Nancy French's Joyful Grandparenting Lessons & Living Like Tomorrow Isn't Guaranteed

Good Faith

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How Do We Shape Future Generations Well?

Nancy French returns to The Good Faith Podcast with host Curtis Chang for a heartfelt, funny, and surprisingly practical conversation about how grandparenting reshapes your view of hope, kids and screens, grief, and what's worth doing with the time you have—even is that just means "robbing a bank with a Barbie." This conversation isn't just for grandparents: it's for anyone mentoring, parenting, teaching, or influencing the next generation, with practical wisdom on choosing connection, naming loss honestly, and creating space for kids to grow "analog" and resilient. Nancy also explains why legacy and being remembered aren't the point—what matters is faithfully loving the people in front of you and passing on stability, courage, and hope that outlasts you.

02:05 - Why Did Nancy Choose a Year as Primary Caregiver To Her Grandpkids?

07:44 - No screens and the value of analog, imaginative play.

13:15 - Preserving Children's Natural Hope

14:26 - Navigating Difficult Topics with Children

17:14 - The Value of Letting Children Experience Loss

23:09 - Creativity and Storytelling with Grandchildren

25:51 - Introducing Real-World Conflicts in Play

29:19 - Grandparents as Links to Family Legacy

34:53 - George Eliot: The Value of Unremembered Acts

36:18 - Living with Cancer and Embracing the Present

42:30 - Grandparenting from a Distance

45:27 - Encouragement to Focus on fun, connection, and Presence Rather Than Legacy

Episode Companion: A Guide for Grandparents & All Those Influencing The Next Generation

Mentioned In This Episode:

Demographic research: Grandchildren's spatial proximity to grandparents and intergenerational support in the United States
Jennifer F. Cross, M.D.: Why screen time should be limited for kids
The Child Mind Institute: The Power of Pretend Play for Children
Chicago's Harold Washington Library
Curtis Chang's The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry Is the Doorway to Your Best Self
Nancy French & Curtis Chang's The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics
Nancy French's Ghosted: An American Story
George Eliot's Middlemarch (epubs)
More about Secretary of State Cordell Hull

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think grappling with death, especially as grandparents, is super important because it is very
0:06.3	clarifying for the mind.
0:07.6	Like, what are you going to do today?
0:09.0	Are you going to doomscroll on Twitter?
0:11.5	Or do you want to rob a bank with a Barbie?
0:14.5	You know?
0:15.0	And so my answer is always robbing banks with Barbies.
0:33.1	Yeah. robbing banks with Barbies. Welcome to the Good Faith podcast. I'm your host, Curtis Chang. And the Good Faith podcast is
0:38.6	we're friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world. The podcast is a production
0:45.1	of Good Faith, a 501C3 nonpartisan organization. One of my favorite sayings is this. What you see depends on where you sit. In other words,
0:58.1	how we make sense of the world is heavily influenced by our particular roles in the world.
1:04.0	And our roles in our family especially influence our outlook, such that we look at the world differently when we first
1:12.3	become a spouse or first become a parent or first become a grandparent. I've especially been thinking
1:20.5	about the latter family role, that of being a grandparent, because my good friends, David and
1:25.4	Nancy French, have taken on that role in recent years.
1:29.6	And it's evident to me that taking on this role has been transformational for them.
1:35.1	So I invited Nancy to come back on the podcast to share insights on being a grandparent.
1:41.8	I'll be one of the youngest-looking grandmothers that you're likely to see.
1:47.0	Nancy, welcome back to the podcast. It's been way too long. Thank you for joining us.
1:52.0	I know. It's like coming home. Come on. There you go. So we're talking about your life as a grandparent.
2:00.3	Please give listeners some context about what that is right now.
2:03.9	Like, what does your week look like? Okay, so I am naturally, David and I lived in Tennessee for a long
	...

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