It's National Grandparents' Days. But Where Are They?
In "Northern Lights" (1995), Lyra Belacqua, a young girl who finds herself in the middle of a cosmic war, is brought up in the cloistered world of Jordan College, Oxford. She is under the guardianship of the college's Master. In "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (1949), Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, among the many children evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, are sent to the countryside to live with Professor Digory Kirke. In "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (1997), a young boy, who has a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead lives, with his aunt and her family in Little Whinging in Surrey. No grandparents? You read it right.
When parents are unwilling to provide adequate care for their children, grandparents take on the role of primary caregivers. In traditional cultures, they have a direct role in relation to the raising and nurture of children. But this isn't the case in fiction.
Show me the way
Most readers will remember Grandpa Joe. He's Charlie Bucket's grandfather who encourages the young lad to buy a Cadbury chocolate bar, hoping there'll be a Golden Ticket inside. Charlie dreams of setting foot in Wonka's chocolate factory, but his family can hardly afford a bar. Fate smiles on him, and with his Grandpa on his side, explores the confectionery production factory for a day. If not for the old man, Charlie ends up like Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee, the other lucky winners of the ticket. (Gluttonous Augustus falls into a chocolate and is sucked up by a pipe. Violet, a record-breaking gum chewer, chews a piece of experimental gum and blows up into a blueberry. Veruca, a spoiled brat, is thrown into a garbage chute after demanding a squirrel. Mike, who has an unhealthy obsession with television, accidentally shrinks himself after using a teleporter.)
Grandpa Joe is one of the main characters of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (1964), a children's book based from Roald Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays. The author's works have lots of grandparents in action. ("The Witches" is another notable example.) Genre is the reason why readers often see Grandpa and Grandma (in Dahl's books), but this is not the case with other writers. Young and free, they are not. Demographics reveal many readers are below 50. The inedible moments in most authors' lives don't involve their grandparents.
You're never too old
Deborah Moggach's "These Foolish Things" (2004) seems to be a step in a new direction. It's about a group of British pensioners moving to a retirement hotel in India after finding out there's nothing left for the likes of them at home. "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", a film adaptation of the novel, is a hit. Maybe this prompts other writers to pen a novel starring Grandpa (or Grandma).
For the meantime, let's have a toast to grandparents out there.
