Becoming more flexible, open-minded, having a capacity to deal with change is a good thing. But it is far from the whole story. Grandparents, in the absence of the social institutions that once demanded civilized behavior, have their work cut out for them. Our grandchildren are hungry for our love and approval, but also for standards being set.
Eda LeShanIt is strange but true that although we may have learned all sorts of important facts while raising our own children, when we become grandparents we still tend to forget a whole lot of things we knew.
Eda LeShanEducation is in danger of becoming a religion based on fear; its doctrine is to compete. Our children are being led to believe that they are doomed to failure in a world which has room only for those at the top.
Eda LeShanVisiting someone in a hospital recently, I watched an elderly couple. The man was in a wheelchair, the wife sitting next to him in the visitors' room. For the half-hour that I watched they never exchanged a word, just held hands and looked at each other, and once or twice the man patted his wife's face. The feeling of love was so thick in that room that I felt I was sharing in their communion and was shaken all day by their pain, their love, something sad and also joyful: the fullness of a human relationship.
Eda LeShan