Grandparents who help out occasionally with childcare or provide support for others in their community tend to live longer than seniors who do not care for other people, according to a study from Berlin, Germany.

“Having no contact with grandchildren at all can negatively impact grandparents’ health.” said Sonja Hilbrand, one of the researchers. The findings are drawn from data on more than 500 people over age 70 in the Berlin Aging Study. The study team compared this group with those who provided support for non-family members, such as neighbors, and seniors who did not provide any care for other people. Overall, after accounting for grandparents’ age and general state of health, the risk of dying over a 20-year period was one-third lower for grandparents who cared for their grandchildren, compared with grandparents who provided no childcare.

Caregiving was associated with a longer life even when the care receiver wasn’t a relative. Half of the grandparents who cared for grandchildren were still alive ten years after the initial interview. In contrast, about half of the participants who did not help others died within five years after the start of the study.

“Caregiving may give caregivers a purpose of life because they may feel useful for others and society. Caregiving may be thought also as an activity that keeps caregivers physically and mentally active,” said Professor Bruno Arpino, adding that caregiving is not the only activity that can improve old people’s health, and too many caring responsibilities can take away from other beneficial activities like working, being in social clubs, or volunteering. “Children should take into account their parents’ needs, willingness, and desires and agree with them on the timing and amount of childcare,” he suggested.

My dearest daughter, as I looked across at you sitting on the sofa watching The X Factor, I noticed that you are no longer a child, and that having just celebrated your 14th birthday, you are now a young woman starting a journey into becoming an adult woman. As I looked at you, I remembered myself at 14, and the vastly different places we are beginning this journey from.

Your identity as a mixed-race young woman, with an English father and a Pakistani mother, has already influenced how you place yourself in this world. As yet, you are unaware of the personal struggles that I took at the age of 25 to marry. How it felt when my mother refused to come to my wedding. The sharp criticisms of the Asian community that such marriages do not work out and always end in divorce. The confidence I had to grow, as we chose to live in a multicultural community, as I refused to be shamed into living in the leafier white suburbs.

Then, at the age of 30, I became your mum with all the joys and struggles this brought, as I refused the Asian traditions for a new baby’s arrival. From your birth, your life could not have been more different from mine. I was brought up on a council estate, within a tight-knit extended Muslim family, through which poverty, racism and neglect were woven. I was never given the freedoms or the opportunity to experience new things. Now, as I hear you play your piano. I am grateful that you have these opportunities.

So many doors were closed to me as a young person, and as I fought for small steps of freedom. I soon learned that it was better to do what I wanted without the knowledge of my parents, and so deceit and deception (欺骗) became woven into my life too. The pressures to obey, to be a “good Muslim” girl and keep the family honour, were choking. Behind closed doors at home, the neglect and abuse took place. It was hidden, I felt the shame, lived with the fear and suffered alongside my sister and two younger brothers. Oh, the power we thought our parents had over us! I was convinced that one day my father would indeed beat us so hard that leaving us for dead, he would, as his threats said he would, bury us in the large back garden, and tell the school he had taken us back to Pakistan for good. My sister and I longed for a different blue sky to live under.

As a daughter of immigrant parents, I carried their hopes of a better education for their children—my own veins (血管) pulsing with the hard-work ethic (道德) and need to be grateful for the opportunity of a free education. And it was education that provided me with the strength to find my own blue sky. I fought to leave home to go to university at the age of 18, and never returned to live with my parents again.

Now as you explore your mixed-race heritage, which I hope we have supported you to do with visits to Pakistan and ensuring you go to multi-cultural schools, I want you to take the very best of all that is Asian with you as you become a woman.

I want you to know that although your journey has been vastly different. I am excited as I watch you standing on the threshold of becoming a woman for all the adventures and possibilities the future holds for you.

May you fly your blue sky with grace, confidence and hope as you find your place in this beautiful and crazy world.

Loving you now and always.                                                                      Mommy