BEING A GRANDFATHER IN TODAY’S SOCIETY

The important role of grandparents in society and in the upbringing of children has been of vital importance for centuries. A relevance that increases, if possible, in a society marked by the incorporation of women in the market of work and by the strong competitiveness and demands that emanate from a globalized world. And in this context, there appears the most endearing and disinterested look of tenderness that a person can receive, that of grandparents, which is always a wonderful gift.

The special bond of grandparents with grandchildren

Nowadays, the grandparents spend more and more hours with the grandchildren, take care of them, feed them, play with them, pick them up from school … The grandparents educate with their presence, their affection and their relationship with the family. It is a very different task to be parents, but key in the lives of our children. Grandparents should enjoy the grandchildren and share their life experiences with them.

To the grandchildren, the conversations with the grandparents give them a different perspective of life, they recognize in them timeless values ​​and how they are made concrete. A special complicity that gives grandparents a new meaning in their lives.

The role of grandparents, recognized by the Popes

A role in the family that has been reflected by different popes during his pontificate. For example, just a few examples, Pope Benedict XVI has highlighted in several meetings the importance of grandparents in families. In fact, at the “World Meeting of Families”, held in 2006 in Valencia, Benedict XVI said that it is the grandparents who “give children the perspective of time. They are memory and wealth of families. I hope that under no circumstances they are excluded from the family circle. ” For his part, Pope Francis has confessed that for him “one of the most beautiful things in the life of the family, of our life, is to caress a child and let himself be caressed by a grandfather or a grandmother.”