The Lessons I Learned Growing Up With My Grandma
This is a story I get asked a good amount once people hear that I went through it because it isn’t really normal to have your grandma be your parental guidance for a few years.
I want to start off by saying it’s one of the best things that has ever happened. She is one of my best friends these days and I have a relationship with my grandma that I don’t think a lot of other people get to have, so it’s something truly special to me.
Why My Grandma Moved In
To start, the reason she ended up moving in was that my mom passed away when I was 14 and at the same time my dad was working out of state. So no one was going to let a 14-year-old kid and his 17-year-old sister just live on their own.
At first, the plan was for my sister to live at a friend’s house for her senior year of high school and for me to move to Minnesota to be with my dad.
As you can imagine, I wasn’t too on board with this plan. I had finally gotten out of the awkward middle school days, had a good group of friends, and had made my impression on the coaches for the sports teams in high school so I was pretty crushed to hear I’d be moving.
I remember touring multiple high schools in Minnesota and the one thing that I would continue to bring up is that they might be great, but they don’t have my friends there.
This is where the lady in the superhero cape came in (yes I’m talking about my 80-plus-year-old grandma).
She decided to tell my dad that she’d be willing to move into our childhood home to take care of us until he could find a job back in the state.
Now we thought this move would only be for a short period but it turned into her living with us for 4 plus years and she still lives with my dad to this day.
Being the rebel I was, I thought I’d be able to get away with a lot more so I was pretty pumped but at the same time, I knew things wouldn’t be the same so I was a bit hesitant about the change, I mean I’d only see my grandma on odd occasions and holidays, and now I was going to see her every single day.
But as I said at the start, it was one of the best things to ever happen and a blessing in disguise because of all the great memories I have with her and the lessons she taught me along the way, so let’s dive into those.
Lessons I Learned From Growing Up With My Grandma
Similar to the last episode, I’m going to run through these one by one and then share how to apply it to daily life right after.
To start, you can bet there this was a big change in my life and that’s where the first lesson came and it’s to be flexible with how things operate or the change that inevitably comes.
Be flexible
Just being real here, I struggled for a bit with this change.
Who has ever had their grandma ground them let alone discipline them multiple times in a week?
That’s not what grandmas are usually for. They are normally the ones with the great food, extra treats, and more love than we know what to do with.
Well, that switched on its head real quick for me. Within the first month, I had my grandma telling me that my friends couldn’t stay over late and within the first year she had to deal with the cops showing up at our house for some trouble I got in at 15.
With all this change (and how quickly it happened), I learned a few things that I still utilize today.
Change can be for the best
The first one is that I started to understand that change (as tough as it can be) can be for the best, you just might not realize it.
If you’re anything like I am, change isn’t always too welcomed in your life. It can suck for something to be completely different and not how it always was.
Instead of just resisting it or accepting it all together, learn how to understand why the change is for the better (even if at times it might not seem like it).
One of those for me, the home cooking was on point and that was undoubtedly a benefit.
I went from frozen pizzas to home-cooked spaghetti, and being Italian, this was a pleasant switch.
For real though, don’t just be 100% into resisting the change since that just creates friction and if you go 100% with accepting it, you might miss the opportunity to see why the change happened and its benefits.
Learn to learn quickly
With this comes the second lesson and that was to learn how to learn quickly.
With all the different parenting techniques she had, I had to learn how to have good communication with her and what her tipping points were (and I had to learn it quickly since we were just dumped into the situation).
This isn’t always an easy thing to learn but you can grow in this area.
Next time you’re faced with something completely new to you at work, instead of taking your time to understand every detail, jump in and learn on the go. This just speeds up how quickly you start to understand the minor details that you might miss by doing the classic study techniques.
Will you mess up? Likely and so did I. I found out that she wanted to know who was over at the house and after forgetting to do this multiple times, I learned pretty quickly it was a non-negotiable
Your way isn’t the highway
With learning I needed to be a bit more flexible, I also learned that my way wasn’t the highway and that I needed to give up control at times which is lesson number two.
We actually just took a very in-depth personality test at work and to say that I’m independent and a bit bullheaded is an understatement.
As you can guess, this doesn’t work too well with parental figures.
The amount of arguments my grandma and I had over the quote-unquote rules of the house was pretty high.
I thought I ran the place since you know I was the prince of this castle and she was just a visitor.
Be more collaborative
Well just like I mentioned before, I learned pretty quickly that this wasn’t going to fly and the way we got over this is we became a lot more collaborative, and is the first piece of the lesson that you can apply to daily life.
Just because I didn’t like the rules and she didn’t like my attitude or actions didn’t mean there wasn’t any middle ground that we could find, we just had to find it together.
Instead of just allowing anyone in the house for a little party, I’d first ask her who she would be okay with coming over (now did I do this every time, absolutely not but this did end up solving a lot of the arguments we had).
For you, instead of being bull-headed on how to spend those marketing dollars at your company, collaborate with someone who has a different perspective.
They might have insight into an area or feeling you don’t, and even if it’s not what you want, well your way likely isn’t the highway.
Don’t get to attached to what YOU think is best
This goes right into the second piece to apply to daily life which is to not be too attached to what you think is best, because it might not be.
You know what I thought was best for our situation? That I could keep the music loud until 4 in the morning hanging with the guys.
My grandma on the other hand, definitely didn’t think this was the best for us (and shocker she was right).
My perspective was that I was having a good time, her perspective was that we kept her up (which made her crabby the next day) and that I likely wouldn’t be too productive at school the following morning.
Well, she was right.
The more you attach your self-image to being right all the time, the more you push other people away.
No one likes someone who thinks they have the answer to every question and if you’re questioning that statement, you’re likely the one who thinks they have the answer to everything. So sit with that for a bit, it might be something to work on.
Relationships should be a priority
Getting into lesson number three though, it’s that even with how crazy life can be and all the things you have going on, relationships should be close to the top of the priority list.
I said this earlier, but my grandma is no lie one of my best friends.
Who do I hang out with on New years eve? My grandma.
Who do I watch most sports games with? My grandma.
Whose money do I take in cards weekly? My grandma.
(Okay that last one is a bit rude but it’s true and she’ll acknowledge that)
As much as we argued, butted heads, and disagreed on how things should be, we always put our relationship above everything else.
We’d sit and watch Molly B’s polka party on tv and just chat and laugh.
We could have easily never built our relationship and when I moved onto college, go back to how our relationship was before but instead we grew into friends, something I’m extremely happy about.
Now the first way to apply this lesson to life is to realize that even in all the chaos going on and the tough times you might go through, having strong relationships can get you through it better than those who push each other away during those tough times.
Like I said, my grandma and I certainly had our differences but we also got through all the chaos because we had that strong relationship.
You can apply this with your significant other or a sibling. Instead of going at an argument from opposing sides.
Come together and face that problem together. You’ll get through it the best way possible for both of you and come out the other side happy you decided to be on the same team compared to opponents.
The last way to apply this lesson is to just have great people around you and keep them close.
As your life gets more complicated, you tend to lose close relationships with family and friends. Work to not lose them.
I’m a firm believer that nothing is fun or worthwhile if you have no one to spend that time with.
You could build a massive business or great career but if you push everyone else away in that process, was it really worth it?
You could take the best fishing trip of your life but imagine the fun it’d be if you had a close friend with you catching that massive largemouth bass.
Quit using the excuse that you’re too busy because at some point you won’t be and if you don’t keep those you love close, you won’t have anyone to fill that time with.
