Introduction

Once parents separate, grandparents on the mother’s side of the family often play a more significant role in supporting their daughter and caring for grandchildren (Dench and Ogg, 2002, p 55), and maternal grandmothers often have a more influential role than their husbands, the maternal grandfathers. Other research (Aldous, 1985; Mills et al, 2001; Roberto et al, 2001) has concluded that both maternal and paternal grandmothers’ relationships with their grandchildren are different in quality from those of their husbands who are often less involved in childcare. Some grandparents in our study claimed that they conducted their grandparenting as ‘a couple’ or a ‘grandparenting unit’. Although they saw their grandchildren on the same occasions, however, the quality of that contact might be a different matter (see Cherlin and Furstenberg, 1992, p 118).

These factors have led to a conception of a ‘grandparenting hierarchy’ in which grandmothers are ranked more highly than grandfathers and maternal grandparents take priority over paternal grandparents (see Chapter Two of this book). Although this hierarchy is well established in the literature (Eisenberg, 1988; Creasey and Koblewski, 1991; Uhlenberg and Hammill, 1998; Findler, 2000), it is still important to ask, ‘Why does it exist?’. Is it simply that maternal grandparents, particularly in divorced families, have more opportunities to forge closer relationships?

Maternal and paternal grandparenting

Chan and Elder (2000) concluded that close relationships between grandchildren and their maternal grandparents could be explained by mothers’ relationships with their parents. It is a view that is echoed in our study by George’s father, who believed that this explained the differences that existed in the quality of the maternal and paternal grandparents’ relationships in his family.