I am going to sound a hard horrible woman, but I simply do not understand how people become so obsessed with their grand children and spend so much time obsessing about them.
I can understand the early years when grandparent help with child care is essential but children grow and need less nurturing. And if you spend a lot of time with them, why do you need to constantly think and obsess about them when you ae not with them?
Admittedly I live 200 miles from my grandchildren, so childcare was out of the question, but I was in my car and off to them when emergencies arose. My associate grandmother lives close by and she did give help in the early years, but always had her own life, own interests, friends she met up with.
Our grandchildren are part of her life, as they are part of mine, but in each case we have kept up independent lives, not shed our other friends and have lots of intersting things we can talk about, rather than droning on for ever about our grandchildren, wonderful though they are.