The World Of Grandchildren   Lilia P. Westmore     © Copyright 2003 by Lilia P. Westmore

Grandchildren live in a fantasy world, where monsters roam, where dragons breathe fire, where angels are their appointed guardians, where a Santa Claus is real and believable, and where the tooth fairy is their financial partner.

Granchildren are in a world of their own, a make-believe place where school is but an idea from their parents and their grandparents; where homework is forbidden; where teachers are nonexistent; where the Game Boy is on the top of the list as a present; where birthday gifts are a given, and where they are a talented generation of their own that roam the earth.

Grandchildren live in a world of magic, filled with dreams colored in rainbow hues. They have the ability to adjust to a fast-changing enrivonment, heightened only by the exercise of their rich imagination. They believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- to allow them to reach their golden dreams. Without hesitation, they believe there is a god who knows all and sees all, including every little thought they formulate, consciously or subconsciously.

Grandchildren have two sides to their psyche: the goodness in which they are born with, and the badness which they acquire as they grow into adulthood. At a tender age of youth, they profess to understand the world of the adult, which they solemnly vow to alter upon attaining the age of puberty. They are fearless in their attempt to go where adults before them refuse to consider. In their endeavor to attain adulthood at the peril of failure, grandchildren show determination to face the real adult world, using three levels of growth: the kindergarten age, the grade school/high school age, and the college/university age.

At kindergarten, grandchildren experience their first contact with the element of copyright. They learn to copy the actions of their classmates, such as grabbing someone else's toy, hitting another, pushing for a place in the line, taking someone's property, fighting. In their childlike way, grandchildren are faced with moments of goodness as well as short flashes of badness. There is a word they learn to ignore -- NO.

At the grade school/high school age, grandchildren are afforded the chance to seek the quickest way to adulthood. They begin to articulate more in the written and oral language of their generation, which is a conglomeration of half-witty utterances which they copy without regard to ownership. The classrooms and the playgrounds become activity centers in which they practice their individuality, in which they face a choice of violence or passive action; responsibility to duty or disobedience; contentment or greed, and altruism or selfishness. Their own homes, the parks, the library, and other public places become the hub of operation as they prepare for the jump over to adulthood.

As granchildren reach the college/university age, they become quite accomplished in what field of professional work their interest lie: medical doctor, registered nurse, lawyer, banker, church
priest/minister, to name but a few. The competition to get to the top is harsh but they are a hot, determined lot; to them there is no excuse to slow down nor slouch because the goal is glaringly a step away, just around the corner. Their decision requires no second opinion. They cannot turn the clock back, they stand by their decision to keep after that point of growth, where there is no return, and the end of the road where their search for the proverbial pot of gold is attainable, reachable, and above all, grabbable.

Granchildren are a breed of exceptional intellect. As the third generation of a family, they are born with unbelievable logic that defies the norm of reasoning upon which their parents designed their children's future, and on which grandparents, at the crossroad of old age, hope to regain their lost youth.

The world of grandchildren is unique, rare in the sense of exceptional, different. Unlike the generation before them, grandchildren are builders of a world of their own choosing, allowing no intervention from any other outside their circle of group, whether they are their parents or their grandparents. They are solid in their desire to succeed, opting only for the best, the tops, and never turning back once they know adulthood is but a step away.

Granchildren are good at heart. They belong to a species of protected babes, conceived and born under the umbrella of love from their parents, their grandparents, their uncles, their aunties, and their whole world of kin and relations. They belong to a generation of the good, and whose goodness shines through even though their sense of understanding is clouded with doubts. They are resilient, capable of change; they are susceptible, vulnerable to the influence of both the good and the bad, and their choice of which side they prefer to belong would prove either their strength or their weakness.

Grandchildren learn to shift through a maze of the good and the bad, and either they save that which is good and discard the bad which they consider inappropriate, wrong, unacceptable. At times they face a heart-rending choice between what is good and what is bad, which would leave them spiritually drained and physically exhausted. However, the partial loss of physical strength is only temporary as they push ahead with sheer effort of mind, growing in determination and wit.

Grandchildren lose a certain amount of their spirit in the process of growing up, but inherent in them is the ability to cull the whole gamut of their parents' and their grandparents' generational capabilities and select that which would nurture their endeavor the most. They are no weaklings. A serious study of their parents' generation -- as well as that of their grandparents -- have become an armor with which they are able to restore the essence of their life. Exhaustion be damned, and the drain to their spirits is seen as but a temporary loss of light -- a blackout -- from which recovery is as natural as night into day.

Grandhcildren teeter between the good and the bad and become non-persona in the process; but the test they undergo is a tiny hurdle that is as easy for them to jump over as they recover and develop their own strength of character, even in the face of conflict. They would allow, albeit grudgingly and in small terms only, the participation and the intervention from their parents and/or their grandparents as long as the adults keep within their line of paternal guidence, which is predicated on the freedom of thought and action they themselves have set as norm, and which would bring only success into their effort.

Grandchildren do get lost, unable to cope at times. Some of them fall through the cracks, get lost in the whirlwind that characterizes their climb to the top, and find themselves in a world of confusion. But the majority of their breed retain their perspective, their will to attain adulthood, and become the frontrunners of their generation to be the first, to win at all costs, to be the tops in their bid for freedom and sensibility.

Adulthood is finally attained, grandchildren have arrived. The struggle is over, the path is cleared, the world becomes theirs. They are grandchildren no more. What now?
 
 

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