Q9) ‘Grandparents are the link between the past and the present’. They are the best source to compare and
contrast the changes that take place in two different eras. They provide the real picture of the impact of these
changes on our society. Discuss with your grandparents about the changes in different areas like food choices,
clothes, customs, professions, development in the field of medicines, science and technology etc. that took
place in their time and in the present. Use the inputs given by your grandparents and take the ideas from the
Unit- 2 Relation’ of English Reader Book to prepare a speech on the topic- ‘Grandparents- Our Mirror to see
Answers
Answer:
Grandparents and grandchildren
Peter K. Smith on an important and suprisingly underresrearched relationship.
While a great deal is written about parents, relatively little is written about grandparents, and their relationships with grandchildren. Yet some three-quarters of adults will become grandparents, and the mean age of becoming a grandparent is currently about 54 years in Britain (Dench & Ogg, 2002). Thus, most people will be a grandparent for around a third of their lifespan. With falling fertility and the demographic ageing of Western industrialised societies, family networks are changing from broad/
horizontal to narrow/vertical structures or ‘beanpole families’, in which grandparents arguably have an increasingly important role to play (Hagestad, 2000). And it’s a role that should interest a wide variety of psychologists, particularly developmental, social, clinical and educational.