What if the secret to better parenting was already living inside every grandparent?
Personal Reflections · Parenting · Grandparenting
What if the secret to better parenting was already living inside every grandparent?
As my next full trip around the sun approaches — 64 this year — I find myself in a space of reflection. Not just on time… but on life lived.
On the lessons that didn’t arrive all at once, but revealed themselves slowly — through love, through challenge, through becoming.
I am so deeply blessed.
Three children.
Two beautiful bonus children through marriage.
And four grandchildren — each one carrying their own unique perspectives, opinions, challenges, and successes.
Each one… a world unto themselves.
They amaze me. They humble me. They bring me a kind of joy that is fuller, softer, and somehow… freer than I ever knew before.
And it is through them — especially through my grandchildren — that I have come to understand something I didn’t fully see when I was a parent.
On ParentingThe Sacred Weight of Raising a Life
There is a sacredness to parenting that is hard to put into words. To be entrusted with a life… to hold, protect, guide, and nourish a soul as it finds its way into this world… it is one of the most beautiful and profound experiences we can have.
And it is also — quietly, constantly — a responsibility that never turns off. It lives in the background of the mind like a silent current:
Keep them safe.
Help them become.
Do this right.
Even in stillness, it hums.
And because of that, parenting can sometimes carry an unspoken pressure — not just to love our children, but to shape them… to prepare them… to ensure they turn out well. This is not wrong. This is love, trying to protect.
“Love, when intertwined with fear, can become tight. It can begin to guide too strongly… to direct too firmly… to unknowingly override the natural unfolding of another soul.”
The Gift of Softening
And this is where becoming a grandparent gently changes everything. Because being a grandparent… feels like freedom. Not freedom from love — but freedom within love. A softening. A spaciousness. A return to simply witnessing life as it unfolds.
When I sit with my grandchildren, something in me is different. I am not scanning for outcomes. I am not managing their future. I am not carrying that same background urgency. I am simply… present.
I notice their quirks. Their curiosities. The way their personalities reveal themselves in the smallest, most beautiful ways. And instead of asking, “How do I guide this?” — I find myself resting in, “Who are you?”
This is the observer state. Not detached. Not distant. But deeply present without needing to control. A state of love that does not grasp. A state of awareness that does not impose.
A Deeper KnowingChildren Are Here to Become Who They Are
Our children were never meant to become who we planned. They are here to become who they are.
As parents, we can forget this — not because we don’t love deeply, but because we love so much that we feel responsible for everything. We celebrate their successes as if they are our own. We feel their struggles as if we caused them. We guide, we push, we shape — sometimes even living through them without realizing it.
But what grandparenthood has shown me is this:
Life does not need to be controlled to unfold beautifully.
It needs to be witnessed, supported, and held in love.
Children are not blank slates waiting for our beliefs.
They are consciousness expressing itself in form — arriving with their own path, their own timing, their own inner knowing.
Our role is not to confine them into roles that feel safe to us. Our role is to create a field where they can safely discover themselves. To hold them… without defining them. To guide them… without overriding them. To love them… without needing them to become anything in return.
This is where parenting becomes a spiritual practice. An invitation into the observer state — even within responsibility.
My Encouragement to YouParent With the Heart of a Grandparent
So perhaps the lesson is not to choose between being a parent or a grandparent… but to parent with the heart of a grandparent. To keep the love… but soften the grip. To stay present… but release the need to control. To guide… but remain open.
Because when we do this, something profound happens. We become a steady, loving presence that our children can grow within — rather than something they must grow against. And in that space, they don’t just become who we hoped they would be. They become who they truly are.
I highly recommend that every parent take time to study grandparenting styles — not because you need to skip ahead, but because understanding that softer, more spacious way of loving can transform how you show up right now. It can help you become not just a better parent, but one who genuinely enjoys their children while they’re still growing. Our kids are only little once. Life doesn’t have to be taken so seriously that we miss the magic unfolding right in front of us. Breathe. Laugh with them. Be in awe of them. You don’t have to wait until you’re a grandparent to love them this freely.
And we get the gift — the true gift — of witnessing it all unfold.
In awe. In love. And in deep reverence for life itself.
✨