(934) Child brought up by grandparents

This is a story of Aurora's brother. We met Aurora in Hopscotch (Learning disability). I would imagine him to be as intelligent as the sister. In fact, his mum told me that he used to do better in elementary school compared to the elder sister, they were born one year apart.

As the mother was working full time in a demanding family business, number two child was taken care by his  paternal grandparents in a nearby town. Either the parents returned to visit the younger child during the week ends or the grand parent drove up with the younger child to visit weekly. And so it remained like that until the boy was to go into Grade One. For that year, the caring grandma spent an entire year to help the boy adjust to his family. Thereafter, the boy spends his school days with his immediate family but as soon as holidays start, he would go to his grand parents'.

When the boy was about twelve years old, his grand parents moved to a house a few streets away from his own family. Now that distance is no longer a barrier, he hardly spend any nights with his immediate family members. Under the care of permissive aged grand parents, he started frequenting cyber cafes. Once he mixed around bigger boys who no longer went for higher education, he lost interest in his studies. He barely graduated from High School. To stop him from the life style of going out until the wee hours of the night, they encouraged him to work in a hill station. At least for twenty three nights a month, he would be safe in his hostel. As for the week he gets off monthly, they just keep their fingers crossed that nothing untoward would happen to him.

In this family's case, the boy was handed over to the grandparents because he and Aurora was born just one year apart. Since both parents were working at demanding jobs, father a bank employee and mum running a business with long hours. The grandparents were merely trying to help. It is sometimes difficult to space the children. Those who are successful in spacing the children far apart may end up having less children than desired.