by Norman and Ann Bales

When David had pretty well secured his position as King of
Israel, he began to look around for descendants of Saul. Finally, he
learned that Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, son of his late friend
Jonathan, was still alive. In 2 Samuel 9:7, he said to Mephibosheth,
"I will show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan. I
will restore all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul and you
will always eat at my table." Saul wasn’t there to show kindness
to his grandson. David did it for him. Did David spoil him? I don’t
know if you could call it that, but the kindness he showed was a good
thing.

I would suggest that we have no greater blessing as grandparents
than the opportunity to be sowers of the seeds of kindness. If we show
kindness, somebody’s going to say, "But you’re spoiling your
grandchildren." I plead guilty, but I’m also sympathetic to
young parents. They guard their territory and sometimes regard
overindulgent grandparents as a threat to their program of discipline.
They don’t want interference from grandparents and we need to respect
that. One of their fears is that if the grandchildren spend too many
days at grandmas’ house, by the time they get back home they will have
totally lost control of their children.

>From a grandparent’s perspective, we need to stop worrying about
whether or not we are going to spoil our grandchildren. We are. John
Rosemond, in an article, which appeared in Better Homes and Gardens in
December 1996 said, "I’m convinced it is as proper for grandparents
to spoil their grandchildren as it is completely improper for their
parents to do so." He told his son and his sons’ wife, "It’s
our job to always spoil our grandson; its your job never to spoil him.
We’ll have no problems if we don’t try to do one another’s job."
Then he goes on to describe how he handles that with the grandchildren.
He says when the grandchildren come, he tells them, "You’re taking
a vacation from Mom and Dad’s rules, but you have to understand that
when the visit is over, the vacation is over." We’re not talking
about allowing the grandchildren to do anything that’s immoral, ungodly,
or potentially damaging. But staying up an extra hour past one’s usual
bedtime is probably not going to put a kid in the hospital.

When our granddaughter was about three, we went to visit them. Not
too long after we arrived, she came to me and said, "Grandy, I need
a hamburger and french fries." Audrey got her hamburger and
french fries and just about as often as she wanted them. Her parents
wouldn’t do that and shouldn’t, but that’s a grandparent’s privilege.

We spent some time this past weekend with our step-grandson. At one
point during the visit, he asked to whisper a secret in my ear. The
secret was actually a request. He wanted me to buy a toy for him.
When I announced that he and I would be making a visit to the toy store,
my daughter said, "Dad, he’s got more toys than he knows what to do
with." I echoed John Rosemond’s thoughts. "It’s my job to
spoil him; it’s your job not to."

The other day Ann and I were talking about how we observed my father
spoiling our children. My youngest was 10 years old and Daddy let him
drive his pickup. It turned out to be a disaster, because Gary, being
inexperienced, turned too wide. Daddy grabbed the steering wheel and
took out a wall on one side of his house. He was a carpenter by trade,
so it wasn’t too big a deal to fix it. He even laughed about it. As
parents, we didn’t laugh. Well, maybe we did but it wasn’t for a long
time after the event. I’ve tried to imagine what might have happened if
I had crashed into the side of the house with the family car during my
adolescent years. I wasn’t even allowed to drive even though I was old
enough to get a license. When I did get a license, my driving was
monitored closely. When I eventually had a wreck, I was made to feel
only slightly better than a criminal and I didn’t drive for a very long
time. Yet the same man who wouldn’t trust me behind the wheel of a car
thought nothing of turning the operation of a vehice over to a child who
couldn’t really see out the windshield. Such are the inconsistencies
when we make the jump from parenthood to grandparenthood.

When Donald and Bea Campbell wrote on the subject of grandparenting,
they said, "Perhaps the greatest gift we can offer our precious
grandchildren is the gift of time." I don’t see my grandchildren
very often, but I do special things with them when I do. I’m not a
great fisherman. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been fishing sense my
grandchildren visited us last summer and I took them fishing. But I
take them fishing every time they come. They think I’m the world’s
greatest fisherman. I just about proved that last summer, when Audrey,
now my eleven-year-old granddaughter, landed a huge channel cat. She’s
probably hooked on fishing for a lifetime and it’s all because of her
grandfather.

About three years ago, they were living in California. My son’s in
the army and was an instructor at the National Training Center in the
Mojave Desert. It was not their favorite assignment. We got a deal on
an airplane flight and Ann spent nearly two weeks in California. Their
parents were busy with things that were going on, but Ann had time to
play games, share experiences and listen to the grandchildren’s stories.
Experiences like that pay rich dividends.

I don’t think I fit the mold of the typical grandfather. I’m not
old (at least by my defintion of old). I’m not retired and I’m not
even thinking about it. I seldom see my grandchildren. That makes it
doubly important to make the most profitable use of the time we do have
together. As a grandparent, one of my goals is to communicate my love
for them. Spoiling grandchildren within the limits of prudence is one
way to accomplish that.

If you have questions about marriage and family relationships, you
can "ASK THE COUNSELOR." Address your questions to Mikal
Frazier. Her address is <>

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Southern Hills Church of Christ Shreveport, Louisiana E-mail:
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Web: http://www.allaboutfamilies.org