Here are my husband, Darren, and Adanna, my granddaughter, when she was 20 months old. Of her 3 granddads, I think she views him as the granddad who is her buddy, her BFF. He has endless patience with her, teaches her math concepts, spends time helping her put puzzles together, build Lego structures, tells her the names of different plants when they go walking, talks to her about the needs and personality of each plant, plays ball with her, acts like a silly goose with her, splashes in the swimming pool with her and gives her tips on water safety, etc. He is helping her to develop a thought system about the world that teaches her that knowing things, learning about nature, knowing how things operate and how each thing connects with other things, and that participating in various activities are all very important.
He could just as well spend that time with her playing a video game or watching TV, except that he knows that would be of much less value to her. Watching TV is a spectator activity. Motivating her to use her brain to connect dots about abstract concepts and the environment helps her to develop a way of viewing the world and to more confidently participate in it. What has this got to do with marriage, you might wonder. Well,
I’ve talked a lot about the single greatest decision a woman makes is who she chooses for a mate. If I’d chosen a man whose favorite pastime is watching the WWE wrestling circus while drinking beer and gorging on pretzels, this is what he’d be sharing with my granddaughter much of the time. Never say never, but it’s highly unlikely he’d want to spend hours doing these kinds of intellectual activities with her. Therefore, my choice of a husband–or allowing myself to be chosen by him–has set the stage for him to also pour intellectual riches into my granddaughter’s life. The very best part about that is that unlike giving her toys or money for her piggybank, those intellectual riches can never be taken away.
We don’t spend time with her every week since we live about 45 miles from her and her parents have enrolled her in a fun, stimulating program several days a week, but when we are with her, we do fun things with her that shape her thought system, things that will leave a lasting intellectual legacy. She already knows that when she sees us, there will be action! LOL We’re not the type of grandparents who just sit there. We’re always doing things, going places.
I talk with her, to her, a lot. When I talk with her, I speak with her the way I would with a 12 year old child. I know she doesn’t understand all the details of what I’m saying, but I know she understands the gist of it. More importantly, I know the time we spend with her sends her the undeniable message that she is important. Spending quality time with a person lets them know they’re important and worthy of your time as well as the energy you’re expending to engage them in conversation or activities. This is one key way of developing self-esteem in children.
Similarly, when I was growing up with my grandmother, she wanted me in her presence a lot and I did not like that. LOL! I wanted to be off somewhere daydreaming, playing, reading comic books (which she allowed, sometimes), reading romance magazines (I had to be super sneaky in order to read those), but she didn’t allow me to be away from her sight for long. She believed that children should be kept engaged. She said so many times: “An idle mind is the devil’s playground.” So, when I was at home with her, I had to be engaged in doing things: cleaning, working in the garden, sewing, ironing, reading the books that she chose, practicing her church songs on the used piano she’d bought me, watching her do things like rolling out biscuit dough or fluting the edge of dough for pie crusts, listening to her explain different things about people and things. I was like, “I’m the absolute most unlucky girl in the world!” Lol But as an adult, I realized how very important all of that was to my development. I was a lot smarter and sharper as a result of her constant emphasis on keeping me busy because I could do more, became more confident in my ability to learn new things, and understood a lot more about life at a younger age than many of my peers who were shooed away from the adults.
My grandmother instilled in me a thought system that informed much of the way I regarded and raised my children. When they were young, I didn’t allow them to be idle, for long. Watching TV was reserved mostly for weekends or long holidays. They had to be engaged in activities at home: studying vocabulary, reading, doing crafts, logic puzzles, building things, working at their childhood business (since we stressed business ownership to them) as well as helping to clean and do chores. Or I would enroll them in lessons of different types outside the home: gymnastics, tennis, swimming, piano, etc. My ex-husband loved that I was raising our sons in that way.
So you can see that what my grandmother instilled in me was a thought system that has become a legacy that I continued with my children, grandchildren. Since my son was raised in this way, it’s just natural for him to put heavy emphasis on engaging with his children in various ways and keeping them engaged. The legacy continues.
I think that sometimes, we focus way too much on the financials that a man brings to a woman’s life or only on the financials. Financials are certainly necessary and important, but intellectual riches are actually the richest riches! Unlike financial assets, they’re a permanent asset, a part of a legacy that can be handed down forever.