They Tell Me And Not Their Mother

They tell you things.

Not enormous things, most of the time. Ordinary fifteen year old things: what is going on with a friend, what somebody said, what they are actually worried about as opposed to what they say at dinner.

And they do not tell your daughter, who is their mother, and who would want to know all of it, and who has no idea any of it exists.

And you have been sitting between those two facts for about a year, and it is not a comfortable place, and there is nobody to consult about it, because consulting anybody would be the very thing under consideration.

I want to give you something usable, because I think you have been carrying a genuine responsibility with no framework at all.

Children's children are the crown of old men

There is a proverb about this exact position that names it as an honor rather than a difficulty.

Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers. (Proverbs 17:6, King James Version)

Children's children are the crown of old men.

A crown is worn rather than earned, and it is a position rather than an achievement. And notice that the proverb runs in both directions in one sentence: the grandchildren are the crown of the old, and the fathers are the glory of the children.

Nobody is left out of that arrangement, and nobody is competing in it.

You are wearing a position rather than holding something taken from anybody, and it was never a competition that put you where you are. Proverbs 17:6 sets both directions in one line without ranking them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as an arrangement rather than as a delicate situation.

And notice that the crown is not described as a job. There is nothing in that proverb about what an old person is supposed to do with grandchildren. It names a relation and stops, which leaves you with judgment rather than a rule.

You have been left with judgment rather than a rule, and it was never a failure of Scripture to be silent about the details. The written word names the position and declines to specify the duties, and the Spirit of God is what makes an old woman's own discretion the right instrument.

Why they tell you and not her

Now the thing that will take a weight off, because I do not think anybody has said it.

It is not that they trust you more.

It is a matter of jurisdiction. A grandmother cannot ground anybody. Nothing has to be done about what she hears. Telling you costs almost nothing, and telling their mother costs a possible consequence and a possible worry and a face they have to watch while they say it.

That is not a comment on your daughter's parenting. It is a structural fact about being a parent, and every parent alive has it, and none of them can put it down.

Being told is a position and not a possession, and what you hold is held for them and not from anybody.

You are not being preferred over their mother, and it was never a verdict on her that put those sentences in your hands. Proverbs 17 names both directions of the relation without setting them against each other, which is exactly why the Spirit of God does not leave a grandmother feeling like she has taken something.

And that reframing does real work, because it means what you have is not evidence of a problem in that house. It is a normal property of the position you hold, and it would be true if your daughter were the finest parent who ever lived, which for all I know she is.

The line, and what is on each side

So the practical part, and it is a line rather than a rule.

Keep what is not dangerous. Pass on what is.

You are able to hold a confidence and to break one, and it has never once been the same decision twice. The passage names the position and leaves the discretion with the person in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman deciding one thing at a time on a street.

Dangerous is not the same as serious, and it is not the same as upsetting. Dangerous means somebody could be harmed. If a grandchild tells you something that puts them or anybody else at risk, that goes to their mother today, and you tell the child you are doing it and why, and you accept the cost of it, which may be that they stop telling you things. That cost is worth paying and it is not a close call.

Everything below that line is theirs, and keeping it is not deceiving your daughter. It is holding a confidence, which is an ordinary human duty and not a betrayal of anybody.

You are able to keep something without it being a secret against anybody, and it has never once been disloyalty to be trusted. Proverbs 17:6 puts the crown and the glory in the same sentence with no competition in it, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present with an old woman deciding what is hers to hold.

And the third thing, which nobody ever says: you may tell your daughter that they talk to you, without telling her what about. That is usually a gift rather than a wound.