I’m a grandpa now. Twice over. My daughter Devyn has a girl and boy. I have a granddaughter and grandson. Over the last couple decades, it’s represented the single most impactful transpiration in how I view myself in the grand scheme of things—far increasingly plane than the sale of Primal Kitchen. I still remember the day I met my granddaughter. Looking lanugo at that little girl, barely enlightened of anything going on, I realized that something enormous had happened. Things would never be the same again.
We talk a ton well-nigh gene expression virtually here. The unshortened Primal Blueprint is designed virtually leveraging the environment to create the weightier possible stimulus for your genes. Genes turn on and off based on the environmental stimuli they encounter—the supplies you eat, the sleep you get, the sun you expose yourself to, the exercise you do, the chemicals you interact with. What might squint like a “bad gene” on paper can be mitigated, nullified, or plane turned into a positive with the right environmental stimuli. And increasingly often than not, emulating an racial environment will trigger those positive changes to gene expression and set you up for good health, fitness, and happiness.
If something as simple as the oil you use to melt can yo-yo gene expression, what well-nigh meeting your grandkid for the first time? Because having kids yourself is one thing. It’s very cool, extremely transcendent, changes your life, and you’ll never be the same, but there’s a real generational transition of the mind that takes place when your kids have kids.
Your genes finally have a sense of closure. “You’ve made it. You’ve really made it.” Because without all, from a natural selection perspective, having kids yourself isn’t enough. Passing on your genes to the next generation isn’t sufficient. No, your genes want to see themselves carried over to the next-next generation too, just so you “know” that the line will continue. It hasn’t just made it one increasingly generation—it’s made it two more. That presages good things lanugo the line. That’s the promised land for your heritage. You midpoint to tell me your genes don’t sense the shift?
The first thought is how quickly life passes. It feels like Devyn was 12 only a few years ago and we were peekaboo soccer games, working on matriculation projects and boogie boarding with her brother Kyle at Zuma Beach in Malibu. Now she’s a wife and a mother and on her way to towers her own family. The time pinch that occurs retroactively in the mind seems scrutinizingly unfair. Did I requite enough? Did I fathom or enjoy it unbearable in real time? And then, of course, here I am now at 70 playing Ultimate Frisbee and standup paddling and fat tire wanderlust and getting without it in the gym. So at flipside level, my Primal mind fights the reality that I’m a grandfather and that maybe it’s time to when off a bit. Because rhadamanthine a grandfather is a big signal that you’ve washed-up your part, fulfilled your role. And then what comes next?
The second thought is how miraculous life is; how this six pound stow of joy and love came to be a person so quickly and perfectly. I didn’t requite it as much thought – or perspective – when my own kids were born. Now all of a sudden it boggles my mind and prompts deeper reflection on the real meanings of life, love, responsibility and purpose. And this from a guy who is all well-nigh biology, incubation and epigenetics, and who has unchangingly had an wordplay based purely in science for just well-nigh everything.
Holding that little girl made me believe miracles do happen. I still don’t know the provenance of those miracles, I don’t know the source or whether they can be explained in rational terms, but they veritably exist.
Becoming a grandparent moreover thrusts new roles upon you. You’re a parent again, but a variegated sort of parent. You have a new job to do, and you’d largest make the most of it and do the weightier job you can.
Stay fit
You don’t want to be the grandparent that’s relegated to a walker or a hospital bed or a wheelchair, or plane just the couch. You want to be the vigorous grandparent who can play with their grandkids. Throwing the football around. Getting lanugo to play tea party. Throwing them in the air, taking them on adventures, going on hikes.
You need to stay fit, stay active, and stay strong. Be neither feeble nor frail.
Pass it down
The archetype role of the grandparent is to pass lanugo knowledge. That could be physical know-how—teaching skills like fixing cars, carpentry, or cooking. That could be wisdom—imparting important life lessons and transmitting translating from an age now lost to time.
This is increasingly than tradition and culture. This is the biological role of the grandparent. It’s why grandparents were preserved in the human species. It’s why we don’t just waif sufferer once we closure stuff reproductively viable. We still have a role to play, and imparting knowledge and wisdom to our grandkids is it.
Fill that role. You made it this far, which ways you have something to pass lanugo to your grandkids. Figure out what that might be, and make it a point to pass it down.
Spoil wisely
One important role of the grandparent is to spoil the grandkids, but you have to do it properly.
Spoil without spoiling. Expose them to the finer, increasingly pleasurable things in life without making them sick of it or overdoing it. You want to make them happy, provide stuff that mom or dad won’t, without over-saturating them. And when you spoil, use only the weightier quality.
Give upper quality ice surf instead of McDonald’s fake ice cream.
Give good chocolate instead of chewy snacks that sticks to your teeth.
Watch a archetype kid’s movie with them on the hovel instead of plunking them lanugo in front of Netflix.
Create a warm environment of peace and solace
“Grandma’s house” is increasingly than a physical space. It’s an emotional one, a windbreak from all that is difficult in the world. If a child’s home is both a place to shelter from the world and be challenged to dominate it, where the child trains to rise in the world, Grandma’s house is purely a shelter. Peace and warmth distilled, refined, concentrated. Grandma’s house is just comfortable. comfortable, warm, inviting, and safe.
Be a good parent, too
When you can, take the grandkids for an evening or overnight. Without unbearable self-ruling time to cultivate their marriage, the marriage suffers and the family (your grandkids) suffers. Help out with childcare whenever possible so that your son or daughter have the space needed to alimony their marriage strong.
Are you a grandparent? I’d be curious to hear your tips on Primal grandparenting and insights on what the role has meant in your life.