The grandparent shortage

A lot has been written about falling birth rates in the United States. Less covered has been the simultaneous decline in grandparenthood.

Grandparents, to hear friends tell it, are an endangered species. Virtually every child-bearing demographic group except women over 40 is having fewer, if any, children. And let’s be honest: Potential grandparents with children over 40 are likely to be rapidly aging out of the “fun grandparent” demographic and into the “granny flat” demographic.

Our birth rate, according to the latest government statistics, is now 1.6 — below replacement level and sinking to where countries like Italy used to be. Italy’s birth rate has now fallen further to 1.18, which makes nonno and nonna even more endangered than grandpa and grandma.

Wannabe grandparents are addressing this issue in a variety of ways. Frequently asking their children when they are planning to reproduce is probably one of the least effective stratagems. Putting a brave face on the child’s decision to “parent” a couple of labradoodles doesn’t get you anywhere either, even if you slap a bumper sticker on your car boasting that “my grandchild has four paws.”

Politicians want to throw money at the issue, of course. After all, prospective grandparents vote. Governments for the past hundred years have tried to bribe would-be parents into having children. It doesn’t really work — whether in China or France or South Korea — because such a life-changing experience as parenthood is not so easily incentivized by a couple thousand dollars and a tax break. The disincentives are significant: Most cited are cost of living issues like expense of daycare and education, but everything from school shootings to the state of the world can be cited as well.

Prospective grandparents understand this, of course. But the desire to “live to see your children’s children,” as Psalm 128 puts it, is wired deep inside the human heart. We want to see the children we worked so hard to parent in turn bring the next generation into being. It’s a sign of hope and resilience that surpasses the headlines and the crises and the never-ending worries we have for our planet and our species.

I am fortunate that I have one child who is now a parent. Non-grandparent friends listen to my stories with a touch of envy. We aren’t sure when our kids will be having kids, they say wistfully.

I’m honest with them about the work of grandparenting. There are good reasons why childrearing should be left to the young. Childcare is exhausting! It takes us two or three days to recover from a weekend of book-reading and diaper changing and meal negotiating.

At the same time, grandparenting is a little bit of a time-travel experience, for we are reminded of what is generally a blur — what we did and how hard we worked when we were younger parents.

Recently, in the middle of the night, a crying 1-year-old woke up both my son and me. I stayed in the dark room as my son rocked the baby and fed him a bottle. It evoked so many nights when I did that for him. I felt a great surge of parental affection for my son. The love I had shown him long before he could remember, he was now passing on to his son as he gently rocked him back to sleep. It’s a circle of life I’m blessed to be a part of.

Parenting isn’t easy, but it’s the most rewarding work there is. There’s probably never a perfect time to decide to have children, but in general, we rise to the occasion and become better people for it.

As for the perfect time to be a grandparent, I think that is now. For would-be grandparents still waiting for the privilege, perhaps offer a prayer to St. Anne and St. Joachim, who tradition teaches us were the grandparents of Jesus. I’ll bet they could tell stories.

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