CoEternity

(Isabella and Ferdinand taking a parental, some say preternatural interest in the Italian kid.)

This is written following the second week of the five we have planned for my far away visit with my two grandsons (and, oh yeah, their mom, my daughter, and her husband.) The youngest is 9 weeks old and needs to stay home now that Mom's maternity leave is over and she must return to the classroom. I get to be the "manny" for a lot of days.

Watching the parents, I am happy to report, is an informative pleasure for me. Their practiced give and take assures me that no move is casual and no decision is arbitrary: they have their own new, researched, unique shared plan going for them and their boys.

And why not? Parenting is a subjective endeavor; countless books on the topic invite new parents perpetually to eschew the ways of old. (Twenty-five years ago? Really?) The culture of seeking parental perfection while becoming independent of historic method is sometimes amusing and labored in its pretense to getting the job just right.  I am convinced, nonetheless, that making a plan that belongs to and reflects the dedication of the two parents is laudible, and in the end, essential for the fair rearing of one's own precious offspring. I don't mind that cloth diapers are no longer preferred (the diaper service used to be considered a luxury); now that baby powder is passe, I'll adapt to the throw-aways that apparently contain drying characteristics hitherto unavailable for the baby butt.

Once a safe, clean, peaceful environment has been arranged, the most important obligation shared by parents is thoughtful, educated agreement about how to make kids flourish under their care. Having two parents is a blessing, and it initiates for the child an innate understanding of human relations. In the extremeity, of course, grandparents or other constant ones can offer the counterpoint that brings balance to a child's understanding.

Here, with my two grandsons, I am rewarded by every act of caring by their parents that I am privileged to witness. 

As I expected and hoped, actually, I am reliving the early days of my own parenting, what it was like to be a dad to this same daughter when I was twenty-five years old and pretty sure of my suitability for the task. I began by trying to discern how my child was somehow the average, mean or sum of her mother and me. Within months, I was disabused of this notion; Katherine was a young lady who was a pleasure to meet and to enjoy, but she was new, singular and yet to become her own person, let alone mine.  In short, she was certainly mine to meet, but she was not a composite of all her ancestry.

Watching her piece together her ways of raising the two young men, all the time shoulder-to-shoulder with a good husband, I see the same wonder in her eyes and demeanor that I experienced as her young father. And that identification amplifies, extends my own pleasure of being allowed to be her dad. Hard, sad, triumphant, meaningful, transitory, timeless and glorious days will follow. And the happy cycle continues.

Loved making your mom's acquaintance, and it's nice to meet you, too, you brand new young men.