‘Grumpy Gramps’ comes from having been around the walks of life now for a good long time and since my grandkids once in a while say ‘oh, oh, Gramps/Papa is grumpy’ – well it just seemed to be fitting to call these spouts of ‘getting something off my chest’ as coming from ‘Grumpy Gramps’.

‘Where were these kids’ when I was growing up.  That is a statement that I am much familiar with, having made such a comment many times over the years when discussing the large number of kids these days which seem to have some sort of emotional, physical or developmental handicap/disability.

And these days it comes even more to the forefront of my days as I have a 10-year old grandson who, while smart as smart can get in some things, is strongly developmentally handicapped when it comes to social, coping and living skills with a touch of autism.

Since, due to some issues with his mom, we get take care of him nearly every weekend while he currently lives full-time with his other grandpa (my wife’s ex-husband).  This has literally at times turned things upside down for us for reasons I can discuss at another time, but for now we’ll just say it has become a test for many reason and the biggest for me is how to give him as much love as possible while also keeping the foot down on some things, some habits, some manners which I for one feel he must clear up so that he will not stick out in the crowd any more than he already does.

On top of this he is smart enough to know when to pull Papa’s chain at times and yet when he reacts the way he does when I may correct him about a manner, a habit or something irritating like ‘chewing with his mouth open’ I have to realize the teaching some lessons just have to be done no matter how he reacts or goes into one of those tendencies associated with autism.

So back to my original thought – ‘where were these kids’ when I was growing up and the answer to that is that I just don’t know or don’t remember.  It seems that kids that were handicapped in my growing up days were those who literally were mentally and emotionally handicapped to the point that it was very visible, and yet even them seemed to be few.

And then again sometimes I look back on my life as a kid and how I behaved or maybe misbehaved, learned or didn’t learn, socialized or didn’t socialize and I remember telling my parents one time that if they had all the rules and diagnoses back then like they do today – then even I would have been marked with something like ADD.

So ‘Grumpy Gramps’ still looks back with wonder about ‘where were these kids’ when I was growing up, while at the same time am finding myself looking at the whole concept of emotional and social handicaps at a complete different level – thank you to my grandson for giving me this enlightening opportunity.

There you have it, another ‘Grumpy Gramps’ and while many may be spewing about things they don’t like or see has being wrong – many times it will be just ‘getting it off my chest’ type of sharing.  So enjoy, think about it and if you feel the need or want – send me a comment or two and ‘Grumpy Gramps’ promises to get back to you.

(Copyright@2016, CrossDove Writer)