Grandparents as Educators

Within anthropology we have developed several useful distinctions in discussing the questions of how grandparents do or do not play a role in the education of children in any given society, and particularly in our own. Within the context of this article the author uses the word education to include conscious teaching of any sort, whether of speech, manners, morals, or skills, but include also the process of socialization, which occurs in all societies as children learn to restrain their impulses, postpone gratification, control their sphincters, walk, talk, and participate in social life, and the process of enculturation, by which children learn a particular culture.