Trailing After Grandkids – on a Jet Plane

By Bonnie Baker Cowan

When Margaret’s daughter announced they were seriously considering moving  to a town 150 kilometers away and closer to the other grandparents, Margaret was devastated. “As a widow on my own, I am more nervous driving long distances than I once was and this move would mean a two-hour drive to see my grandchildren,” she says.  Her daughter explained that the move would mean buying a bigger house for less money and with a new train system being built, they could still commute to their jobs in Toronto. Her daughter also mentioned that her husband’s parents were getting older and moving nearby would give them the opportunity to take care of them.

“That really hurt. What about taking care of me?” Margaret wondered, bitterly. “And I’m the one they call at the last minute to babysit or pick the children up at school for appointments. The other grandparents aren’t called because they do say ‘no,’ whereas I’m the one who is happy to accommodate their needs. I just can’t say no.”

Her daughter has suggested Margaret might like to move there too. Will she move closer to be near her grandchildren? “I don’t think so,” Margaret muses. “I’m settled and enjoy city life, and my friends are here. Besides, what if they move again? Will I just follow them on the next whim?”

That happened to Madalyn, who was encouraged to sell her house in Nobleton, Ontario and move to Mississauga to an apartment because her three children and five grandchildren lived there. “It was fine for seven years,” Madalyn says. “And then they all moved away to different parts of the country and I’m stuck here alone with no family.”Would you uproot your life to follow  grandchildren around the country? As besotted as we are with these perfect little people, whatever happened to spending winters in that pied-`a- terre in Nice, writing our memoirs or learning a new language—in which we can say no with a different accent. What happened to those long-planned days of freedom from the responsibility of caring for family? Gone in a heartbeat, obviously at the birth of the first grandchild. That’s when we lose control of our own lives all over again.

When my first grandson Jack was born, I used up my year’s allotment of mileage on my car lease in the first two months of his life, driving from Toronto to Newmarket. Before he was born, I had announced that I would babysit any grandchildren one weekend a year. That was before I held that sweet bundle in my arms. In reality, it turned out to be one weekend a month and many single days and nights over the years. It was my choice, my love affair with my grandchildren and there are no regrets.

Cheryl lives an hour’s drive from her grandson, Nathan, but his dad now has been transferred from Oakville to Montreal. Cheryl’s other two grandchildren live in Germany, and while she visits them once a year, “it’s not enough,” she complains. “Now with Nathan moving away too, I am feeling really rudderless.” Will Cheryl consider moving to Montreal or Germany? “Not likely,” she says. “With families so transient these days, they could all move somewhere else in the next few years. So I am staying put, because chances are they could move back here.”

For Patricia, moving to be closer to her grandchildren worked. When her husband died two years ago, she sold her house in Regina and left her friends of a lifetime to move to Windsor where her grandchildren lived. For Patricia, the change was the best of both worlds. “I go to Arizona for the winter, and I see my friends from Regina there,” she explains, “but in the other six months, I spend time with my grandkids in Windsor and I’ve made some new friends here too.”

The choices are as individual as each of us is. Who’d have thought our ‘retirement’ plans would be dictated by the enchantment of a bright- eyed grandson or the charms of a sweet granddaughter?