Yesterday we looked at how grandparents are unfair to their own offspring by abdicating any responsibility for the welfare, behavior and building of character of grandchildren by spoiling them and allowing them to do as they please. But there is another way that grandparents can be unfair. That is favoritism.
Favoritism can create extremely difficult situations. We see in the Bible of the problems that occur in families. Look at the problems that occurred because Rebekah favored Jacob and Isaac favored Esau, Genesis 25:28. It resulted in deceit, a family split apart, and hate and lack of forgiveness that continued for a long time, Genesis 27. Rebekah expected Jacob to be gone only a few days, Genesis 27:42-45. But Jacob never saw his mother again. Those days turned into years before the brothers were finally reconciled, Genesis 33.
Apparently though, Jacob learned nothing from the experience for later he blatantly showed his favoritism of Joseph, Genesis 37:3. Again it incited jealousy and hatred in his brothers as they ganged up to rid themselves of Joseph, Genesis 37:4,11,18-36. Another split family resulted before God ultimately brought good out of the situation, Genesis 45;1-15, Genesis 46:1, 26, Genesis 47:11, and Genesis 50:15-21.
Favoritism by grandparents of one child over another can have almost as detrimental effect as favoritism by parents. I’ve seen families where this has happened. The grandparents may have a number of one grandchildren but one or two are favored above the others. This causes jealousy and rivalry between the grandchildren and can also cause problems between siblings.
Sometimes it is easier to relate to one child more because they are like their parent and our offspring, or they may have similar interests to us, or are more like us. At times it may be precisely because they’re so different from us.
Even if we feel more strongly about one child, we need to be careful not to show it but to treat grandchildren the same and so not incite jealousy of one for the other. If this is difficult, then we need to pray and ask God’s enabling to love and to show love equally to our grandchildren.
God has promised wisdom to those who ask for it, James 1:5. So let us ask God for wisdom in loving and in helping to bring up our grandchildren into responsible God-loving human beings that parents and grandparents can enjoy and be proud of and who will be an asset to society.
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