Metro Detroit — Whenever Margaret Atkinson says goodbye to her grandchildren, she whispers in their ears “Jesus loves you.”

Likewise, when she and her husband, Michael, write a birthday card for one of their 18 grandchildren, they always sign with “Jesus loves you and so do Grandma and Grandpa.”

“I never had a grandmother,” says Atkinson, who lives with her husband in Shelby Township. Because of this, the relationship she is able to have with her grandchildren is that much more special.

They have very strong relationship with their grandchildren, she said, and especially like to make the Catholic faith important in their grandchildren’s lives.

“We try to bring the faith into our daily lives,” she said, sharing a story of praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with some of the children, and being reminded by one young grandson to “pray for peace in the whole world.”

“They really need to be formed when they’re little,” Atkinson said, adding she is proud of her grandchildren’s leaps and bounds when it comes to their spiritual lives.

Of the many roles a Catholic grandparent can play, the role of teacher and spiritual counselor is among the most important.
Deacon David Carignan, who serves at Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn, finds his relationship with his five grandchildren is different from the relationship he has with his children.

“We have a very close and involved relationship not only with our children but also our grandchildren,” he said. “In some ways, as strange as it sounds, it’s a less hectic relationship now. We’re able to marvel at the simplicity that God has created in the children — and are able to engage them in an almost more unconditional way.”

Deacon Carignan’s grandchildren love to have questions asked of them: “I ask them faith questions, and they love to answer it, make the connections. They recognize that this is something important.”

A lot of this, he says, comes from his children raising their own children to speak the language of the Catholic faith.
“My grandchildren bring me a lot of joy,” he said. “And the love that I feel for my grandkids, I think is a direct connection to God’s love for me. Of course God is love, so every display of authentic love is coming from God.”

For Joan Stenerson of Farmington Hills, the best thing she can give her grandchildren is to be an example to them.
“The challenges are in trying to guide them in the right way, and to actually do it with love and compassion because that makes all the difference when they’re making decisions about right and wrong,” said Stenerson, who has three grandchildren.

Grandparents influence their grandchildren, she said, but in a different way from how they influenced their children’s lives: her children are raising these children, and what she taught them is passed on to her grandchildren.

“I enjoyed my children, and I think that when you become a grandmother, you’re getting a reward twice,” she said. “Of all my accomplishments in life, taking care of my children and grandchildren is the best thing I could have ever done.”

And in Stenerson’s opinion, she has the best grandchildren this side of heaven — “but of course every grandparent thinks that — you have to. Because they need to have the reinforcement of love. Raising children without love, you may as well forget it, because you can’t do it without love.”

Some grandparents, though, find themselves in an atypical grandparent situation.

Christine Rockwood, program director of the Grandparents as Parents program of Catholic Social Services of Washentaw County, said many grandparents today have ended up serving as parent figures to their own grandchildren. Grandchildren in these circumstances are taken from their parents’ homes for a variety of reasons, from substance abuse to a parent’s deployment, she said.

With a fluid participation of 130 grandparents — the numbers vary greatly by month as some grandchildren go to college, or are returned to their parents — the program offers workshops on substance abuse, behavior disorders, effective parenting and Internet safety, as well as a newsletter and counseling services for grandparents raising their grandchildren. All of the services are free.

“We have folks from all walks of life — African-American, Caucasian Latino,” Rockwood said. “Grandparents range from early 40s to late 70s; their grandkids range from infants to teens. They are all over the place in the socio-economic curve, from way over the poverty level to way below the poverty level.”

Despite the many differences, “when we sit together at a workshop, everyone is the same; no one is different, because no one expected this to happen.”

Rockwood feels humbled to work with these remarkable grandparents, she added. When speaking at a recent event, she said, she told them:

“When I call their numbers and I get an answering machine, it says ‘I’m not at home, etc., but God bless you.’ And I say, ‘Back at you.’ You put your life on hold for 18 years. And you have a choice. They don’t have to do this; they make this choice.”

It’s a difficult scenario for grandparents who “step up to it,” said Rockwood, explaining that the social life of these grandparents is different — “people ask why you’re doing this, and you say ‘that’s just what family does.’”