My dad’s mother was tough. She was a single mom. Her husband, an evangelist, was very abusive to my grandmother. She left him when their youngest was seven to flee from his abuse. She found a place for her and all the kids to live, came and got them, and never looked back.
She never remarried and raised nine children with a relaxed hand and a tight rein. My dad and his brothers feared her when they were growing up. When her youngest daughter became pregnant, she helped raise those kids while working full-time because her daughter could not work. I have nothing but high respect for my grandmother for her wisdom, courage, and sacrifice in leaving a horrific situation
in an era and a region where wives fleeing abusive husbands was relatively uncommon. My dad and uncles became very protective of her when she got older.
Grandparents raising grandchildren today, mostly by living with them, are at an all-time high in the US at 10% of the population. 64% of parent-maintained households have their grandmother living with them. Read about it here: US Census on Grandparents. Grandparents who are raising their grandchildren at a time in life when they thought they’d be retired or free of daily worries over minor children should still garner nothing but our highest respect.
Grandparents who are raising their grandchildren at a time in life when they thought they’d be retired or free of daily worries over minor children should still garner nothing but our highest respect. Click To TweetThey already raised one generation of children. Now they’re raising another. Instead of the parents doing it, it is the grandmother who kisses the kids’ boo-boos when they’re little, takes them to school and to doctor’s appointments, prepares meals, teaches them math and manners, and passes along the heritage of their culture and their family.
They have to do all this while walking the delicate balance between what they see going on wrong and not wanting to interfere with their adult children’s lifestyles and childrearing skills.
The strength and wisdom that got grandmothers through parenting the first time are now refined by experience and facts. They know they have what it takes to raise grandchildren, though they may get physically tired sooner.
These grandmothers are sharing resources, sometimes scant resources, to ensure that their grandchildren will have the essentials for growing up strong and healthy. My simple post today is to thank and praise grandmothers, especially single grandmothers, all over the world who have to raise or help raise grandchildren.
There are millions of single grandmothers all over the world who are helping raise or completely raising their grandchildren.
There are whole villages of grandmothers raising grandchildren all over Africa because the parents of the grandchildren have died from AIDS.
There are grandmothers raising grandchildren in the US because the grandkids have been abused or neglected, or their parents were incarcerated or hospitalized, either medically or psychiatrically. American grandparents also find themselves raising grandchildren while the parents are addicted to substances, whether or not treatment is being utilized.
There are grandmothers raising grandchildren in Australia because the parents are working or going to school.
There are grandmothers raising grandchildren in Central America because their young daughters get pregnant early and have to work. It is common for girls to get pregnant in their mid teens, and grandmothers are created as early as age 30. The young moms go to work as it’s easier for them to find and keep jobs due to having the stamina to work outside the home every day.
There are grandmothers raising grandchildren in China so that they don’t become abandoned “left behind children” while their parents work in the industrialized cities. Many more Chinese grandmothers are raising granddaughters who would have otherwise been left in a baby hatch for the state welfare system to raise due to the government’s restrictions on how many children a family may have, and most couples want boys, particularly as firstborns.
Grandmothers have to raise their grandchildren in the most challenging era of their lives. Most of us who have any cultural awareness at all realize how much harder it is to raise young children in today’s fast-paced, technological, atmosphere.
We have been labeled the “microwave culture” because we have the ability to demand and get whatever we want in an extremely compressed amount of time.
We have technology that has advanced beyond our wildest imaginations of a generation ago, technology that gives us instant access to any information or form of entertainment at our fingertips. Instant access strips away our ability to develop character qualities like patience and integrity. It strips it from every generation as all ages become more familiar with technology.
Schedules have gotten faster as we try to cram more into our schedules. Families are splitting up over issues like adultery, addiction, anger, in-law battles, spousal or 
childhood disability, disease, busyness and boredom. Grandmothers often face all these extreme challenges and more as they try to navigate two generations and maintain their own lives at the same time.
If you are a grandmother, especially if you are single, and especially if you are a true follower of Jesus, I salute you. You are a high-ranking, battle-tested officer in the Lord’s army when you pray for your children and grandchildren and ensure that those grandchildren go to church. Hell trembles when you pray and read the Word of God over your family.
If you are a grandmother, especially if you are single, and especially if you are a true follower of Jesus, I salute you. Hell trembles when you pray and read the Word of God over your family. Click To TweetMay the Lord richly bless you as you continue to serve others at a time in your life when they should be serving you.
Your sacrifice, love, faithfulness, and servant heart are showing, and God sees it. May He continue to give you wisdom, peace, joy, and support as you support and assist your family in raising your grandkids.
You more than deserve Grandparents’ Day, which always falls on the Sunday after 
Labor Day in the US.
May you be ministered to by the Lord and your family in a special and honoring way some time this month.
May you have great times with good friends this spring and summer.
On those rare occasions when you are actually left alone and your family isn’t demanding something from you, may you experience the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit.
When you’re being a grandma, you are acting just like the Holy Spirit—coming alongside your family and ministering to them with wisdom, patience, joy, encouragement, and sometimes a word of exhortation or rebuke. You and the Holy Spirit have a lot in common. I wish my grandmother was still around for me to say all these things to.
I only met my maternal grandmother once, and I wasn’t raised around my dad’s extended family when I was growing up. I did not realize what a valuable woman she was in my parents’ lives until after her passing, and after I had developed friendships with women who had grandchildren and told me all about their adventures and challenges in parenting. What a precious privilege.
God bless you, single grandmother, during Mother’s Day week. We celebrate you. Thank you so, so, much for all that you do for our families.
Dear reader: If your grandmother is single or was single at any time when she was raising you, I sure hope you are thanking God for her and finding a special way to express your appreciation to her this week.
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