10 Reasons Grandparents Are Often The Heart Of The Entire Family
Halfpoint | Canva My younger cousin and I grew up with our grandparents. They were basically our substitute parents whenever ours weren’t around. Even now, living halfway around the world from my grandmother, she never fails to remind me of the lessons she and my grandfather raised me with.
Every part of who I am today is because of the things they taught me. Whether through their unconditional love or the simple rituals they created for us around food and family gatherings, my grandparents are the heart of my entire family.
Here are 10 reasons grandparents are often the heart of the entire family:
1. Grandparents cookmeals that feel like home
I’m not just talking about grandma’s home-made cookies (my grandma has actually never made cookies in her life; she always bought them in a box). I mean, every time you’re at your grandparents' house, and they've made your favorite soup or cooked up a sweet rice cake, you know you can never get this special stuff anywhere else.
Meals tied to caregiving figures in childhood become deeply linked to feelings of safety and belonging in ways that no restaurant or recipe can ever replicate. Something about the way grandma makes that soup just hits differently, and your brain has been holding onto that feeling since you were small.
2. Grandparents instill a sense of adventure
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Every Saturday in my childhood, up until a stroke prevented him from doing so, my grandfather would wake my younger cousin and me up, and we’d ride his bicycle through the busy streets, dodging cars and buses on our way to the beach (me sitting on the bars in front, my cousin clinging to him from the back).
Was it safe? Definitely not. But hey, these days, I don’t even bat an eyelash running across the streets of Manhattan while a cabbie lays on his horn.
3. Grandparents remind you that anything with a hole can be mended
Shirts. Pants. Socks. Curtains. Table cloths. Anything with a hole can be fixed as long as you have your trusty thread, needle, and positivity that it will all work out.
Watching someone fix things with patience and a good attitude is one of the best gifts a grandparent can give, and kids who grow up around adults who work through challenges calmly tend to develop stronger coping skills of their own, according to resilience research.
4. Grandparents cover for you
My baby cousin and I used to play this game when we were young: Every Christmas, our grandma would put the tree out. It was a tiny plastic thing, standing no more than a foot, with tiny Christmas balls and ornaments and a tiny Christmas sock (this was before my mother realized how pathetic it was, so she bought a bigger, though still plastic, tree).
When our grandma wasn’t looking, we’d take all the ornaments and stuff them down our shirts before hiding. Grandpa, an accomplice to our crime, never 'fessed up when our Grandma questioned him about why the tree was bare. He always had our backs.
5. Grandparents pass down family history
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One of my favorite stories that Grandma tells is about the time the Japanese Inquisition forced our earliest family members out of their home to roam the forest for a while. The lore goes that a grandfather somewhere in the family line caught and cooked some questionable meat for dinner; she believed that it may have been a monkey.
These stories do more than entertain. They help younger generations understand where they came from and what values helped guide the family through different seasons of life. In this way, grandparents often become the living bridge between the past and the future.
6. Grandparents kill the spiders
There’s really nothing else to elaborate on. I don’t like spiders, and Grandpa takes care of them for me.
7. Grandparents show you your worth
My mother tells me that when I was no more than a year old, my grandfather used to tell her that when I grew up, I was to wait for someone truly worthy of me. Why? Because I’m precious and only the very best deserved me.
Being someone's most precious person has a way of sticking with you long after you've grown up. Children who feel genuinely valued by their grandparents consistently show stronger self-esteem and a more secure sense of who they are, even when other parts of life get complicated.
8. Grandparent put your comfort before their own
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I have childhood memories of waking up in the middle of wickedly hot nights with no air-conditioning and seeing, through my blurry just-woke-up-eyes, my grandmother fanning me with a paper fan. She’d tell me to close my eyes and go back to sleep. That is love.
That kind of quiet, unglamorous love is one of the strongest predictors of secure attachment in children, according to caregiving research. Kids remember it, even when they're too little to understand it at the time.
9. Grandparents are always with you, even when they aren't
My Grandpa passed away when I was four. I remember the loud wailing from my family members, but oddly, I don’t remember crying or even being sad.
When I grew up, I figured out why. It wasn’t because I didn’t realize he was never coming back; I just knew that no matter where he was, I'd always have his love. And that has held.
Children who lose a close grandparent often carry a lasting internalized sense of that person's love, and grief researchers have found it functions more as a source of quiet strength than as an absence. The bond doesn't disappear. It just shifts into something you carry with you.
10. Grandparents still see the beloved child in you, no matter how grown up you become
No matter how far you roam or what you accomplish, grandparents have a unique way of keeping you tethered to where you came from. Studies on intergenerational relationships find that grandchildren who maintain close contact with grandparents into adulthood report stronger feelings of belonging and emotional security.
"Be good to your mom and dad and to your friends," Grandma would always say at the end of our monthly phone calls. Will do, Grams.
Caithlin Pena is an editor and former contributor for YourTango. Her work has been featured on Thought Catalog, Huffington Post, Yahoo, Psych Central, and BRIDES.
