Matters of life and love

BY SARAH TOLMIE

READER QUESTION: “I’m going to be a grandmother in April 2024. I’m still in my 50’s. I feel young and finally free of intensive parenting duties with my kids only now just adults. I must admit – I feel a bit cheated. I wanted to have some time free to myself before being enrolled into grandparenting. How do I hide my annoyance and get enthusiastic? And I don’t want to be called grandma, nanny, nan or gran! How do I approach this?”

Dearly Beloved

I hear you ‘sister’!!!! Whilst I have children who are ‘technically’ adults now, I also feel too young and not ready to share my new–found middle–aged freedom with grand kids yet. Or at least, that is what one ‘part’ of my brain thinks. Another part goes completely ‘mush’ at babies. I love them so much and rarely get access to fresh ones, so when I do, it is completely delightful and heavenly.

Middle–age freedom is heavenly too though, isn’t it?! My husband and I are three years into child–free time and it is fantastic. It’s like being teenagers again but with some money and no one telling you what you must do and no assignments due! It’s amazing!

We go to gigs, take mid–week evening classes and go away for weekends. All that, and we can leave the dog and house for adult child to look after. And he pays rent! It’s a revelation. I now get why we had kids…finally all the hard work hits pay day. (Oh, and they are great humans who fill our world with love and meaning too…of course!)

I think you are allowed to feel cheated and not feel guilty about it. It’s a feeling. Honour it and be witness to its message to you. Your feelings are just looking after you. Find out what it is telling you.

Maybe it is there to ensure you consider and balance your needs and desires with any duty and/or requests for help and your time and your energy. It is asking of you to check your resources and capacity – like a light going off on the dashboard making sure you check the oil so you can run smoothly.

In couple or relationship therapy, I talk about magic ampersand’ – the word AND – and how it allows for multiple realities, experiences, feelings and truths. The magic ampersand (&) offers more choice and flexibility than saying “BUT”. You can have your feeling & it doesn’t have to be the only truth going on. You can feel cheated, AND worried, AND excited, AND delighted.

Our feelings are our internal GPS continually auto–correcting and recalibrating with each new location point in life, keeping us on track. And here’s the amazing thing…you get to set the direction or the coordinates for where you want to go.

AND, guess what?! That is also what your adult child is doing – owning his/ her own life and making their own choices and doing their thing. They are in their own life vehicle and setting their own direction.

You are now moving into a new relationship with your child, their partner and your soon–to–be grandchild. This is just a new ‘iteration’ of the relationship evolution to navigate. Like every relationship before and to come, you need to share your feelings, needs and wants and also take others into consideration and care too.

An arriving grandchild may alter the upcoming landscape ahead – AND – you are still in the driver’s seat. It is how you navigate through this – deciding on what you want and what is important to you. When you add the magic ampersand into your thinking – you can be a young AND free grandma – AND –you can even choose your own grandma name. Just make one up!

For me, when the time comes, I’ve already decided on my ‘nanna name’ and it is not nanna. My close family call me Sarzi – so I think for the new family members to come we can just stick to that. Sarzi. (A part of me can’t wait)

Enjoy the delights ahead and welcome the new life, new love.

Much love,

Sarah x

Sarah Tolmie – Life & Love: Sarah is a marriage therapist, life & love and relationship coach, end–of–life consultant, an independent and bespoke funeral director and holistic celebrant. She provides holistic care, mentoring, guidance, healing and transformation for individuals, couples and families at their most important times of life & love – at end–of–life, in love & relationship, and in ritual and celebration. Sarah has a series of online courses – “Creating a Miracle Marriage. Online Course for Couples” and “How do you feel? Using the intelligence of our emotions to heal and be whole in Life & Love and “Landscapes of Life & Love and Loss. Traversing the pathways of dying, death and grief”. To find out more, visit sarahtolmie.com.au.