What my grandparents mean to me…
While we always love hearing about the treasured memories and stories that you, the grandparents, have with the favourite young ones in your lives, we thought we’d find out what the other side thinks.
Three lovely children from the Elliott family – Crystal, 13, Nikita, 11 and Vance, 5 – were more than happy to share their thoughts about the special place their grandparents hold in their lives. (A small disclaimer though, their grandparents may or may not have been close by ‘sternly’ warning that only positive answers would be allowed!)
“My grandparents mean a lot to me because they are always there for me when I need it most,” says a very articulate young Nikita, continuing, “They are always there when my parents need help and stuff and they take us lots of fun places.”
The Elliott children are close to both sets of grandparents often staying over at their grandparents’ homes during the holidays as well as plenty of weekend outings together. In fact, they had just spent a weekend with them and as always, it was jam-packed with fun activities like swimming at the beach, learning to fish and ice-cream treats.
“Our grandparents mean a lot to me because they are someone we can go to if we can’t go to our parents,” says Crystal, grinning cheekily before continuing, “Grandparents let you get away with more stuff.”
Nikita adds: “They’re always fun to be around and grandfather always cracks a lot of corny jokes but they make me laugh anyway even though I know they are really bad.”
Growing up with the grandparents close by has created many precious and often hilarious memories for the Elliott children.
“With my mum’s parents, we were having a barbeque outside and I was holding out my kebab and a kookaburra came and swooped and tried to eat it,” exclaims Nikita. “We always laugh about how it almost ate my face!”
Crystal is just glad she is under the watchful eye of her Grannie.
“With my dad’s parents, we were at the beach and I got dunked by a wave when I was little and my head got buried in the sand under the water and my legs were dangling up and then Grannie had to pull me out and it was really funny,” says Crystal, who sees the lighter sides of things now.
It seems saving lives is a specialty of grandparents with little five-year-old Vance telling his tale of a fun fishing trip on the lake almost turning into disaster when the boat capsized!
“First, grandfather caught a fish,” tells Vance, adding,“And then I standed up and then the boat tipped.”
“I was panicking!” shouts Vance, but then, “Crystal was paddling and paddling to me and Grandfather was paddling and paddling and then we were all safe,” concludes Vance with a big smile on his face.
With fun activities, holidays and a caring shoulder to rest on, it is clear that grandparents are just as valuable parts of grandchildren lives as grandchildren are to grandparents. Although that's a fact any grandparent will tell you.