Granny's special mission

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Some women, having crossed a certain age threshold, dream of getting the status of a grandmother, others are scared by this word applied to themselves. What is the purpose of the role of a grandmother? We tried to answer this question with the help of the famous psychologist Olga Makhovskaya.

Recently, neighbor Elena Dmitrievna, the grandmother of her two-year-old grandson, has become too thoughtful. Previously, she never forgot to say hello at a meeting and loved to talk very much, to show pictures of the baby. And now Elena Dmitrievna, immersed in her thoughts, could enter the elevator and freeze in silence, forgetting to press the button for her floor. Something was wrong with her. And my eyes are often in a wet place … Delicately questioning my neighbor, I found out that she was worried about her daughter's insistent requests to retire to sit with her grandson.

“Well, I can't imagine myself as a grandmother with saucepans and knitting,” Elena Dmitrievna lamented. - My daughter got married, she was just going to live for herself, chat with her friends, enjoy her favorite floristry, finally do it, spend all evenings and weekends in the Botanical Garden, and here again, great! Pots, porridge, children's roar, whims. No one helped me raise my daughter. And nothing, raised - on his own head. She devoted her whole life to her, and she takes offense at me that I do not agree to retrain as a nanny from the chief accountant."

Six months later, I accidentally met a neighbor in the yard. Elena Dmitrievna was walking on the playground of a business, concentrated little one. “Vitechka cannot stay in kindergarten for the whole day, he is weak, often ill,” she said. - I had to quit my managerial job. I moved on part-time, I am sitting with my grandson. And the neighbor immediately began to load me with the achievements of the most intelligent, beautiful and talented Vitechka. Judging by her blooming appearance, Elena Dmitrievna did not regret such a radical change, she mastered the role of a grandmother, making a complete reboot of her life. By the way, the ability of Russian grandmothers to “dissolve in grandchildren”, to live for them, forgetting about themselves, is noted by foreigners as our specific feature.

“This is our story, because there is a colossal female loneliness behind it. In this sense, not knowing when to stop is also dangerous, of course. This is a classic conflict, when "I give everything to you, I love you, but you do not love me." Life shows that it is necessary to learn all the time, at any age. You need to understand what you expect from life, - explains the famous psychologist Olga Makhovskaya. - Grandmothers in our country are responsible for creativity. Research has shown that a child's creativity, that is, the ability to see multiple solutions to the same problem (the basis of adaptability in an amazingly fast-paced world), depends on the daily dose of emotional support they receive.

This is a special mission. This is not "wash-clean", but communicate, support, forgive, give, iron, hug! The paradox is that you can be a wonderful, magnificent woman, a real professional, just a good person, but an unsuccessful grandmother. Who will show love to children, they will be drawn to that. It is necessary to be in time during this period, the most, in my opinion, important - up to six years of age of the child - to fulfill his mission. Children, like mimosa, can bloom instantly. The kid does not care whether his grandmother has a wasp waist, whether she meets with boyfriends, whether she drives a car, whether she grazes on FB. Grandmother's only mission is to drive an emotional wave without turning into a tsunami."

I'm lucky.

My grandmother, whose character was reminiscent of the heroine of Svetlana Kryuchkova in "Bury Me Behind the Skirting Board," for the sake of her granddaughter was able to step on her passions and grievances. It would not even have occurred to her to “retrain as a nanny,” because she was engaged in such an important matter: she worked at a radio station near the building of the Moscow City Council. But no important matter prevented her from “driving an emotional wave”: composing for me a fairy tale about hooligan boys Kondar Bondar and Senka Pope, teaching me how to play rounders, gossip about relatives and friends, and pick mushrooms in Timiryazevsky Park. We ran the mushrooms home and fried there quickly, eating every crumb until grandfather and dad caught it. Grandfather would have "handed over" to dad, and he threw a tantrum: they are trying to poison his only child! My grandmother loved to command all her life, "sneezing at everyone and everything from the high bell tower", which was much higher than her own meter forty-seven centimeters. However, before her father, her son-in-law, she gave in for reasons only known to her. My grandmother had a hobby: studying the family tree of the Romanovs. Wake her up in the middle of the night, she would tell without hesitation whose relative Empress Anna Ioannovna … She was more interested in the dynasty of the Romanov gentlemen only in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. And I, in those years, was the only granddaughter whom she called "my gold, silver". It is thanks to my grandmother Valentina Efimovna that my childhood was cloudless and happy. With her "grandmother's mission", to quote a psychologist, she coped. Perfectly.

I'm lucky. And you?