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Aroha mai, aroha atu

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Now that I am a grandmother, I think quite deliberately about the influence I want to be as a grandmother for my own. Grandparents can be such a force for good (and not so good too) in the lives of their grandchildren. Grandmothers can be the glue that holds a family together, maintains family traditions, reminds wayward whānau who they are and where they belong, and a source of unconditional love. One evolutionary theory I enjoyed showed that that societies with present grandmothers survived and fared a whole lot better than those that didn’t – I suspect its due to the longevity, the retention of wisdom, and the extra pair of hands to keep young ones well, that can prepare a meal or medical potion with limited resources. My own ever-present grandmother, Kathleen Dorothy Bowater (nee Cleaver) died a few years ago, aged 96. She was and continues to be a truly influential person in my life.  Nan passed on to me her love of playing and composing music, of reading, of good British drama, o

Unexpectedly, a village

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Unexpectedly, my daughter (25) and her partner found themselves living with us in the last few weeks of her first pregnancy. They weren’t exactly excited about it. In their ideal imaginings, expecting their much wanted first baby, what they did not expect was to be back in her childhood bedroom, sharing a kitchen, bathroom and living area with her parents and siblings. Becoming an adult in our culture generally involves living independently in your own home, not with the 'olds'. Yet, here they were; pregnant, expectant and unable to nest or set up the baby’s room, or any of the other things she imagined she’d be doing at this time, all she could do, in fact, was rest. While honouring their disappointment, I harboured the suspicion that it was possibly the best thing any new parent could ask for, even though they didn’t realise it, yet. How could they? None of us really knows what to expect before that squishy ball of raw human need enters the world from the soft confines of h