HaYidion: Cover of the Parents issue
Last year, the 235-student Hebrew Academy of Morris County (HAMC) in Randolph, New Jersey, decided to take part in the Butterfly Project, launched by the San Diego Jewish Academy with the goal of creating 1.5 million butterflies in memory of all the children who died in the Holocaust. Naomi Bacharach, director of marketing and development at the school, and other administrators did not want students to work on their art projects in a vacuum—they knew the project would have more meaning if they invited grandparents to take part as well, painting side-by-side with the children and sharing their families’ histories.
“We’re all about ledor vador and passing from one generation to the next,” Bacharach said. “It’s critical. We’re trying to connect grandparents to our children and connect the past to the future of Klal Yisrael.” The students and grandparents made more than 400 butterflies for the project, just one example of how schools today are finding success by welcoming the older generation into their classrooms. The benefits are clear for the students, for parents with overtaxed schedules, and just maybe, for development funds needing a boost in a down economy.
The country’s 70 million grandparents represent one of the largest, fastest-growing, and most powerful segments of the U.S. population. Three in ten American adults are grandparents—an all-time high. And today’s grandparents are younger than ever before—the average age of first-time grandmothers in the United States is 50; for first-time grandpas, the average age is 54. Overall, 54 percent of grandparents are younger than 65. By 2015, 60 percent of grandparents will be Baby Boomers.
Grandparents.com recently commissioned Peter Francese, founder of American Demographics, to create The Grandparent Economy, a wide-reaching study that sheds new light on the economic clout of the country’s grandparents—and their commitment to their grandchildren. Here’s what he discovered:
The best-educated and most-skilled grandparents in history are prepared to bring their professional experience—and their bake-sale recipes—to their grandchildren’s schools. All administrators have to do is ask.
The baby-boom generation has never been one to sit back passively. When they get involved, they dive in with all of their considerable passion and energy. As grandparents, they’re not content to ask kids, “What are you doing in school?” during rote weekly phone calls. They want to see for themselves and they want to improve their grandchildren’s experiences, at day schools and elsewhere.
As a young mother, Mary Bourgeois of Metairie, Louisiana, spent countless hours volunteering at her children’s grade school. She was a “Room Mom” who baked, helped out in the classroom, and organized holiday celebrations. Today, the 62-year-old grandmother of five is president of the 172-member Grandparents Club at St. Philip Neri School in Metairie, where her 6-year-old grandson is in kindergarten. “I pour a lot of work into this,” Bourgeois says, “because I’m very passionate” about promoting grandparent involvement in schools.
St. Philip Neri principal Carol Stack deploys her school’s Grandparents Club on campus in a range of roles, from reading and science volunteers to lunch and recess monitors. “They can fill in and provide role models and examples,” Stack says.
At HAMC, Bacharach says, several grandparents volunteer in the school library; some also chair special committees of the parents association. “That’s a great way to bring in other grandparents,” she says, because it shows them that grandparents can take on substantial responsibilities in the school community.
In every area of need for your school, there’s probably a grandparent in the community who can contribute and make a difference. The key is getting to know them, inviting them in, giving them real tasks, and making them feel appreciated. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
“Over the past few years, we’ve gone from mostly one-parent-working households to more two-parents-working households,” Bacharach says. In practical terms, this shift has meant more grandparents doing drop-off and pick-up at the school and coming to special events in lieu of parents. “But you know what? I think it’s great. They don’t know what a service they’re doing for the children. There’s such a special bond that forms when grandparents are in the day-to-day lives of their grandkids.”
That bond is part of the “chain of love,” says Grandparents.com contributing editor Dr. Georgia Witkin, a psychologist specializing in family relationships and stress management—and a grandmother of three. It’s important, she says, for children to learn that more than one adult can care for them, and to understand, even subconsciously, that if anything should happen to their parents, their grandparents will be there for them. Seeing grandparents waiting to take them home from school, making them dinner when working couples can’t get home from work on time, or just giving them the undivided attention that bubbes and zaydes are famous for—it all helps to boost their feelings of security and self-confidence. A recent large-scale survey of adolescents between 11 and 16 found a strong connection between involved grandparents and teen well-being. In fact, adolescents who had daily contact with at least one grandparent were less likely to use recreational drugs.
And, of course, schools can hope that grandparents who spend time in their classrooms, and who become connected to the spirit and promise of their student bodies, will become donors as well. “For day schools, grandparents are an untapped resource both in terms of gift-giving and volunteerism,” Bacharach says. Several grandparents participate in her annual campaign and contribute to restricted funds, “and we have some grandparents who pay tuition for their grandchildren—that’s definitely a growing group. But,” she adds, “there could always be more.” ♦
Gary Drevitch is Senior Editor of Grandparents.com. He can be reached at Gary@grandparents.com.
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