your trusted lawyer;
tuition to a parenting seminar; a year’s supply of maid or lawn
service; and a 3-night cruise during the first year with you
babysitting back home. Scaled to your income, of course.
My grandmother was very loving, very practical, and also very
wealthy. Her gift to me when my son was born consisted of some
exquisite designer layette items; a year’s diaper service; and a
not with a little P.S. that she knew my husband was “looking
after the will and that sort of thing.” She could have given a
lot more financially, but she exercised restraint, modeling
what’s really important. Most meaningful to me was the note
inside. She was born in 1898, and the note began, “Welcome to
the sacred sorority of motherhood.” Somehow that needed to be
said.
And over the years, she had given me much excellent advice,
including “Don’t listen to those pediatricians, listen to your
heart.” As an example, she told me that her pediatrician had
told her to let the baby cry. “I didn’t listen to him,” she
said. “Babies cry for a reason.”
Don’t proselytize about what you don’t give, and don’t apologize
for what you can’t give. My other grandmother, whose life was
rich in love and Spartan in possessions, handed me a wedding
gift of rags for cleaning, obtained the way rags used to be –
from scraps of her worn out clothing and linens. I placed it
next to the sterling silver service for 12 from the other
grandmother on the gift table, and valued them both about the
same.
Whatever you give materially or in-service, be there to help
them sort through the fad-du-jour advice, get in touch with
their own values and priorities, and touch all the bases.
And, by the way, congratulations!