GRANDPA GOOGLE

 Wisdom Wherever You Find It


My grandfather was my Google before there was an internet.   Luis Gutierrez


First, some context.  This Luis Gutierrez is not the congressman from Illinois.


Joe Schifrin thought he would be a bachelor his entire life.  He was especially devoted to his elderly mother despite the fact that his childhood had not been a halcyon time.  Later in life, he met Nancy, and before they married, she embraced the Judaism that was so important to him.  Nancy’s daughter had a complicated life, so when her two oldest children were still little, Joe and Nancy took them in and raised them as their own.  So there was Joe – just a few years earlier quietly resigned to life as a single man now raising grandchildren he hardly knew.


I know it was not always easy for Joe.  Though he was possessed of a gentle demeanor, he never had a good role model for dealing with frustration.  I was the family rabbi, and Joe and I had many discussions about childrearing. He was reluctant to believe he was doing as good a job as I assured him.


Luis is one of those children.  His gentle and beautiful sister Jacqueline died tragically young as his grandmother Nancy declined into dementia.  In the end, Luis was all the family Joe had.  When Joe died, Luis had become the remarkable and successful young man Joe had raised him to be.  And in paying tribute to him, he said these words: My grandfather was my Google before there was an internet.  


If you have children or grandchildren, you know there is a period in their lives, beginning when they first learn to talk and continuing until you die, when they have a proclivity to ask questions. (Our family favorite came during errand-running from the back seat: Mom, how do they make car seats?)  Until and unless you put a computer screen in front of them, the major source of information they have is you.  You can tell them to look it up or ask their other parent or figure it out for themselves.  You can answer them with the letters introduced to our family by another one of my kids: LMGTFY (let me Google that for you).  But they will ask you anyway.


And that is something to celebrate. 


As Luis discovered, when a person knows a lot, there is a lot to learn from them.  And when that person is willing to share that knowledge, conversations take place that deepen not merely learning, but relationships.  All the challenges that persuade a parent (or someone acting in loco parentis) that they are failing at the job melt away from a child’s memory if you just take their questions seriously.


Joe was a pretty smart guy, but you don’t have to be.  Nobody knows everything, even if someone small thinks you are Grandpa Google.  “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer.  In those circumstances, adding “that’s a great question” makes it better and “let’s look it up together” makes it best. 


The old aphorism that necessity is the mother of invention is only partially true.  Curiosity, though perhaps fatal to the cat, is really what impels a person to learn and then to apply that learning.  A parent who can help a child cultivate curiosity offers a skill set that can last a productive lifetime.  A curious child who becomes a curious adult asks questions that are answered not because of practical necessity, rather because of a longing for broadening and deepening understanding of the world around us.


I am part of that generation that had to develop research skills if I wanted to know something, and so I have a basis of comparison with the speed and comprehensiveness of the internet.  I am glad for Google, but I yet contend that when you do research online, you never learn things accidentally.  You get what you ask for…and nothing else.


But in a conversation between younger and older people, you get the best of both worlds. And, honestly, if it turns out Grandpa Google is wrong every now and then, it is a small price to pay for the appreciation that builds between two people, one flattered to be asked and the other thrilled to be answered.

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