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A grandparent can be simply affirming. A grandparent has been there, done that child-raising stuff, and has the wisdom of experience. And so in some ways, they're free to love without the anxiety of being the actual parents. They're free to give.

I think the great thing about grandparents is seeing another home, realising that people you love can have different priorities, different diversions, different opinions and lead quite different lives from the ones you see every day, and that is immensely valuable.

I was fortunate to be raised by loving grandparents.

Everything people say about grandparenthood is true - it is pleasure without responsibility. It is unquestioned love.

With your own children, you love them immediately - and with grandchildren, it's exactly the same.

I enjoyed my grandparents very much. My mother and father would always allow me to stay with them.

Now that I'm a grandfather myself, I realize that the best thing about having grandkids is that you get the kid for the best part of the ride - kind of like owning a car for only the first 10,000 miles. You can have your grandchildren for a couple of days and then turn them back over to the parents.

Knowing more about family history is the single biggest predictor of a child's emotional well-being. Grandparents can play a special role in this process, too.

We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.