The Joy of Nanahood: When Your Child Becomes A Parent

Guest post By Rebecca Faye Smith Galli

“The Brittany”

It’s the video our family cannot stop watching. My daughter, Brittany—or “The Brittany” as my father playfully named his one-of-a-kind strong-willed granddaughter, was challenged by her own daughter, ten-month-old Blakely Faye.

I earned my parenting stripes early with The Brittany. She was known for her masterful limit-testing. (Do you know how long it took me to come up with that euphemistic phrase?) Anyway, let’s just stay my daughter was an independent thinker and doer and unafraid to question almost anything.

My father wrote about one conversation he overheard between the two of us. Brittany, who at age three still thought that any word that began with an “L” is pronounced with a “W,” was “brim full and running over with parental guidance and authority,” Dad observed. “She’d had it.”

“Mom,” she asked. “Why do I have to wisten to you?”

I still remember those defiant eyes, the adorable lisp, but have no idea what I said in reply other than it was NOT “because I said so.” That never sufficed for The Brittany.

And now it’s her turn. I wonder what that precious Blakely Faye will teach my daughter.

I can’t stop shaking my head and laughing! This strange mixture of, “what goes around comes around” and, “welcome to parenthood” keeps tickling my heart.

Then I remember more words from my father’s column.

“A river never runs deep until it finds its banks of limitations.”

Yep. That’s our job as parents. I wonder how many times Brittany will say, “Mommy says no.”  Goodness knows she knows how to question. Now she has a turn providing answers.

But not me! Oh, another joy of Nanahood. I think I’ll teach her, “Nana B says yes.”

Watching your child parent their own child brings a special fulfilling feeling, don’t you agree? Tell me about it. I’d love to know what you’ve learned or experienced.

My best—always,

Becky (Nana B)

 

Bio: Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (Becky) is a reluctant-but-obsessed columnist who writes about love, loss, and healing.  Surviving significant losses—her seventeen-year-old brother’s death; her son’s degenerative disease and subsequent death; her daughter’s autism; her divorce; and nine days later, her paralysis from transverse myelitis, a rare spinal cord inflammation that began as the flu—has fostered an unexpected but prolific writing career. In 2000, The Baltimore Sun published her first column about playing soccer with her son—from the wheelchair. Fifteen years later, with 400 published columns and a completed memoir, she launched, Thoughtful Thursdays—Lessons from a Resilient Heart, a weekly column for her subscriber family that shares what’s inspired her to stay positive. She also periodically contributes to the Baltimore Sun’s Op-Ed page, Midlife Boulevard, Nanahood and The Mighty. Her memoir will be published next June. Join her Thoughtful Thursdays family here.