This is Vanese Ferguson with Coffee Talk.

I think it is incredibly important for children to spend time with older adults.  Not in the Grandma-has-a-present-for-you-on-your-birthday kind of way but rather sit in the room, listen to the conversation, speak with those around you, learn how to engage and be respectful.

I spent a lot of time with both my Grandmothers growing up.  My maternal grandmother is more partly due to proximity, because she only lived a couple blocks.  But I saw my paternal Grandmother at least once a week and when I hit 13 my Dad would drive over on a Saturday and we’d wrestle the lawnmower out of the trunk, and I’d mow the lawn. Not for money.  But because it was the right thing to do. Once I got my driver’s license, I went over to see both my Grandmothers of my own volition because I enjoyed spending time with them.  I also had a couple of unlikely friends, at least for a little kid, in a couple that lived down the block from us.  Mr. and Mrs. Neill didn’t have children, and yes, I called them Mr. and Mrs. until the day they both passed. It would have been weird not to regardless of whether I was in my 20s. I learned how, although something you might think was silly, like their intensive care of the city boulevard in front of their house, you respected their position because it was important to them. We talked about everything while I was growing up. Religion, politics, who was doing what-where on the block.  They were a significant part of the shaping of my moral compass.

And I’ll never forget a statement they made one Christmas visit after I went to university.  I say this as debate swirls around whether Mark Carney’s signing of a document Friday to end the carbon tax was real.  Mr. Neill, in regard to a certain individual in the running in local politics who was a Minister, said a Minister should never be a politician because politicians always lie.  Painting everyone with that broad a brush may be up for debate.  But it’s food for thought.