The 6 Hats We Wear as Grandparents

While playing with my two-year-old grandson the other day, I was struck in the moment by the ease with which he changed his hats. In his case, the literal changing of hats—from straw hat to football helmet to fireman’s helmet—changed his behavior and play. It was his way of indicating to me how he now wanted to be perceived and what actions he wanted to do.

As a metaphor in life, “changing hats” means the same thing: adjusting behavior to suit the circumstances at hand and, at least in the case of firemen, to signal to those around them their rank and training.

My next thought was then, when a child is born, all our metaphorical hats change from “adult” to our respective familial titles (i.e., “mom,” “dad,” “grandparent,” “aunt,” “uncle”) with little or no training to prepare us for the way we may have to respond to a problem or challenge a child may bring to us.

When my youngest daughter was about three years old, for example, there was a six-month period when she went through a series of recurring earaches. Back and forth to the doctor we went, antibiotics were taken, and environmental circumstances were analyzed in depth before finally I surmised that maybe this earache issue was more than a chronic infection. What was I missing? What was I not asking?

I took off my “analytical-yet-perplexed parent” hat and put on my “mom hat.” (Truth: It was my “I’m feeling totally defeated, what more can I do?” hat.) I asked her to tell me if she knew why her ears kept hurting. Her first words were, “I don’t know.”

I said, “Okay. Then just make up a story about a little girl you know whose ears hurt all the time.” Without hesitation, she poured out this story.

“This little girl’s mommy is on the phone all the time and when she wants to talk to her mommy she can’t because her mommy is too busy on the phone and that is why her ears hurt.”

OUCH! She turned the mirror on me and made me stop to think about the possibility that maybe she was having some deeper feelings about my time on the phone than I knew. (This was pre-internet. So it was just me on the landline.)

I asked her, “Can we help the little girl and her mommy make an agreement?”
“Okay,” she said. “When the little girl wants to talk with her mommy while she is on the phone, the mommy will not tell her to wait.”

And so it was that the child defined her problem, and together they found a way to resolve it. Her earaches stopped soon after. Whether it had anything to do with me changing my interactions with her while on the phone, we’ll never know. But through that exercise, she felt heard in a way she hadn’t before.

The number of hats any parent wears throughout their parenting journey is unknowable. Every change of the hat (change in approach or relationship style), opens the door to new discoveries about their own capabilities and those of their children. 

Now, leap ahead 30 years and find yourself as a grandmother or grandfather. Where once you had ultimate authority in the lives of your children, you are now suddenly thrust into a world where that very well may not be true. Your hat must change again in your relationship with your grandchildren.

As they grow older and need different things from you, an understanding of some of the different types of hats, invisible to the eye but known in the heart and mind, can help.