Although you will want to engage in many activities that you have enjoyed all your life, and especially those that you had to limit or put off altogether, our guess is that in time, for most of you, they will eventually come to be of secondary importance. For those of you who have offspring, they, and their children - your grandchildren - will come to be a primary focus of your extended time.

Certainly, you will continue with your various activities of interest. But a great deal of your time will more than likely come to be spent in family pursuits. We say this because we have seen this pattern occur in patients and in others around us over the years. People hit their 50's, 60's, and 70's and suddenly family ties - even where they had formerly been loose and sporadic - come to the fore. This is especially so when grandchildren arrive.

Just as you did not know beforehand how having a child could transform your life, and bring a new kind of love with its own limitless dimension, you also cannot know how being a grandparent will have its own captivating effect on you. And the attachment and love you will come to feel for your grandchildren will be much like the love you felt for your own children when they came into your life.

Only here, unlike many grandparents in the past, you will not be tucked away in your easy chair in the living room, or in the rocking chair out on the porch - although such happy moments will also be there from time to time. But you will also be able to take those beautiful little creatures and do a host of things with them: teach them to swim, or ride a bike, or play tennis.