A child has one father and one mother but has two grandfathers and two grandmothers – the paternal and the maternal. Covid times, with work from home (Wf H) arrangement in many sectors especially IT, gave the children the rare privilege to be with their grandparents. Grandparents, paternal and maternal, took turns looking after their second generation. But for Covid, such times would have been just limited to a few days, depending on the leave availed by the parents. The pandemic transformed nuclear families into joint families; parents, siblings, and their children staying together under one roof. This experience is a mixed bag of wows and woes indeed!

Wows: From the commencement of the lockdown my two children, were working from our home. We had under our care their four children, their ages ranging from just born to four years. Observing the children at close quarters and with undivided attention, we were exposed to the wonder of the gradual but steady growth of a human child. This was something we badly missed during our time of parenting, due to our pressing engagements with our careers at that stage. Each day was a revelation. We were wonder-struck at how meticulously the creator pre-programmed the human body to grow from suckling to tiny tot to toddler to kid and into the pre-schooler. We the grandparents keenly watched with awe, the snail-paced transformations of the newborn – squirming,  rolling over, recognising people, responding to our communication, crawling, squatting, walking, picking up words, chattering, expressing their emotions, eating, drinking, reacting to our requests, playing around, finding joy in their own way, picking up from our conversations and mannerisms, asking questions on anything and everything for which we may not always have answers, recollecting what we have told them, grasping concepts and ideas, exploring on their own…

Woes: when they started running around the house, exploring, we had adventures and misadventures almost every day. The responses and the reactions to such events varied from adult to adult in the house. I would scold others for not taking precautions to prevent little mishaps. My better half appreciated the children’s ingenuity in venturing into the unusual. My daughter consoled me offering to do the reparation for their misadventures. And my son and his life partner are very patient and take time to instruct the children with details on the pros and cons of their every move. We were not able to reach a consensus on dealing with such situations. I was reminded of the song from the English classic movie The Sound of Music (1965)

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

How do you keep a wave upon the sand?

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

Coincidently, my eldest grandchild’s name is Maria. How can we contain the exuberance, zest, and vigor of this new generation? We, in our own way, managed the situations as they came along.

What is the meaning of the writings on the walls?

We, as young parents, moved to the newly constructed house in 1988 with our three children with the youngest hardly one year and the others at three and four years old. They never disfigured the walls with childish graffiti. Come now to our house and you will find scribblings with pencil, crayons, and sketch pens on the walls to the heights the kids can reach.

The writings on the wall convey:

• The grand children have more freedom than the children.
• The grandchildren are more active, smarter and difficult to be contained
• The old gen governing the world is not competent to contain and channel the ingenuity, exuberance and ideas of the next gen.
• Time to let go of the traditional/conventional regulations and norms to allow the next gen to reach their full potential.