Our Gemara on Amud Aleph tells us the well-known aphorism, בני בנים הרי הם כבנים Grandchildren are considered as if they are children. Grandparents can be a resource for their grandchildren, as well as a source of satisfaction and fulfillment to the grandparents. If the relationship between the Grandparent and their child is a healthy one, the parents will also enjoy the grandparents’ involvement, offering an extra hand, babysitting, relief for a vacation etc. What are some of the halakhic requirements between a grandparent and a grandchild?
- There is a degree of honor that a grandparent should receive that is not quite on the level of the parent, but more than an unrelated elder. See Ramah YD 240:24. This would suggest that if there is a conflict between a parent and grandparents wishes, the parent’s wish comes first. However, this itself is complex because one is not obligated to obey a parent’s wishes when it runs against a Torah directive (see ibid 12, 15-16)
- A grandfather is especially. obligated to do Pidyon Haben if the father is unable to do so, such as if he is deceased (Shach YD 305:11).
- The grandfather is also obligated to teach his son Torah, and some even say obligated to hire a melamed, if the father cannot do so (Shulkhan Arukh Harav, Talmid Torah 1:8).
- Eliyahu Rabba (223:1),based on a sefer Chasidim (846), says a grandfather can make a HaTov V’Hameitiv when his son or daughter has a son, though it seems the custom is not to make this beracha.
In recent years Parental Alienation has been recognized as a destructive syndrome affecting divorced parents, grandparent alienation is now emerging as its own problem. While a divorce can increase the chances of grandparent alienation because of the raised level of conflict and custody tension, even in standard marriages family cut offs can lead to grandparent alienation. With increased life expectancy in both quality and quantity, grandparent alienation is even more relevant.There is an association Alienated Grandparents Anonymous (AGA) that offers advice and support for alienated grandparents.
Emotional Cutoff occurs when there is not enough individuation, according to the Family Therapist pioneer, Murray Bowen, who extensively studied this phenomenon. In plain non-clinical English, when there is not enough tolerance for individual expression and opinion, tensions build to a point where it is either capitulation or enforced distance. That is, the person who is emotionally merged (often the parent because he or she has more social sanction to be controlling, but sometimes the child, or even both parent and child’s enmeshment can feed off each other), make certain demands of loyalty in behavior or thinking. With religious families it can manifest as requirements in religious ritual and custom. For a period of time, sometimes even a lifetime, the person will comply with the expectations, however when some degree of independence of thought or action is activated, the stress fractures start to show. If this new independence cannot be negotiated, it ends up in cut off.
When cut off happens, the children lose their grandparents and vice versa. This is a loss for everyone, as grandparents can provide social, financial and emotional support tp children and grandchildren. If money is used as a means of control, which can stem from poor differentiation we described above, this resource can be seen as too toxic. Many grandparents have their identity invested in their grandchildren, similar to ways that parents have their identity tied into their children. To some degree this can be healthy, and at other times lead to tension, demands, and cut off. When grandparents lose access to their grandchild, it can lead to depression and ambiguous grief. Ambiguous grief is a loss that it hard to identify or feel fully justified, which further complicates mourning, since the grandchild is alive and well, and it is even embarrassing to discuss, grandparent alienation is ambiguous grief.
A good scriptural example of ambiguous grief is Yaakov’s feelings of loss for Yosef. This is because he never saw his body, and perhaps intuited that Yosef might still be alive (See Bereishis 37:35 Rashi and other commentaries.)
While it can take slow and humble work to undo family cutoffs and alienation, if achievable it is worth the effort. Family cut offs frequently repeat through generations, so there are strong unconscious compulsions and forces that bring them about and it’s a fight uphill against known and unknown forces.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation 
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