The difference between being a parent and a grandparent is often summed up in a joke: you can give them back.
But the truth is, the difference isn’t about convenience—it’s about how much love your heart can hold.
When your child has a child, the love doesn’t replace or diminish what you feel for your own kids. It grows—expands in ways you didn’t think possible. It’s not about loving one more than the other, but about discovering that your capacity for love is so much bigger than you realized.
Watching your child in pain is one of the hardest things a parent can endure. During my daughter’s delivery, I saw her strength in a way I’d never seen before. She was incredible. When the doctors decided an emergency c-section was necessary, I was terrified but she handled it like a trooper.
They wheeled her away with her husband by her side, and I waited. Thirty minutes turned into an hour with no updates. Panic set in. I wandered the halls in the middle of the night, desperate for news.
Finally, a nurse told me my daughter was safe, but my grandson was in the NICU with some breathing trouble. (Truthfully, he and I both had trouble breathing in that moment.)
When I was finally taken to her room, there she was—my little girl, now a mother, holding her son. He was breathing just fine, right where he belonged. And in that instant, everything came full circle. The child I once held—pigtails, skinned knees, boundless energy—was now holding her own baby. Words can’t capture what that moment felt like.
When my grandson was born in 2023, I told my daughter, “You don’t know how much you can love another person until you have a child.”
Recently, over two years later, she told me, “I understand now what you meant.”
Her parenting style isn’t always like mine. Not wrong, just different. Times are different.
I’ve learned that just because I did something a certain way doesn’t mean she has to. She’s a wonderful mother, and while I offer guidance when asked, I try not to interfere. I’m still her mom, of course, and sometimes that slips out—but thankfully, no one makes a fuss. Some parts of me will never change.
I’ve always been involved in my kids’ lives. Even during those rocky teenage years when they didn’t necessarily want me to be.
Back then, I thought parenting was about making sure they listened to me—but I eventually realized they needed me to listen, too.
Someday, my kids will learn the same lesson with their children: growing up is hard. That’s why they call it “growing pains.”
There will be struggles, but I hope my home—Nan’s house—will always be a safe place to land. A place where the battles can pause and love takes center stage.
As a grandparent, those battles aren’t mine to fight anymore. My role now is more like a referee—a safe haven, a steady presence, a listener without judgment.
Parenting—and grandparenting—covers every emotion you can imagine: joy, frustration, pride, fear, laughter, tears. You want to guide your children’s steps, but they want to walk on their own.
Sometimes the hardest thing is letting them fall, then reaching out your hand to help them back up.
That’s the job. To be there. To be present. To be involved. To be the soft, safe space they can always come back to.
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