Someone once said that with your grandchildren you get the opportunity to do things right, at least some of the things you didn’t get right with your own children. Sue Springer couldn’t agree more.
As a grandmother, she relishes the role she plays in the lives of her three grandchildren, Solannah, 13, Kaia, 11, and three-year-old Riley.
“I always regretted the time I had to spend away from my kids as a single mother working. I just think as a grandparent you have more time to spend with them and little more patience because you’ve already been through the parenting issues, and you’re not with them all the time, so can spoil them and give them back,” she said laughing. “I spoil them in a positive manner. I would never do anything against my daughters’ wishes.”
But for Sue, who actually got emotional when discussing with EASY magazine the role her family plays in her life, says being a grandmother or “Nana”, as she’s affectionately called, is something that has shaped the person she has become.
“When I was very small, my parents lived in the Middle East and I lived in England with my grandmother, who looked after myself and my sister and I saw her caring ways and how she was,” Sue recalled. “She was supportive to her daughter. But there were lots of things we used to do together that I still hold dear, whether it was sewing, cooking or reading. Those memories stay with you.”
Sue also got to see her own mother as a grandmother to her two daughters, playing out the same vital role that was done before.
“I think grandparents have something special to them,” she said. “Parents are always hurrying, busy, especially nowadays when you’re balancing job and family. But when you are a grandparent, you have a different aura about you, even if you’re still working.”
Sue remembers how her mother used to sit with her daughter and she wanted to make dolls clothes and since her mother worked in fashion, she would cut patterns out of newspapers for dolls clothes.
“My daughter eventually did a fashion design degree and she often says I wonder if that influenced me from so far back,” Sue said. “Those are the things that they remember.”
Sue even says that in her house there is a fabric rocking chair that her mother used to sit in when she was ill, and her daughters still refer to it as Granny’s chair. It is those influences that Sue wants to create as her own legacy to her grandchildren.
“My greatest joy is actually spending time with them, listening to them. I take them to school most mornings, and I test them on whatever they’re being tested on that day. I’m learning Caribbean history which I didn’t know because I was educated in the UK, but I’m learning it now,” Sue said. “I’m improving my Spanish and my spelling. It’s a joint learning exercise and it’s fun.”
Being part of their school activities, pantomimes, and sports day is par for the course for Sue.
“As far as I’m concerned, whatever time I can invest in them, that they can realize that I am there to support them, but always with their parent’s permission, I just love it,” Sue revealed. “The little one I love to read with him . . . . I love to play with him. The girls used to come over on weekend and they knew I would allow them to paint. So as soon as they came over they would paint and we would fill the fridge with their latest creations. So they’ll remember me for that.”
For Sue, a birthday is always special because it means creating birthday cakes and cupcakes.
“I am by no means a baker, but we create birthday cakes,” she said. “Sometimes I look at them and I think, ‘Yeah, right; whatever’. But now that I have a grandson and he’s into Buzz Lightyear, it’s a bit more difficult to create than ballet shoes.”
Sue has always held true to her philosophy, which she says her daughters know along with her grandchildren.
“If I promise to do something, they know I will do it unless I’m six feet under,” she said. “But if I say, ‘I will do my best’ or ‘I will try’, they know it could be a possibility of doubt because other things could come up with work. But if I say, ‘I promise’, they know I will do it and that is important to develop trust with the children.”
It’s also important for Sue that they develop a good work ethic and try their best to succeed.
She admits, though, that after having girls, being a grandparent to a boy is different and she’s enjoying every moment of it.
“With a boy it’s a different grandparenting,” Sue said. “I have a grandson to share my passions with for Formula One and football. We’ve already taken him to rallying and he loves it.”
But for Sue the opportunity to play a big role in the lives of her daughters goes far deeper.
“After I lost my husband some 20 years ago, I raised my two girls on my own and did that with a full-time job, which was running a hotel. But they were wonderful and they supported me, but now they’ve obviously grown up. There was a void, but that void has definitely been filled with my three wonderful grandchildren.
“I always regretted the time I had to spend away from my kids as a single mother. Both my daughters are single parents, so I’m very cognizant of how challenging it is to raise children as a single parent. Because I had to do it myself, I’m even more conscious of wanting to help. I only hope I don’t overhelp, and sometimes I think I do and then I need to step back.”
Along with getting her own internal checks on knowing when to pull back, she admits that sometimes she gets external ones from her daughters.
“Having experienced it, I don’t want them to got though the same thing,” she said, becoming emotional. “No book, nothing gets you ready to be a mother. You are learning at the same time your child is learning.”
With a wealth of life experience under her belt, and an abundance of love, Sue is enjoying loving and learning through the eyes of her grandchildren.
“I’ve grown more patient. I was a person that wanted things done immediately. I think I’m more tolerant though I haven’t learned to say no,” she said laughing. “But in all of that I feel a completeness in my life. What completes it is your grandchildren. It’s all part of the cycle of life.”
