After parents, there are grandparents. Every kid always have special connection with grandparents. We often said that grandparents are better than our parents, since they always give whatever we want and they take our side when our parents are mad at us. The psychologist said that the emotional attachment and importance of grandparents is in second to the emotional connection we have to our parents.
There are many importance of grandparents in Islam, and it has become our obligation to treat them well. Even if our grandparents live far away, we must pay regular visit to them to show that we still love and care and thankful for them. As Ibn Muflih said in Al-Aadaab Ash-Shar’iyyah said,
“The scholars agreed that being kind and dutiful to one’s parents is an obligation, and they also agreed that being kind and dutiful to one’s grandparents is an obligation.”
So here are some of the importance of grandparents in Islam:
1. They Make Our Life Different
The presence of grandparents makes certain differences in the life of their grandchildren. As they are now old and retiring, they manifest most of their time to take care of grandchildren. It plays a big influence to the grandchildren’s behavior in the future.
2. We Grow Up with Them
Most of the kids grow up with grandchildren. Since they are there for us since day one, we develop a strong bond with our grandparents. Whenever holiday come, we think of visiting our grandparents. Many sweet things remind us of our grandparents such as rocking chair or the scarf she handmade for us.
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3. They Help Our Parents to Raise Us
Many parents nowadays are working parents. Both our father and mother go to work everyday to make a living. And then there they are: grandparents to the rescue. They often babysit us whenever our parents are too busy to play with us.
4. And Many Kids are Raised by Their Grandparents
If helping is not enough of word, one of the importance of grandparents in Islam is that they are the one who raised us. We spend more of childhood with our grandparents than we did with our parents.
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5. They Spend a Lot for Us
Grandparents are the only persons who never say no to whatever we ask for. All they want is to see us happy. It makes them very generous towards us. They spend their money to buy us foods, latest toy, trendiest clothes, and even storybook. They just never know when to stop.
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6. Many Things to Learn from Them
Other than money, there are many things we can learn from them. Especially if our grandparents serve in the community as volunteer, we can join them for the experience despite the young age. It gives us different perception about the world.
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7. We Share the Fun Together with Grandparents
Nothing is not fun with grandparents. The generational gaps make everything we do together have so much fun. Teach your grandparents to use the internet, making video call, and talk to Google. There will be many funny things happen during the time.
8. They Love Being Grandparents
What’s lovely from our grandparents is that they love being grandparents. They are so immersed to their role, and having grandparents make us feel like we win the world. They are just what we want our parents to be. For grandparents, having grandchildren is the best thing ever happen in their lives.
Also read: Quran Verses of Respecting Parents
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9. Their Experience are Valuable
Our grandparents have lived longer than us. Surely there are many life experience they have been through, and it always worth to be recounted million of times. You will be very interested on how your grands met each other for the first time to the fun stories about our parents’ childhood we never know. Also, seems like they never runs out of story no matter how many times we ask for one.
10. We Can Do Many Things with Grandparents
Never underestimate our grandparents just because they are old. There are still many things we can do with our grandparents such as taking a morning walk, watching movie, and share the secrets we hide from our parents.
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Rights of Grandparents
As grandparents are very important in our lives, their rights must be fulfilled too. Here are some of the rights of grandparents:
- Child’s Custody
Grandparents has right for the child’s custody as well as the guardianship when both parents are unable to carry on their duty. Grandparents is next to the custody after parents in Islam.
- Visitation Right
Grandparents have the right to be visited regularly by their grandchildren if they are living away. They should not be neglected just because they have growing old and barely doing nothing. Having grandparents until their old age is actually a privilege not anyone can have.
- To be Respected as Our Own Parents
Our grandparents are even older than our parents. While our parents must respect them, we also have the same obligation to respect grandparents as we respect our own parents. We also have to them dearly and equally.
- To be Spend On
When we have be able to earn money on our own and luckily our grandparents are still alive, we should spend on them like we spend to our parents. As said, Islam consider grandparents as our second parents.
“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents.” [Al-Isra’ (17:23)]
After reading all the importance of grandparents in Islam, now we all know that having grandparents is a privilege. They already old when we were little and getting even older as we grow up. While they are still around, let’s treat our grandparents in the best way possible. May Allah bless our grandparents with long life always. Aamiin.