An Interview with Nandini

Lessons from a grandmother

I am delighted to publish an interview with Nandini Patwardhan, a grandmother, retired software developer, writer, and naturalized U.S. citizen. Nandini came to the United States from India, and raised her children here. When raising her own children, she missed the multi-generational family support she had enjoyed as a child in India. Raising children, she noticed, was much harder without the constant love and nurture of grandparents.

When her own grandson was born, Nandini moved from the East Coast out to California in order to help care for him and support her daughter and son-in-law. She has written that she did so in part because she “was aware that my family’s roots in this country are shallow and that, being transplanted in foreign soil, they need extra care and tending.” As a child in India, Nandini benefited in innumerable ways from the care and guidance of her own grandparents, who taught her the Hindu epics and provided a “a constant nurturing presence.” (I encourage you to read in full Nandini’s excellent essay on this topic.)

Nandini was kind enough to answer interview questions on what she thinks about being a grandmother, her perspective as a woman born in India and now an American citizen, and how we could better support multi-generational families in the United States. I found her viewpoint on these topics to be both unique and invaluable, including her suggestions for how communities can value the special role of grandparents through celebrations, school events, etc.

Nandini

1. I know that you have played a major role as a caregiver in your grandchildren's lives.  I'd love to hear about that experience.

I am not sure I would characterize my role as that of a caregiver. To me a caregiver is someone who takes care of children (or patients) as a part of a transactional, albeit caring and committed, arrangement. So, a babysitter or nanny is a caregiver, but the person in one of these roles does not have a visceral or timeless commitment to the person who is in his or her care.

In contrast, my role in the lives of my grandchildren and their role in my life transcends time. I am giving them what I received from my elders and what I could not provide my children (because of having immigrated). Even though I took it for granted as a child, each passing day only increases my appreciation of my inheritance and my determination to pass it on. 

I am giving my grandchildren roots as well as wings. A strong emotional and relational foundation laid at this young age will hopefully help inoculate them against fragility, temptations, and dysfunctions as they grow into their teen years and beyond.

2. What do you value about being such an involved grandmother? What benefits have your daughter, your son-in-law, and your grandsons reaped?

My grandsons know two more adults almost as intimately as they know their parents. I liken it to having an additional cocoon layer to bundle up in. Partly because of old world values and partly because I am less hurried/harried (age and being a retiree does that), I still somewhat baby the grandkids even though they have grown somewhat out of babyhood. 

As for my daughter and son-in-law, they are able to focus on their jobs even when the children are sick, or the babysitter is out, or the school/daycare is closed for a holiday or due to inclement weather. They are able to do this without feeling the guilt that is the bane of every employed parent’s existence. They are also able to have date nights and socialize with friends.  

As for me, being able to nurture my grandchildren is having a profound healing effect on me. My weeks have shape and structure because I am never too far from having just been with the grandkids and from being with them again soon. While I battled “alone-ness” and “different-ness” when I was raising my children, I now feel grounded and rooted. 

3.  What was your experience with your grandparents when you were a child?  I know you had to raise your own children without much involvement of any of their grandparents after immigrating to the United States from India.  What was that experience like?

When I was growing up, my family consisted of my parents, their three children (I was the oldest), and my maternal grandparents. To me, there was no gap between my nuclear family and the larger “joint” family. We were all one unit. 

My grandmother, who had only a fourth grade education, taught me the alphabet in my mother tongue and told me stories from Hindu mythology. She was a gentle calming presence, especially when, as a teenager I had disagreements with my mother. At such times, this functionally illiterate woman acted with great emotional intelligence. She allowed me to feel understood while gently reiterating my mother’s values.  

My grandfather, a high school teacher, taught me Math and English during the elementary and early middle grades (he passed away when I was twelve). The foundation he laid led me to become an avid reader of English literature, fluent in spoken English, and now a writer in English. I came to love Math and chose it as my college major, which in turn led to my career as a software developer. He also taught me to recite Hindu scriptures.

The contrast when I was raising my children was stark. To give just one example: on the first day of school, the children would come home with emergency contact information cards. After filling in mine and my husband’s information, I had no name to write. Each year, this exercise underscored how alone we were as a family and how sparse a cocoon protected/supported/guided my children. This “alone-ness” and “different-ness” had to be negotiated in all matters ranging from religion (whether, what, and how to convey our family’s very light observance of Hinduism when there was no community), diet (balancing the parents’ comfort with Indian vegetarian food with the children’s rejection of it), and attire (I wanted my daughter to dress more modestly than the early 2000s norm of spaghetti strap T-shirts and short shorts) to managing money (balancing wants and needs, delayed gratification), being aware of the have-nots, and being diligent students. 

To be sure, all these challenges are common to many immigrant households. What made me different was that I was not able to integrate into an enclave of people who had come from the same place and presumably shared my values and goals. 

My struggles were made tolerable by the fact that over time I found allies among the parents of my children’s friends, neighbors, and especially my children’s teachers. If American society were not as welcoming and accommodating as it was/is, I would have likely packed my bags and left. 

Also, ever aware that I was the one who had chosen, and was continuing to choose, to immigrate, rather than blame and regret, I had adopted a mode of learning and adaptation. It is only in hindsight that I realize how much effort it took. On the other hand, I attribute the fact that I had the wherewithal to meet the challenge to the nurturing upbringing in the shade of the tree that my elders planted, and the resilience, optimism, and confidence that resulted.

Given all my efforts, did my children feel the same shade and cocoon? They are in their thirties now, so I imagine it will be years before they get around to pondering/sharing how it was for them. In the meantime, I am growing the shade tree and building the cocoon for my grandchildren.

Lest I come across as exotifying or unnecessarily valorizing my experiences, I should point out that all of this seems remarkable because four decades have passed and (in our time) societies undergo massive changes over such an extended period. Back in the 1960s and 70s when I was growing up, almost all of my peers (in India) came from multigenerational households. And, as I understand, things were not so different here in the US at that time. 

4. You have written about how moving you found a 2020 interview in which Senator J.D. Vance commented on the importance of the role of his mother-in-law when he and his wife had children, particularly in helping care for their young kids.  

I happened to listen to an episode of The Portal podcast which is hosted by Eric Weinstein. His two-plus hour long conversation with JD Vance covered everything from US industrial policy to the drug problem in Ohio and the upcoming Netflix film based on Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy.” The conversation took a most unexpected turn as the episode drew to a close.

Vance mentioned that his wife’s family immigrated from India and described how devoted her parents are to the family that he and his wife are building. Speaking of his young son, he said, “...you can sort of see the effect it has on him to be around them, like they spoil him and sort of all the classic stuff that grandparents do to grandchildren. But it makes him a much better human being to have exposure to his grandparents.” (emphasis mine)

My ears perked up. I was listening to this conversation just weeks after I had moved cross-country with the express goal of living close to my then 5-month-old grandson. I was still reeling from the rushed move in the middle of the pandemic lockdown, putting a much-loved house up for sale, jettisoning all but the most important personal belongings, and giving up a community of close friends. 

Weinstein asked Vance: “When your child was born, did your in-laws, and particularly your mother-in-law, show up in some huge way?” Vance replied that she moved in and lived with them for a year. 

Weinstein clarified that his question had been a shot in the dark. However, it was not a totally blind shot. As it turned out, Weinstein also has an Indian mother-in-law and she had similarly shown up in a big way after the birth of her grandchild. 

Vance went on: “... the baby was still not sleeping any more than an hour and a half in a given interval. And her mom just took a sabbatical. She's a biology professor in California, just took a sabbatical for a year, and came and lived with us and took care of our kid for a year.”

Vance followed that up with an important point that underscored the enormity of what his mother-in-law did: “Why didn't she just keep her job, give us part of the wages to pay somebody else to do it, right? … “

With that thought-provoking question hanging in the air, Weinstein added: “We got kicked out of our bedroom, because my in-laws just, like, moved in and it's like, okay, you need to learn how to do this. You need the relief. You need the help.”

And then each man honored his mother-in-law by saying her name. Vance topped it by saying, “... I love them both [wife and mother-in-law] very much. And, you know, life wouldn't be worth living without them.”

As the conversation drew to a close, I felt affirmed. Even though I had not doubted the rightness of my decision or regretted it, I now felt more validated. Just as importantly, I felt that I could reasonably expect good things to come about as a result of my seemingly impulsive move. 

American popular culture insists that all cultures are equal and equally valid. Up until this point, I had mostly agreed with this universalism. Over the weeks after listening to this conversation,  I came to allow that cultures are sometimes different in fundamental ways, shaped as they are by different histories and economic systems. For almost the first time, I allowed that I carried in me a distinct culture that, even though it overlapped with American culture in many ways (for example, in terms of promoting women’s empowerment and equality), had certain unique traits like prioritizing family and the raising of children, and being willing to sacrifice for that purpose. For the first time, I felt confident about asserting (even if only to myself) that these are MY values. I even ventured to imagine that THIS would be my heritage’s contribution to the melting pot that is America.

It is gratifying that each and every person, regardless of ethnic heritage, unreservedly lauds my choice. This suggests that there is a universal human aspiration for multigenerational connections and an awareness of the desirability of multigenerational interdependence. I am the fortunate one who had the wherewithal to actualize that aspiration and act on that awareness.

5. Recently, there has been some backlash to Senator Vance’s suggestion that our childcare system carve out a greater role for care by grandparents.  What do you think of that? Does our society value the role of grandparents and extended family enough?

[Note: To understand the background about this debate, it may be helpful to look at the following link: Transcript: Sen. JD Vance on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 11, 2024 - CBS News]

I understand the genesis of Vance’s suggestion that our childcare system should carve out a greater role for grandparents: he benefited from the care and support he received from his grandmother and he saw the benefit he, his wife, and young children drew from the nurturing presence of his mother-in-law. I think that at their core his remarks are about making grandparent-provided care available to all families. And, he extends it to making it easier for stay-at-home moms and dads to afford a lifestyle where one parent can care for their children in the home.  

I also understand the backlash that his remarks generated. As many commentators noted, many grandparents don’t have the time since they need to earn a living, some have health limitations, and some live too far from their grandchildren. 

So, how do we tackle this tension between “nice to have” and “no can do”? 

I think deploying taxpayer resources often creates new problems even as it solves old ones. For example, women in the inner city started having more children when welfare payments were tied to the number of children they had. Erasing college student debt did nothing to tackle high/increasing college costs and did nothing to help those who could not or did not go to college but had other financial hurdles to starting a career.

In general, I don’t think it should be up to the government (which is what “policy” implies) to value the role of grandparents and extended family. This is up to each individual family and each individual person in that family. 

As with anything in life, there are costs/benefits associated with every life decision and compromises must be made. To grandparents who desire being able to support their adult children and their families or who desire a closeness to their children and grandchildren, I offer this: our time has passed, it is now their turn. So, rather than expecting them to accommodate us or move to live close to us, we should prioritize their thriving. We should move and integrate ourselves into their families to the extent that makes sense to both parties. 

If we are unable to uproot ourselves and move, we should do what we can with what is within our reach. New technologies make it easy to make frequent video calls. We can read books to our grands. Or show them card tricks, or dress up in costumes. Travel companies design vacations for grandparents traveling with their grandchildren. Vacation rentals make it possible to rent large homes and create a semblance of co-living even if only for a couple of weeks in the summer or during the holidays. 

This is the stuff of which memories are made, and memories are what will remain to inspire and guide after we are gone. Those memories allow us to fulfill our role in the march of generations. 

And, if none of this is possible, or to supplement the above, one can choose to grandparent a family that lives near where we live, and that doesn’t have grandparents nearby. I saved the below beautiful post from Nextdoor in ~2022:

Energetic, fun-loving grandmother whose own grandkids are grown and now living out of state has plenty of time and the desire to be an extra adult in some child's life.  

In fact, I became that old-fashioned friend of the family to a spirited, recently divorced (not her choice) single mother and her two daughters over the course of several years.  I went to her kids' music concerts, helped with homework, and was there for her through two operations, and life's other exigencies.  We rolled through it, laughing, groaning together, shaking our heads at life's absurdities and enjoying each others' company.  It just worked.  But she has moved back to Chicago where she has extended family.  As for me, I still have the energy and the willingness to be an extra adult in some child's life.

Realistically, running across someone you feel comfortable enough with to invite into your life doesn't happen every day.  It has to work for both people and it's a long shot.  It's natural to feel ambivalence at the thought of taking a chance on getting to know a new person (takes too much energy, what if I don't like them, what if they don't like me, etc.), but if you're looking for a possible source of more support, connection, warmth, and, dare I say it, fun, in your life.  You might want to push through that ambivalence.  If it isn't a fit, no hard feelings and no explanation necessary.  As I sometimes remind myself, you've got to get IN the game to WIN the game.

I am a known quantity - retired teacher, longtime area resident, volunteer at a local school and also tutor a handful of neighborhood kids in writing.

6. What policy supports and proposals would you like to see put into place to help grandparents who want to play a more involved role in their grandchildren's lives?

My ideas are somewhat radical as they are not tailored to grandparents. 

1. 30-hour workweek

We need to redefine full-time work as 30-hours per week (with benefits). This would go a long way towards reweaving our social fabric. It would apply equally to all workers (including still-employed grandparents) as they would have two additional hours each day for family care, self care, and community care. 

During most of my career I worked as a freelancer. I decided that working thirty hours a week and that too from home would allow me to be both, the diligent professional that I wanted to be and the diligent mother that I needed to be. Each day I ended my workday when the kids came home from school. I was thus able to be fully present to them whenever they were home. I could start fixing dinner, help them with their homework, and drive them to after-school activities. 

I gave up a fancy title and a career ladder. A codified 30-hour workweek would make personal success (without the kind of sacrifice I had to make) available to future generations of workers.

Studies have shown that productivity of workers is no less when the number of hours are so reduced. So, this change would be a win-win-win for families, employers, and communities/society/government. 

2. Expanded child tax credit

A greatly expanded child tax credit or deduction with no strings attached would work like a voucher or HSA/FSA spending accounts. After all, parents are raising our country’s future citizens. If they are empowered to perform their roles well, we will have strong and resilient future generations. 

We build on foundations we did not lay.

We warm ourselves by fires we did not light.

We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant.

We drink from wells we did not dig.

We profit from persons we did not know. 

An expanded child tax credit would be a way to lay foundations, light warming fires, plant trees, and dig wells so that our future generations might thrive and provide for their future generations. For, we are ever bound in community. 

Parents can use this tax credit/deduction in whichever way makes sense for their unique situation. They can pay more for child-care, support grandparents (or quasi-grandparents), get food delivered (to free up after school time as family time), hire a housecleaner to reduce the housekeeping burden… the possibilities of greater financial wherewithal are endless.

7. I’d love to hear about any other ideas you have to promote increased intergenerational connections.

We should create a culture that is more intentional about acknowledging and honoring the role of grandparents and older members of the community. 

1. Celebrate birthdays (and other significant days) of grandparents with as much gusto as the birthdays of the children themselves

2. Make a big deal out of sharing children’s achievements / report cards with grandparents. This way the importance of diligence in pursuing any activity is celebrated and reinforced. Invite grandparents to share stories of their achievements or milestones. 

3. Grandparents should attend children’s graduation ceremonies, school concerts and the like, even traveling if necessary to do so. 

4. Do activities with grandparents that the grandparents are passionate about, be it baking, gardening, crochet, or watching movies together.

I would also love to see communities celebrate grandparents and families:

1. Grandparents Day should be observed with more gusto just like Mothers Day. Special restaurant and park discounts for Grandparents Day. Sending flowers and candy to grandparents. Popular culture has the unique power to normalize and valorize and we should harness that for promoting and celebrating strong multi-generational families. 

2. For families that are attached to a religious or spiritual community, there should be Grandparents Day Sunday services and potluck dinners.

3. Multigenerational community or block parties where children pretend to be carers and grandparents pretend to be children.

4. In much the way that Valentine’s Day has become so much bigger than a day to celebrate romantic relationships, Grandparents Day can be used to promote all non-parent family-like relationships.

5. Bring a grandparent (or residents of nearby senior citizen centers) to school for an hour every month so that even children who don’t have grandparents can get a taste of being in the company of older people. And, older people get to spend time with active and curious youngsters.

In summary, I would like society as a whole (and grandparents themselves) to see grandparents as more than footnotes or as has-been and washed-up people with one foot in the grave. They are not an irrelevant useless appendage. Instead, society should see grandparents as fonts of experience and wisdom, gentleness and patience; as an extra set of helping hands attached to a caring heart.

Multi-generational families give all generations the gift of reconnection, reinvention, and most of all, mutual relevance.

Further reading:

• Nandini has also written a lovely essay on her experience as a kind of volunteer surrogate grandmother before she moved to California to be with her own grandchildren. You can read it here.

• I recently published an op-ed with Newsweek on why supporting stay-at-home parents should be a bipartisan priority. If you are interested, it is available here.