by C.V.Rajan

Created on: August 13, 2008   Last Updated: October 19, 2008

When you are a parent, you love your child, you feel you are the closest to your child and you do think that you are the one who is primarily going to contribute to the child's mental and physical development. But frankly, in the present day culture, where both the parents or out in quest of money or in chasing their respective career dreams, how much of their quality time do they have at their disposal to spare with their child, particularly when the child is at its formative years of learning communicating skills, manners and morals?

The foremost quality that a hectic day at in the office robs off the parents is patience. How many parents are patient enough to sit with the child in the evening and hear his school stories? How many parents are inclined to listen to his prying questions and doubts based on his observations on the street and at the Television and give patient and convincing answers?

How many parents have the time, patience and inclination to cuddle with him/her at bed time and treat him/her with the wondrous and immeasurable pleasure of bed time stories?

When it comes to teaching right and wrong, good and bad, dos and don'ts how many parents really possess the conduct and character to stand morally upright and show them the way by setting personal examples instead of oral sermonizing?

The answer to most of the questions from a majority of parents will be an uneasy NO.

This is precisely where grand parents can pitch in and contribute immensely in the child's early development. Again, in the present day culture, how many households possess the closely knit family structure where grand parents are available for living with their son/ daughter and consequently with their grand children? If not living together, at least, in how many families the grand children have accessibility to their grand parents assuming that they are living somewhere nearby?

If such probabilities exist, then the children are really lucky.

Let us accept one basic fact. All said and done, parenting has its own heavy responsibilities and in shouldering it, sometimes parents do miss the pleasure of enjoying the joyful nuances associated with the child's growth - the playfulness, the tantrums, the mischief, the innocent blabbering and so on. But all these wonderful facets of the childhood are now available for the grand parents to see, enjoy and even participate.

Grand parents, unlike parents have a lot more patience. Unlike parents, grand parents have no need to behave like strict disciplinarians.

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