Teresa Santoski

Parents have to balance a challenging set of responsibilities as they raise their children. They have to be loving but firm, set boundaries while remaining flexible, and encourage the consumption of fruits and vegetables while still making allowances for dessert.

Grandparents, on the other hand, have no such responsibilities. They’re free to spoil their grandkids to their hearts’ content and let their children – the grandkids’ parents – handle any consequences.

Though one-and-a-half-year-old Niece #1 and one-month-old Niece #2 aren’t quite at the age for spoiling just yet, our family history indicates that they’ll eventually be enjoying some special privileges from Gram and Grump – known to me as Mom and Dad.

I was the first grandchild on Dad’s side of the family, and I was also the first girl born into his family in 50 years. Grandpa didn’t have any sisters, and neither did Dad. Grandpa was especially overjoyed to have a granddaughter, so little me was allowed to do things that Dad and his brothers couldn’t even have dreamed of doing.

I had the privilege of sitting in Grandpa’s armchair, which was off-limits to everyone else, and I was also permitted to eat his potato chips. He always ate Wise Golden Original potato chips – the ones in the turquoise bag – and no one else was allowed to touch them.

Grandpa passed away when I was nine, so I didn’t get to enjoy those privileges or his company for as long as I would’ve liked. Every time I see Wise potato chips in the grocery store, I think of him and my all-too-brief reign as the potato chip princess.

The spoiling continued thanks to Grandma, Grandpa’s wife and Dad’s mother. Every year in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Grandma would bake dozens of cookies. She would make cut-out sugar cookies in holiday shapes, decorated with red or green sprinkles, as well as peanut butter cookies – with and without Hershey’s kisses in the middle.

She would also make Slovakian kolache, which are walnut rolls, along with chocolate chip cookies, and molasses cookies that she’d call “glass cookies” because she’d roll the dough into little balls and then flatten them out with the bottom of a glass.

Grandma would store these holiday goodies in enormous cookie tins – think like the tins those fancy popcorn assortments come in – and leave them out in the dining room where they were easily accessible to us grandkids. Every time we walked past those tins, we helped ourselves. And trust me, we found plenty of excuses to walk past those tins.

When it wasn’t the holiday season, Grandma had a jar of M&Ms that she would keep out for us. It was not uncommon for my siblings and me to congregate around the M&M jar with our cousins, each of us trying to get our share before they disappeared.

If our parents tried to tell us that we’d had enough cookies or M&Ms, Grandma would remind them that they were in her house and her rules applied, not theirs. Which is also how Younger Sister ended up being allowed to have a cupcake at 10:30 at night.

Our grandparents on Mom’s side of the family were no slouch at spoiling us, either. Grandma’s philosophy was that if you eat dessert earlier in the day, you’ll have more time to burn off those calories before you go to bed. Dessert was therefore not only available but also encouraged to be eaten earlier in the day.

Invariably, once we had eaten our evening meal and the traditional time for dessert had arrived, Grandma would be in the mood for something sweet and decide to have another dessert. And of course, this option was extended to everyone at the table, including us grandchildren.

Mom does not remember Grandma advocating this dessert philosophy when she was growing up. The one exception would be during strawberry season when Grandma would make fresh strawberry shortcake from the garden for the occasional dinner.

In general, Grandma would tell Mom she couldn’t have dessert until she finished eating her vegetables. Fortunately for Mom, she had a dog who absolutely loved vegetables – otherwise, Mom might not have been able to enjoy dessert until she went away to college.

Grandma and Grandpa would occasionally have a cocktail hour before dinner where they’d make Manhattans and serve simple hors d’oeuvres like cheese and crackers. So that us grandchildren could participate, they would make us “kiddie cocktails” consisting of orange juice mixed with cranberry juice or Shirley Temples.

Between double dessert and mocktails served in fancy glassware, I always looked forward to visiting with Grandma and Grandpa. Another feature of their visits was playing card games like Kings in the Corner, but the spoiling of the grandchildren did not extend to letting us win – probably because, much to our grandparents’ dismay, we were able to win on our own without any special treatment.

Every grandparent was once a child who wished they could eat dessert instead of dinner and a parent who wished they could let their kids eat dessert instead of dinner but knew their kids needed actual nutrition. And now that they can do what they want, they like to share that freedom with their grandchildren.

I’m not sure what particular forms of spoiling await Niece #1 and Niece #2 at the hands of Gram and Grump, but I imagine there will at least be a special candy jar just for the grandkids. And most likely double dessert.

Tete-a-tete is published monthly. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@gmail.com or via www.teresasantoski.com.

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