I’ve worked as a diplomat in war zones across Yugoslavia and the DR Congo but nothing prepared me for how tough and rewarding it would be to care for infants.
At 35, our New York-based daughter decided to have children. She was in good health and worked a full-time job, so there was nothing we could say, despite our worries about how she would manage a child and a job as a single parent.Jaque Grinberg and his granddaughter Alexa in New York.
At the time, I was 70 and not in good shape, having lost 12 kilos during the cancer therapy. But from the first moment I held Alexa, so fragile and small, I became determined to do everything in my power to look after, love and nurture her.Like many fathers of my generation, I had an all-consuming job and had been too busy to bring up my own kids. My time with them had been limited to bedtime stories and weekend pram pushing.
Even with fumbling fingers, I quickly became adept at changing nappies and applying nappy rash cream. Small rivets on baby outfits quickly drove me insane, and on my next tour of duty I brought a tonne of Australian baby clothes over with me . My second stint was much more challenging. Having read that single children of single parents had the most difficulties in life , my daughter was pregnant again.
The developmental challenge was to get Alexa to speak. Baby talk videos didn’t seem to help, and for the first time I felt truly inadequate. Mothers talk to babies in a high-pitched over-expressive tone, using smiles and body language to elicit speech. But I couldn’t replicate that.
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