Yesterday I decided to give myself a PhD in life. This morning I've decided to present another small segment of my dissertation. This involves grandchildren. Now the premise has been that parents are the driving influences on their children. The parents get the credit for their children's' successes. Society gets blamed when they fail, but that's another segment for another day. My thesis is that the grandparents are the ones' responsible for the success of the grandchildren.
That is my thesis statement. Now I'm supposed to defend that thesis, prove it through the presentation of facts. That's the long academic thesis paper presented to that board of experts. Everyone reading this that is a grandparent are those experts. I present these facts. The first and most important fact is that you created those parents. If it weren't for them, the grandchildren wouldn't even exist. Yes, grandparents are the creators! Grandparents are the holder of life itself. It all starts with us.
Having created those children (parents) grandparents spend years teaching and training them. Those children are learning the foundational methods in raising children. You may think they are learning their ABC's or whatever, but they are being taught how to be parents themselves. That's what raising children is all about. The objective being to raise productive members of society. How do you accomplish that? By introducing them and teaching them the very lessons you learned from your own parents! Yes, from the grandparents! Anyone can make babies, making good citizens, good people is a skill, a skill learned by emulating your parents.
Children and grandchildren will rebel. That's a given and one you need to be prepared for. That rebellion comes from the need to experiment. There are things you just have to learn for yourself. Usually that occurs during those tumultuous teenage years when those hormones are raging. Most will learn to contain all of that after a bit. It is that experimentation that is the beginning of the research that will one day lead to their own Phd.
Parents often turn into grandparents long before any actual children are born, they begin that transition with the rebellious years of their own children. That's when you hear yourself and realize, I sound like my parents. Who are those people? The grandparents to your children and they are raising them, you're just the vehicle being used. Grandparents are too old to deal 24/7 with aspiring adults. That's because grandparents are still struggling with their own children, namely, you! It's something you learn, the job is never over, I'll be a parent, a grandparent and a great grandparent until I die. I'll keep spreading the knowledge, the expertise that I have gained over the decades. A life long dissertation.
My life experiences have proven that theory out. I have a grandson in his final year of law school, a granddaughter soon to graduate from radiology school and another granddaughter attending college. They were all members of the National Honor Society, both Jr and Senior. They have never been in trouble with the law, no unwanted children, and all hold jobs. All in all they are wonderful human beings and citizens of this great nation of ours. And all of that was made possible by grandparents. If we hadn't raised our children right the outcome would certainly have been different. Grandparents are the ones responsible. It was grandparents that imparted the knowledge enabling the parents to perform their job. Grandchildren should be taught that.
Sadly, I think it is a lesson that has fallen through the cracks in more recent generations. The reality is this isn't a new lesson, a unique concept or discovery. It's just that many have failed to get their Phd in life. Did that begin with the boomers that " tuned on, tuned in and dropped out" as Timothy Leary encouraged them to do? Not as well remembered as Woodstock was The Human Be-In. It was groovy man. An experiment gone wrong. That whole culture collapsed under the reality of life. I'm thinking the Japanese got it right, they venerate their elders, the grandparents. Yeah, that's what we should all be doing, venerating the grandparents. I present history as the proof of that.
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