In Britain, as in Russia, grannies and granddads (or grandads - either spelling is correct) come in all shapes and sizes.
Tom's grandparents were just fifty when he was born. His grandmother, Beryl, was working in the check-out section of a supermarket, a job which she had long regarded as boring. So Tom's birth was an opportunity. Her husband, Vincent, was earning enough money for them to pay their council rent and they had no big expenses in the future. Beryl gave up her job and arranged that she would look after Tom when Tom's mother went back to work. She lived a short bus-ride away from Tom's home, and would turn up most mornings soon after breakfast. Until he was three, Tom's granny was the person he knew best. Beryl also agreed to take on Tom's baby sister, Rose, born when he was two-and-a-half. She looked after the two small children, took them for walks, taught them the songs and games which she had known as a child, and sometimes took them on the bus for a treat. When Tom was three, his parents were given money by the state so that they could send him to a nursery school for three afternoons a week, and on those afternoons, Beryl was able to enjoy giving Rose her full attention. Tom started full-time school when he was four-and-a-half, and Rose, three years later, as hers was a September birthday. When they were both at school, Beryl continued to meet them after school and bring them home to have their tea before their mother got back from work.
About one in ten grandmothers are full-time grannies like Beryl. Most British grandparents, however much they love their grandchildren, are not enthusiastic at the idea of giving up their independent lives to look after them full-time. If you enjoy your work, have a vigorous life with people of your own age -husbands, wives, friends - and, if, outside work hours, you commit yourself to many activities requiring time and responsibility, then abandoning all this in order to look after small children is not necessarily attractive. Unless there is a family crisis (which naturally changes matters), most older people prefer to be loving but part-time grandparents.
Most importantly, grandparents are not just grandparents. The retirement age in this country is 60 for women and 65 for men, but in practice many people expect to work, at least part-time, until they are 65 to 70, a move which the government is strongly encouraging. In 2008 British life expectancy was 77 years for men and 82 years for women. (This is the age to which a new-born baby can expect to live, but it is closely based on what is happening now to older people.) By contrast, more than half Russian men die before they are 60 so that many of the questions about those who are older than seventy are really about women who are often living lonely lives.
In Britain about three out of five grandparents expect to see their grandchildren regularly - at least once or twice a month - and to spend some time looking after them. But this is not easy for many older people who enjoy having grandchildren. Granny Susan and her husband, Gordon, have five grandchildren, three of them living in London which is more than two hours by bus, and two living in a small town which is two hours away by car - but Granny Susan does not drive. By bus or train it is at least three hours. Susan is sixty five, Gordon is sixty-eight. She has spent her life working, but has now - reluctantly - retired. They would hate to live in London, and almost certainly could not afford to do so. They have no wish to live in a little town miles away from their friends. It might be fine for their younger daughter, but not for them. So Granny Susan and Grandpa Gordon visit their children and grandchildren for short periods. Once or twice Susan has been summoned for emergency help to London when one of the children had to go into hospital for an operation for appendicitis. On this occasion and one or two others she has spent a week or more in London looking after the other children. Sometimes at half-term holidays the grandchildren arrive with their parents who then set off on their own brief holiday. Having three children to stay is fun for Susan and Gordon, but when they wave goodbye to them, the two of them look at each other with some relief. Now they can turn back to their own friends and the many activities and obligations in their own lives.
Grannies like Susan are much more common than grannies like Beryl. Their children grow up, move away, establish their own homes, remain on excellent terms with their parents but meet them only three or four times a year. Sometimes these grannies and grandpas (or granddads - either is common) think about living closer to their children and grandchildren. But if they move to be close to one family, they will be further away from the other one. Typically British grandparents have at least three or four grandchildren. Far less often than in Russia do we find the situation where two lots of grandparents, living close by, fight for the chance to look after one lonely grandchild.
Russian women who continue to work, to organise, to write or to run households deep into old age are formidable! But many Russian women retire at the age of fifty-five and live on small pensions, doing nothing very much for years and years. With perhaps one grown-up child and no obvious interests, these women seem to live meagre lives even if they are healthy and well-educated. We have fewer such women, partly because of our passion for Voluntary associations'. [See Part 6, Chapter 2 and 3]. Our retired older women (and men, though they are less good at it) seize the chance to do something which they have never done before. They may take up swimming or painting or keep chickens or play bingo; they may learn another language, join a video club, or redevelop a garden. They may study in adult classes - everything from 'Russian literature' to 'How to prepare French soups' - or join U3A (the University of the Third Age) an organisation for older people run entirely by themselves with their own member lecturers, self-teaching groups and specialist seminars.
With all this free time, they become volunteers in charities. They may volunteer to help in a local school, to train as an advisor in our Citizens' Advice Bureau, to help even older people with 'meals on wheels', or to take part in campaigns to improve their local area. This means that they meet people and have a vivid social life. While they are still physically and mentally active, they can chose from hundreds of possibilities which will keep them alert and fit. These activities do not cost much money; some cost no money at all. Naturally those older people with good pensions or savings may decide to spend their money on travel. Granny might, for example, choose to take a grandchild on an exciting trip to Edinburgh where they can visit Edinburgh Castle - something special between the two of them.
I am not suggesting that all older people live energetic lives, full of clubs and volunteering; at retirement age some people are already tired or simply do not want to be very active. I am describing a typical response to retirement; and the more education a person has had, the more typical this pattern becomes. Healthy people in their seventies do not expect to be treated as 'old'. There is an English saying, 'You're as old as you feel' and increasingly, with prolonged good health, older people continue to feel and behave much as they always have done. So the total commitment to grandchildren is much less noticeable in England than in Russia.
Eventually the day comes when even the most active elderly couple begin to falter. Most often that day comes, after the death of one partner, when the remaining partner can no longer manage physically or emotionally on his or her own. The next generation has to decide what to do. This is a problem millions of families face, here as in Russia, and there are no simple answers.
Patricia is a widow, aged eighty-three, who can no longer walk easily and is beginning to get anxious and confused. After long family discussions, one of her children says, 'Of course she can come and live with us!' So Patricia moves in to the home of her middle-aged daughter and son-in-law. It is not easy. She has her own room, her own space, but it is upstairs, so she has to choose between a painful daily climbing of the stairs and being virtually marooned in her room. Rearranging the house would not help because the bathroom and toilet are upstairs too. Psychologically it is difficult: Patricia, partly because of the confusions of old age, and partly perhaps because of fierce obstinacy, forgets that she could no longer live on her own, and loudly resents being forced to give up her own home. Her daughter and son-in-law know that they may have to face years of ever-increasing restrictions on their freedom, instead of the independence they are now enjoying. It is a solution to the problem, made generously but usually with some reluctance.