WAYFINDERS, SHAMANS, AND GRANDPARENTS: THE WISDOM BRIDGE
Walking to the store with your grandfather and buying rock candy, licking the cake batter off grandmother’s baking bowl, or in the case of my three-year-old granddaughter, cuddling up in my lap and watching the night sky: grandparents and grandchildren share a connection that makes even the mundane memorable. In their togetherness, wisdom flows from one generation to another.
Sometimes I think about why the connection between grandparents and grandchildren feels so special. Is it familial love or is something else at play? There are many theories, and the one I find compelling is from the late American comedian and author Sam Levenson. I remember a joke which went like, “Grandparents and grandchildren get along so well because they share a common enemy.” Ha!
Jokes aside, according to anthropologists, what makes the connection between grandparents and grandchildren special goes back thousands of years, to our days as hunter-gatherers. In those times, when children were old enough to stay apart from their parents, grandparents, mainly the grandmothers, took care of the children. While parents hunted and foraged for food, the grandmothers taught the children how to spot water sources, how to make a fire and how to hunt; essentially, how to survive. Anthropologists believe that the care and nurturing by our grandparents is one of the reasons why the human race survived, while other species stronger and bigger than we are were wiped out.
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