The Other Clucky. When you long to become a grandparent.

‘You distract them, pretend you’re having a heart attack or something, I’ll grab the baby and run like crazy,’ I said

‘Okay.’ Anthony smiled.

We both looked at the gleeful 12 month-old staggering over the grass in the Botanic Gardens. Her parents walked behind her, blissfully unaware of our plotting.

‘Or that one,’ I said. Another rosy baby glided past in a stroller, his alert gaze catching mine.

Anthony shrugged. ‘Let’s go home.’

Sometimes the game didn’t work. Planning to kidnap babies only distracted us from the longing ache for a short while.

It had taken me a long time to recognise it, the longing for a grandchild. After all, despite having babies young, the first one before I was 21, I had never been a woman who centred her life around children. Even through the noisy years with a back-yard full of kids, I had continued to study, kept writing, taught memoir classes, discussed books – and didn’t bother much with ironing or keeping the house especially tidy. I had other things to do.

Later, with two sons already grown-up, I enjoyed my middle years child-free. In my forties I travelled in Europe and Asia, lived in Paris, wrote several more books, moved to an apartment in the city. Anthony and I still relished each other’s company, still enjoyed a passionate exchange of ideas, and each other’s familiar but still pleasurable bodies. What was there to long for?

And then, one day, I noticed my gaze was following babies and toddlers whenever I was out. It had been happening for a while, several months, before I realised that I wanted one. Not just any baby, I wanted my own grand-baby. One evening in bed, I confessed to Anthony. He looked abashed and then said, ‘Me too.’ We both laughed, embarrassed at our naked yearning.

It was out in the open now, but that didn’t make it dissipate. The longing grew and at a certain point, after a couple of years, it became an ache. There was nothing we could do about it. Both sons were in long-term relationships with lovely, talented young women who seemed vaguely interested in babies, but being modern parents we didn’t ask when, didn’t pressurise, and only very occasionally hinted (perhaps mentioning friends’ grandchildren a little too often...). I quelled the urge to send links to articles I read on the rate of decline in fertility in women in their 30s, or stories on women who had left it too late as they rushed up the career ladder.

It was 5 years since I’d first noticed the longing. The ache had become painful, liveable of course, but at times searing as I began to believe it might never happen. Anthony and I started playing the ‘steal a baby’ game – a middle-aged pair of imaginary kidnappers, sitting in parks and cafes, plotting our wicked deed.

I wondered what the longing meant. There was no obvious emptiness in my life. My days were still full and rich – I had a new book coming out, I was busy with literary events, I had workshops to teach, friends to keep up with. I didn’t feel envy of friends with grandchildren when they recounted Ruby’s first words, or Connor’s first day at school; it wasn’t that I needed to join in the conversation. Why was I yearning ?

I decided it was another of those cunning biological time-bombs that nature has set to keep the species alive. Just as many women are hit in their early thirties with the loud tick of the biological clock, so older women, and men, if Anthony is any indication, are hit again with the desire for a grandchild. It seems fairly impractical as there is nothing that we can do about it, short of stealing the contraceptives, but perhaps it is to prepare us for looking after babies again. In traditional societies it is the grandparents who look after children while the healthy young parents work in the fields and woods.

And then one day, my older son and his partner asked us to dinner. Every time we had been asked to dinner for the last few years our hearts had leapt with hope. Perhaps it will be the ‘announcement dinner’ tonight. Each time when we arrived I watched what she drank – hopes dashed each time she sat down to a glass of wine. But tonight, this night, she was sipping water ! I watched that glass as if were the elixir of life.

A little less than nine nonths later, 22nd February this year, my grandchild arrived.

I felt the breaking open of my heart that so many women – and men – have talked about – a new and deeper vulnerability, which, even in a few months, I can see is enriching all my other relationships. In the meantime, I no longer want to steal babies, but in its place there is a desire to make sure the world is a just and beautiful place for grandchildren everywhere. I’ve realised it’s not just about individual fulfilment, it’s about being part of the long stream of the human race, behind us and before us and most of all, about another chance to have the heart stretch to its full, all-encompassing dimension.

Have you ever felt the urge to become a grandparent?

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