ABSTRACT
Although every family is different and every grandparent has different issues, there are certain themes and questions that recur frequently. This chapter explores these common concerns, common because they appear in many families and because we share them with our grandchild's parents. Today's parents face many challenges that were unthinkable only a few generations ago. None of these is greater than the need to balance the demands of work with those of family. By 1996, the number of working married women with small children had more than tripled, to 64 percent. One of the pleasures of moving into the more senior ranks in the family hierarchy is that we increasingly become an authority on the history of and the proper way of observing our family's particular customs.
