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Granny's Advice By Rosaleen Dickson, BA, MJ
- Dear Great Granny.
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I am the Director of a child care resource and referral agency. My Board of Directors and I are in the process of developing a volunteer program that would match volunteer grandparents, or older adults wanting to be
grandparents with child care homes and centers.
I am 52years old and would love to nurture a grand child, but this is not on my children's radar screen yet. I have another Board member who is looking forward to being a grandparent, but her grandchild will be born in Germany, not close for cuddling or reading a story to. Our County has many rural areas, and we know that some older adults are living in isolation. Perhaps older adults who could rock a baby or read a story. We are also aware that transportation will be a problem, so we are working to offer transportation.
Do you have any suggestions or thoughts that will assist us in offering a successful program?
- Dear friend
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My only warning would be to make sure that these surrogate grandmothers must not take over or offer too much advice to the mothers of the children they are going to cuddle and read stories to.
In the case of children who are missing the personal holding and caring that their own parents should be providing, I'm sure that the women you are going to recruit will add an extremely important dimention to their little lives. But it must be done in the spirit of volunteerism. If they are doing it because they need another baby to fulfil their own lives, beware of the possibility of a sense of proprietorship creeping in. This might cause more misery than help.
In the best cases, the mothers of the children will greatly appreciate the help their children will receive, but they might
also feel that they are being considered inadequate. They might suffer from having another woman give their babies what they couldn't give them.
I only point this out so you will have it in your mind when you are matching up your volunteers with the children who they will be helping.
Generally, I think your project is great and I wish you every success with it.
Sincerely,
GG
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