As reported by usatoday.com: "According to 2010 U.S. Census data, 4.9 million American children are being raised solely by their grandparents. The number is almost double that of the 2000 Census -- 2.4 million." Whether grandparents are raising their grandchildren solely and without the aid of their grandchild's biological parents, or whether they are helping to raise grandchildren in conjunction with the parents, more and more grandparents are taking a more prominent and meaningful role in the raising of today's children, and that trend doesn't appear to be on track to reverse itself anytime soon. In general, the more family members that take an interest in any child's life and development, the better that child's life will be, because children more often than not, need attention, need validation, and need love.
The thing about grandparents that often puts them in such a favorable position in regards to their aid in the raising of grandchildren can be broken down into many factors. For instance, grandparents typically have more time to interact with children, they are often more accommodating, more patient, more generous, more experienced, less sensitive, and have more wisdom, than parents do. In addition, grandparents often don't have conflicts such as ambition, night school, too many hours at work, or fatigue from work, liaisons illicit or not, being overwhelmed by too many things at once, and so forth. In general, grandparents are just more relaxed and more settled than parents are, with less concern about themselves and more concern about others, and generally a more appreciative outlook about the more important and vital things in life.
It's tough being a parent, to which, some are parents far too young, inexperienced, underfunded, immature, and struggling to make ends meet, to name just a few ofthecommon everyday parenting issues. Obviously, the more things on any particular parent's plate, the more difficult it is for that parent to be a good parent, even if that parent has a great desire to be so, and coupled that with the inevitable mistakes that are made as a parent, leads often to a poor or a not desirable relationship between parent and child occurring.
Not only does a grandparent have the advantages of time, wisdom, and experience, more often than not, grandparents see their renewed opportunity when thrust into the role of being a parent again, of making good on all the things that they felt they fell short on, the first time around. While, grandparents may not have the physical capacity to get out and play with their grandchildren the way that a parent would, they compensate for this by virtue of the fact that grandparents listen to and pay better attention to their grandchildren.
Obviously, every child wants to feel love, and the way that grandparents demonstrate this is by their willingness to joyfully interact with their grandchildren, wanting what is best for them, listening to their stories no matter how repetitious and circuitous, and nurturing them. Too often, parents don't have the time to follow suit, and just want a child to hush, and to not be a nuisance, unable to understand that children desperately need their parental authorities to acknowledge them at the place where they are, and to see the world, if even for a moment, with the eyes of a child. Grandparents intuitively understand this better because grandparents are often much more reflective, at ease, and receptive to the big, unblinking eyes of a child that still sees a big Heaven.