Every Child Counts

Often discussion of children’s issues is framed around the needs of children in isolation or in the context of the nuclear family only.  Politically, this can end up pitting the economic interest of the different generations against each other in competition for scarce financial resources. 

Families, of course, are much more than simply children and parents. Grandparents, for example, have a special relationship with their grandchildren in providing love and the sharing of values.

Every Child Counts has created this page where Professor Judith Davey of the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, herself a grand-parent, writes about grandparents and grandchildren.

• Grands and Greats - Being and having a grandparent are fundamental family experiences. As people live longer, more and more of them will experience grandparenthood and even great-grandparenthood. More and more children will know their parents’ parents and probably the generation before that. And these intergenerational relationships will last longer, providing the opportunity for them to become closer and more meaningful.
•  Grandparents raising grandchildren -  Many grandparents say that the best thing about grandparenting is that you can love and enjoy them and send them back. But what if “sending back” is not an option? What if grandparents find themselves full-time and long-term carers for their children’s children?
• Older people are family too - We hear a lot about families caring (or not caring) for their older members. What should their responsibilities be? Do some cultures do it better than others? This is an important topic and important questions, but they concern only one aspect of the part which older people play in families. They are not just “receivers”, they are major “givers”.