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No child can have too much love and attention. But that's not all grandparents have to offer. "Kids learn stuff from older people that they can't get from anybody else," says Newman. "Wisdom, patience, looking at things from many perspectives, tolerance and hope. Older adults have lived through wars, losses, economic deprivations, and they give kids the security of knowing that horrendous things can be survived." For the older generation, the relationship is equally precious. "Having grandchildren is the vindication of everything one has done as a parent. When we see our children passing on our values to another generation, we know we have been successful," says Margy-Ruth Davis, a new grandmother in New York City.
Keeping the gates open need not be expensive or arduous. Kathy Hersh, a Miami writer who is the mother of Katie, 11, and David, 7, sends a weekly packet of their photocopied poems, essays, teachers' notes and report cards to their maternal grandparents in Indiana and their paternal grandmother, a widow, in Arizona. The grandparents respond in kind. Kathy's mother sends homemade jam, cookies, fudge--and lots and lots of books. "It's not the value of the contents," says Kathy. "It's that the children have been thought of." The value of that is beyond measure. "I know my grandmother is always going to love me and think everything I do is wonderful," Katie told her mother recently.
Other grandparents are discovering the miracles of the technological revolution. Margy-Ruth and Perry Davis are heartsick that they cannot be part of their granddaughter's daily life in Toronto. But she is already part of theirs, because the Davises have equipped their daughter with a digital camera, and every day she e-mails them a fresh picture of baby Tiferet. "It's hard for every visit to be a state occasion, and it's hard not to be able to pop over and just look in for half an hour," says Margy-Ruth, "but at least this way I can watch the baby change day by day." Their next project is to hook up the video component of the camera to their daughter's computer and a similar device to their own so they can be in nearly constant mutual contact.
The Davises are not alone in cultivating electronic intimacy. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that keeping in touch with grandchildren may be one of the main computer uses for seniors. Julia Sneden, a retired North Carolina kindergarten teacher, began e-mailing five-year-old Gina, her stepgranddaughter in California, several months before meeting her in person. When they finally set eyes on each other, they were already fast friends. Sneden continues to e-mail Gina, now 10, with tips on how to take care of her newly pierced ears and good websites for learning about upcoming eclipses. "I got to know Gina because I made an effort to know her, and her mother made an effort to give me access to her--and was willing to take dictation when she was younger," says Sneden, who shares Gina's e-mail with her own mother, Gina's step-great-grandmother. For Sneden is part of what might be called the club-sandwich generation: grandparents who divide their attention among their children, grandchildren and parents. According to one study, at least 16% of today's families have four or more living generations.