Grandfathers and their 'wow' factor

More and more Irish grandfathers are refining their parenting skills and catching up on family time with their grandchildren

Sometimes when Paul Murray (73) looks at his four grandchildren he is “startled” to remember they are the results of an infatuation he had for a young woman many years ago.

“This is what happens – it is the cream on the coffee,” he says of the next generation being born to some of the five children he and his wife, Lily, raised in Ballyfermot in west Dublin.

Having grown up in Drimnagh and started work at the age of 14, as a shoe shop delivery boy, he had a rule as a teenager that he would not go out with any girls at work or who lived locally. “I would only date girls who lived far away – they didn’t know me and I didn’t know them.”

Then Murray got friendly with a young man whose family had recently moved into the area; he had a sister . . . “She flashed her dark eyes and all my rules and regulations went.”

Wow factor

More than 50 years later they are proud grandparents – who still go dancing every Sunday night in the local GAA hall. Since his retirement from the paper and print industry he has had more time for writing – he had a collection of poems, entitled Paper Trail, published in 2010 – and he presents two programmes a week on West Dublin Access Radio, a community station.

“It is a nice, busy lifestyle and having the grandchildren – they are the ‘wow’ factor in my life. I was kind of a strict dad. I have mellowed.”

Like many a hard-working man of his generation, Murray feels he missed out on time with his own children. He regularly did overtime, in the Clondalkin and then Killeen paper mills, before 26 years at Ault Wiborg Newspaper Ink factory in Bluebell.

“Even though it seemed to work out relatively well with my kids, I did miss them a lot of times, busy trying to earn lots of pounds. The kids in fairness have never said anything like that, they understood.”

Now he collects his son Ciarán’s two children, Alannah (11) and Darragh (six), twice a week from their gaelscoil in Inchicore and brings them to his and Lily’s house for the afternoon.

Parenting roles

Many Irish grandfathers today see a significant difference in the way their sons parent compared with their role as fathers in the 1960s and 1970s.

For a start, most men attend the births of their children while their fathers would have been “run” from the door of the maternity hospital, as one grandfather puts it. For many, that slightly removed parental role continued as they concentrated on what they saw as their primary role of provider while the wife ran the home.

Murray, who would have been less inclined to show his emotions as a father than now as a grandfather, agrees that Ciarán is parenting in a different way, primarily because both he and his wife, Mary, go out to work. He recalls how he and Ciarán had many an argument in his youth, over religion and politics in particular.

“At the same time I see how soft he is with the kids – it is absolutely wonderful. Me and him had some hard stuff to do.”

He also acknowledges how Ciarán can cook. “I could never cook – I can make chicken and chips.”

More hands on

Fathers and expectant fathers today are much more hands on, says David Caren, founder of Dad.ieand author of The Irish Dad's Survival Guide to Pregnancy Beyond.

“It was unheard of in my own father’s day to attend antenatal appointments, never mind the birth itself.”

Few working men then would feed the baby or change a nappy, he points out. And there were no “celebrity dads” in the media making hands-on fatherhood “cool”.

“In my dad’s day it was John Wayne and George Best. Today it’s all about David Beckham and Brad Pitt – though in my dad’s defence of his role models, I couldn’t really see John Wayne pushing a buggy.”

But now when Caren’s dad comes to visit, he throws himself into entertaining the three grandchildren, reading books, making up stories and acting the clown.

“If he is catching up for lost time, I don’t know or care to know, what I do know is that my kids enjoy his company very much and are exhausted and saddened after he leaves.”

Grandfathers appear to be more involved with their grandchildren than before, according to Norwegian sociologist Knud Knudsen who conducted a survey of more than 5,000 grandparents in 11 European countries last year. He attributes this to various social and demographic changes.

Older people are healthier, living longer and can communicate more easily with family members. At the same time today’s parents are more occupied with work and career than previous generations.

Win-win position

It’s a “win-win position” says Knudsen of the University of Stavanger, whose research, subtitled “Why older men can be relatively good grandfathers”, was published in the journal Acta Sociologica. “Healthier and fitter grandparents who want to be with their grandchildren can be a big help to careerist parents in a hectic daily life.”

He also identified how a grandfather who still has his wife finds it easier to share in the life of his grandchildren. However, while women take the lead in grandparenting, the difference in gender roles diminishes as couples get older and “past 70, the grandfather usually takes the lead”, Knudsen notes.

Taking care of grandchildren is a blessing for many retired men, says Dermot Kirwan, spokesman for Friends of the Elderly.

A man who has been working all his life and whose social networks are tied up with his workmates often loses his identity when he retires. But if he is lucky enough to have grandchildren living nearby, he can find a whole new role.

Parental skills

“Often they are doing the things they should have done as fathers,” he comments. “Many of them worked the traditional five or five-and-a-half day week. They are rediscovering the parental skills they may never have had the first time round.”

Equally, in these difficult economic times young parents are falling back on the resource of grandparents, Kirwan observes. “They have the time and usually they are unburdened by debt. Grandparents are back in vogue big time.”

He also points out that generally grandfathers in their 60s today are not into booze and cigarettes the way men 10 years their senior would have been and are therefore more able and willing to be involved with their grandchildren. And he sees lots of “sprightly grand-

fathers” stepping into the job of male role model for children in one-parent families.

Murray admits that 10 years ago he had a very bleak outlook for life after retirement. He imagined he would have no work to do, very little money and that his health would be gone.

“It has actually turned out to be the opposite. Without being misty-eyed about it, it is a wonderful life I have.”

To him balance is key – because he is busy with his own activities, he appreciates better the time spent with both the two younger grandchildren, as well as the other two who live in Santry and who they see about once a fortnight now that they are teenagers.

He sums up the grandparent role as that of providing lots of security in the background. “When they come in here, they always treat it as they would their own house and they would sleep over now and then. I think that creates a kind of safety net.

“I can be philosophical with them,” he adds, “more than I could be with my own kids.”

'I admire them for their knowledge and how young they all mature at'

When it comes to being a grandfather, Thomas O’Flaherty’s advice is not to overdo it.

“Don’t try to take the place of the mother or the father because you can be given the cold shoulder,” he warns.

Also, “if you can manage it at all, be as generous as you can with your grandchildren because it’s about the only thing they will remember you for,” he laughs.

“It also gives you a feel-good factor if you can make things easier for grandchildren.

“The more you give, the better you feel. We live in a very selfish world nowadays.”

O’Flaherty (75), a father of three, grandfather of eight and due to become a great-grandfather in April, has limited time with his grandchildren, aged from seven to 29, because they are busy and so is he – and the three youngest live in London, while the eldest is in the US.

“I wouldn’t be hanging out with them,” he says. “How would I put it to you? Children get very boring at times as I am sure granddads can.

“We would not always be on the same wavelength.

“They have their iPads and their laptops – that is the way they communicate. Talking to granddad is like talking a different language.”

For his part, he leaves all computer-related matters to his wife, Barbara.

A retired tailor, O’Flaherty has lived in Clondalkin for 46 years and is involved with the Clondalkin Active Retirement Association and the Toastmasters. He is also a very keen gardener.

Born on a farm on the Merrion Road in Dublin, he grew up on Donore Avenue off the South Circular Road.

“I got all my enjoyment on the street. We all hung around in gangs – every street had its own gang.”

He acknowledges how different childhood is for his grandchildren.

“Nowadays most children need enjoyment but they don’t create much of it themselves. But they all have great minds now.

“I admire them for their knowledge and how young they all mature at.”

'I see my late wife in some of them. They have this great ability to think and care'

Kevin Molloy (71), pictured left, reckons he was a more hands-on parent than many of his contemporaries becoming fathers in the 1960s. But with six children under eight at one stage, he had to be involved.

And yes he changed their nappies – but that is something, he admits, he cannot bear to do for anybody else’s children.

“They grew up like little peas in a pod,” says Molloy,who lives in Gorey, Co Wexford, and worked in the post office for 46 years. Now each of them is married with their own children and he has 18 grandchildren ranging in age from 19 to five and all, astonishingly, living within a seven-mile radius of his home.

Pride

Sadly his wife Mary died two months before their first grandchild was born. As well as her being robbed of the chance to be a grandmother, he feels her death has meant he missed out on grandparenting too.

She would have been a very hands-on granny and the grandchildren would have been around the house more, he points out. “She was that type of person. I would have been up to my tonsils in it.”

However, his pride at the way his own children turned out, and now his grandchildren, is evident.

“I look at my grandchildren growing up and they don’t seem to have a problem with a lot of things in life.” It is what they have seen at home and what their parents have seen, he suggests.

Even-handed

Molloy is very conscious of being even-handed with all 18 of them, knowing the problems that can arise if a grandparent favours a child – “there was even a bit of that with my own mother and father. I was determined that was not going to happen.

“I don’t run to every one of their birthdays – with 18 I can’t, I have a life as well.” He is very busy working both locally and nationally with the Active Retirement Association, which has 550 clubs across the country.

“I confine myself to attending all first communions, confirmations and the next round I suppose will be marriages.” While he gives all the grandchildren presents at Christmas and birthdays, they don’t expect things in between.

“They know when they come to my house there is always a can of Coke around and they know the corner where the goodies are but they don’t expect granddad to give them a fiver.”

Tough for teens

The 18 grandchildren are all very close, he says, and look out for one another. “I see my late wife in some of them. They have this great ability to think and care.”

But he thinks life is tough for teenagers today – “I would hate to be starting over” – and he worries about the older ones when they socialise at night.

“You don’t know what you are going to hear on Sunday morning. While they are good and they won’t get themselves into trouble, they don’t have to – in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

“In my days the worst that would happen is you turn around and somebody gives you a box in the mouth. Today it is just frightening.”

They are in and out of his house. He set up a study area so the older children could work for exams in peace. His computer is also an attraction. “They have laptops of their own but I seem to be the one with the printer. My ink goes very quick at times.”

He enjoys their company and “they think I am cool at times too” – such as when he went with some of them to the final concert of the Boyzone farewell tour in Croke Park last June.

He adds: “I have no hair but I can let the hair down.”