People approach old age in different ways. Oliver Wendell Holmes argued that “Old age is always fifteen years older than I am” while Maurice Chevalier considered that “Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.” John Mortimer found that “The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing”; Theodore Roosevelt was more practical and honest, saying that “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” All wise words! Then there was one gentleman who had a simple approach to age; when he got to fifty, he turned around so that when we might have considered him fifty-one, he saw himself as forty-nine and by the time he reached seventy (in our terminology) he said he was thirty!

In many ways he was perhaps following the thinking of Shakespeare in his play ‘As You Like It’ when he spoke of the seven stages of man. Life starts for “the Infant (helpless and dependent, crying and vomiting in the nurse’s arms)” before becoming “the Whining Schoolboy (creeping slowly and reluctantly like a snail with his satchel on the way to school)” and then “the Lover (highly emotional and romantic, sighing like a furnace and writing sad poetry for his crush)”. Thereafter he becomes “the Soldier (quick to fight, full of strange oaths, bearded, and fiercely seeking temporary honour and reputation)” leading to “the Justice (a middle-aged judge with a round belly, severe eyes, a formal beard, and full of wise advice).” All that remains after that is “the Pantaloon (an elderly man grown thin, wearing slippers and spectacles, with a shrinking body and a high, childish voice)” and ultimately he “enters his Second Childhood (extreme old age leading to the final loss of teeth, eyes, memory, and physical faculties, ending the play).” The old man ends up just like the baby; he has gone full circle.

In a previous article [‘Fatal Distraction’] we heard of the phrase “Two and a half people”, referring not to two adults and one child, as we would expect, but rather to two children and one adult, as a child has got his whole life ahead of him and the adult only has half. What then, in the light of our preamble above, will that make a pensioner? Is he half of a half? Or is he maybe nothing? He has very little of life left, yet what experience he has. How we do the maths may determine how we view the pensioner. Think for a moment, though, where the pensioner is, returning to the state of a child – helpless, inactive and weak. What is more, the pensioner, so like the child, is now the grandparent.

One unknown writer quipped that “If I had known grandkids were so much fun, I would have had them first.” Gene Perre suggested that “Grandparents are there to help the child get into mischief they haven’t thought of yet” while Ogden Nash noted that “When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window.” Sam Levenson argued that “The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy”, adding that “The simplest toy, one which even the youngest child can operate, is called a grandparent.” The role of the grandparent, whether a pensioner or not, is exactly that – a grand parent. This sekuru or gogo has so much to give to the child, having been a child and a parent, even if they perhaps were not entirely good at either role.

The reality is that as a grandparent comes down the aging scale and reaches the young years again, they are best placed to influence the child, knowing how parents react and knowing what children want. They become brothers and sisters for the young ones, friends with lots of experience but lots of fun too, gathered over many years and fostered favourably.

Too often though we may see pensioners and grandparents, not as a distraction (as some parents are in danger of seeing their children) but as a subtraction or an extraction – something of little great use. Parents are caught in the middle; they have parents and they are parents. There were children (and always are) and they have children. Grandparents though have great benefit for children; every child must have someone who is or who acts as a grandparent. Why do children not adopt grandparents, choose them for themselves, if they do not have any? After all, if old age is like everything else, that you have got to start young, let them learn from the best at the earliest.