The difference between children and grandchildren, aside from the spelling, is that your grandchildren are happy to be with you, whereas your children, when they were the same age, not only didn’t want to be seen with you, they didn’t want other people to know you even existed.
Nazarul Islam
On September 5, 2012, a date which will live in infancy, I became a grandfather.
I remember that day like it was yesterday, which is amazing since I can’t remember where I put my house key, what I had for lunch or whether I left the bathroom light on.
Still, I am deliriously happy to be celebrating 12 years of grandparenthood.
In the past decade, my wife, Nuzhat, and I have welcomed five more grandchildren, enough not only to count on the fingers of one hand but also to make a basketball team.
The problem is that the kids are better than I am in both math and hoops, although at my age, I am a better dribbler.
The oldest is Aryz, the illustrious son of our younger daughter. He has a sister. The younger girl is now 9, and the youngest is a stylish child who just turned 7.
The youngest three, are the children of our eldest son, Yasir. The oldest is a smart little wizard Azaan who just turned 8. He has two sisters 5 and 3.
If you think your kids grow up fast, wait until you have grandchildren.
The grandkids have lapped me intellectually and are more mature than I am.
I have often been asked if I spoil my grandchildren. The answer: No. That’s my wife Nuzhat’s job. My job really is to corrupt them. I take this responsibility very seriously, even though my antics with the kids can hardly be considered serious.
Making them laugh, especially at inopportune moments, is a specialty. My son Yasir and daughter Anam who must have haunting flashbacks to the days when I did this stuff with them, will simply roll their eyes, all the better not to see me doing incredibly silly things with their children, who have come to regard me as their favorite toy.
I have heard plenty of contemporaries say that the best thing about being a grandparent is that after spending time with the kids, you can give them back to their parents.
Not me. I don’t want to give them back. I want to keep playing with them so we can continue having fun and I can then sleep so well that I won’t get up three times in the middle of the night to visit the porcelain convenience.
The difference between children and grandchildren, aside from the spelling, is that your grandchildren are happy to be with you, whereas your children, when they were the same age, not only didn’t want to be seen with you, they didn’t want other people to know you even existed.
I love and am proud of my children who have grown up to be great people and wonderful parents themselves. That’s because they take after their mother.
Speaking of Nuzhat she is known to our grandchildren as ‘Ammi’, a name my children had given her. I am only the ‘grandpapa’!
When introducing myself to the kids’ friends or the parents of their friends, as well as neighbors, teachers and even complete strangers, I will smile broadly, extend my hand and chirp, “Hi! I’m the grandpapa!”
The kids will giggle appreciatively. Their mothers will practically suffer whiplash while looking away in total humiliation.
There are several important things I have learned in my first decade of having grandchildren.
The first is that mine are the smartest, funniest, happiest, most adorable, talented, fantastic, loving, beautiful (you get the idea) grandchildren who ever lived. It’s just a fact. Accept it.
The second is that they come in handy for solving everyday problems, especially those that involve technology. Not long ago, two of my grandsons were visiting and asked me to turn on their favorite cartoon. I was fiddling with the three remotes it takes to find the right channel when one of the kids, who’s 8 looked at me in utter disbelief and said, “You don’t know how to work your own TV?”
Then he grabbed a remote and instantly found the cartoon. I am thinking of hiring her as my IT person.
The most important thing about being a grandparent is that you should never turn down an opportunity to be with the kids and, especially, to do fun things with them.
We’ve baked cupcakes, gone to the zoo, jumped on a trampoline, ridden on a carousel, gone out for ice cream, played board games, painted pictures, put on nail polish, blown bubbles, splashed in kiddie pools, attended dance recitals, gone to the beach and done so much more.
Nuzhat and I thank our son, daughters, daughter in law and son in-law, who have raised the kids with love and laughter, for letting us be such a big part of our grandchildren’s lives.
It’s been a decade I’ll never forget. I just wish I could remember where I put my house key…
Read: Living past 75…
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The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his articles.
