The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge
Why The Grandchild-Grandparent Relationship Can Be So Valuable
10 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the grandchild-grandparent relationship?
And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. It is a NBIT special day, and we got lots of stuff that's coming right up. Okay, so I really nailed the ING this time. Coming right up. I got mail on this issue, having mentioned it the other day.
Some people were in total agreement with the person who wrote in to say that you should get better at saying ING. Not coming right up. Coming right up. But I'll tell you, there were a lot of others who said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stay with Cumming. That's a local dialect. Especially in, where was it, Perth County? The Ottawa Valley? So, we have a heated debate on that issue.
I don't want to overstate it, but there were probably half a dozen letters. So there you go. Before we get to some of the end bits, there are interesting ones today. A reminder of what the question of the week is. It's not about ING. It's about the World Cup. Do you care? It starts this week. A couple of games in Canada. The Canadian team playing. It's also going to be played in the U.S.
and in Mexico, and it's costing a fortune. Now, in the U.S., that fortune is being paid by private sponsors, such as things go in the States. I won't comment on that anymore.
Chapter 2: How can grandparents and grandchildren connect more effectively?
But in Canada, there's a huge amount of public money that is being put to the hosting of the World Cup. You know, more than a billion dollars is the figure that's being tossed around. So it's an issue, right? Well, we announced the question of the week on Monday. There have been a lot of letters, and I tell you, there's obviously not a lot of World Cup fans who listen to the bridge.
There are some. But not a lot unless, of course, they're waiting till the last possible moment to send in their letters. So you've got until 3 p.m. this afternoon, Eastern Time, to get your letter in. 3 p.m. Eastern is the cutoff. 75 words or less includes your name and the location you're writing from. And you send your letter.
Answer to this challenging question about what do you think of the World Cup? Do you care? Do you think it's a waste of money? Are you cheering for Canada? What are you doing? You send it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com Okay. End bits. And if you've never joined us on Wednesdays, Wednesdays is kind of like a bonus day.
My contract calls for me to work four days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I just throw this in because I'm a nice guy. And my buddy Mark Bulgich does all the work because he finds these stories. And he sends them to me and we end up using them on the air. Like this one. From ScienceAlert.com. The headline, Beethoven's DNA, reveals a surprise 200 years later.
Chapter 3: What are the challenges in grandparent-grandchild communication?
Now, DNA, of course, can tell you a lot of things. It can also tell you how you died if you get enough DNA. And it usually comes from somebody's hair. Remember all the stories about Napoleon when he was off on that island where he ended up dying? Did he die because he was poisoned? Was he given arsenic? So they took a hair sample. Because they buried Napoleon. They got the hair sample.
And it did seem to have some kind of arsenic traces in it. So that was enough for those who believe he was poisoned, that he was poisoned. This is different. So let me read a little bit of this story. On a stormy Monday in March of 1827, almost 200 years ago now, The German composer Ludwig von Beethoven passed away after a protracted illness.
Bedridden since the previous Christmas, he was ravaged by jaundice, his limbs and abdomen swollen, and every breath a struggle. As his associates sorted through personal belongings, they uncovered a document Beethoven had written a quarter of a century earlier, a will beseeching His brother, you notice how I'm nailing all these INGs?
A will beseeching his brothers to make details of his condition known to the public. Today, it is no secret that one of the greatest musicians the world has ever known was functionally deaf by his mid-40s. You know, functionally deaf, you're one of the greatest musicians the world has ever seen. or heard.
It was a tragic irony Beethoven wished the world understood, not just from a personal perspective, but a medical one. the composer would outlive his doctor by nearly two decades.
Yet close to two centuries after Beethoven's death, a team of researchers set out to fulfill his testament in ways he would never have dreamed possible, by genetically analyzing the DNA in authenticated samples of his hair. Now in this article, which you can find at sciencealert.com,
There's a video, so you can watch that video and you'll see how they determined his loss of hearing, which started in his 40s. My loss of hearing started in my, well, pretty well where I am now in my 70s. So I have a hearing aid that I wear when I remember to put it in.
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Chapter 4: What strategies can improve conversations between generations?
And it helps considerably, especially if I'm in a room with a conversation going on. So one of the scientists looked at this and said this. Our primary goal was to shed light on Beethoven's health problems, which famously include progressive hearing loss beginning in his mid to late 20s and eventually leading to him being functionally deaf by 1818. So with only 9 or 10 years left in his life.
The primary cause of that first hearing loss has never been known, not even to his personal physician, Dr. Johann Adam Schmidt. What began as tinnitus in his 20s slowly gave way to a reduced tolerance for loud noise and eventually a loss of hearing in the higher pitches, effectively ending his career as a performing artist. For a musician, nothing could be more ironic.
In a letter addressed to his brothers, Beethoven admitted he was hopelessly afflicted to the point of contemplating suicide. It wasn't just hearing loss the composer had to deal with in his adult life. From at least the age of 22, he's said to have suffered severe abdominal pains and chronic bouts of diarrhea. Man, oh man.
Six years before his death, the first indications of liver disease appeared, an illness thought to have been, at least in part, responsible for his death at the relatively young age of 56. There's more to this story, but the main part of the story is Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the greatest musicians who's ever lived, some would argue the greatest musician,
And he was going deaf in his 20s and 30s and certainly by his 40s. He composed some of the greatest pieces of music the world has ever known. Okay. All right. Have you ever been on a cruise ship? You know, the closest I ever came on a cruise ship was going on one in the Arctic with the program Students on Ice. And that was, it's got to be 10 or 15 years ago.
It was a fantastic trip, you know, through parts of the Northwest Passage. It was an old cruise ship. I think it had been a Russian cruise ship. This was its last voyage. And it ended up being like an amazing story because within a year, it had been abandoned and was floating in the oceans. People couldn't find it. I don't know where it ended up or whether it sank or what.
But anyway, that doesn't take away from the trip I was on, which was a fabulous trip. And Willie was on that too. We both went on it.
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Chapter 5: How does ageism impact relationships between grandparents and grandchildren?
Anyway, that was the closest I've come to being on a cruise ship. But I know there are people, and there are people who listen to this program, who are dedicated cruise ship people. You know, they cruise in the Caribbean or they, you know, I've got friends who have done the around the world cruise. Well, listen to this. This was in the telegraph. Here's the headline.
This cruise ship, nearly a mile long. 80,000 people on board. It's more than a cruise ship. It's a floating city. Now, it doesn't exist yet. but it very well may exist in the near future. Bigger than any vessel ever built, the proposed Freedom Ship will have homes, schools, and a state-of-the-art hospital all on board. So I'm looking at this artist's conception.
Is that Leonardo DiCaprio right at the bow there with his arms outstretched? No, it's not. But let's read a bit, because I know you're going, Peter, tell us more about that. So I will. Monster cruise ships of today face being reduced to mere minnows by plans for a floating city that will carry 80,000 people around the world. A mile long, 800 feet wide, and
And 30 decks high, the $12 billion Freedom Ship would house a research hospital as well. There's enough schools, shops, and restaurants to serve a population as big as Chatham in Kent. 80,000.
Likely to be powered by nuclear fuel, the 2.3 million gross ton giant will have homes for 50,000 permanent residents and space for another 10,000 cruisers and day visitors, all served by a crew of 20,000 people. Among the extensive facilities will be high-rise hotels, a 15,000-seat sports stadium, a convention center, a water park, two museums, and a symphony hall.
Divers will be able to swim in an enormous aquarium, while partygoers will dance the night away in a spacious club. A two-story food hall will cater to residents who want a change from the wide range of dining venues. Children will be educated from primary to college levels, while four decks will be given over to commercial services, financial branches, banks, and retail.
On top will be eight helipads. I don't know, this all sounds wild.
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Chapter 6: What role does technology play in bridging the generational gap?
Really? What happens when COVID hits? Yeah, right. Sorry, that's not in the script here. The Leviathan will also move with a plan to circumnavigate the globe every couple of years at a stately seven knots. Too big to dock in any port, the ship will stay in international waters, transferring passengers to and from land by a fleet of ferries.
Even other cruise vessels could moor alongside this cruise vessel. Arriving visitors will be able to ride a tram system to a series of districts on board. Those who prefer to explore by foot can enjoy 15 miles of walkways and three acres of parks. This is not going to happen. Come on.
While the Freedom Ship is yet to sail or even begin construction, the idea behind it has been floating around for three decades. It was first proposed in the 1990s. by an American engineer who died in 2012. The blueprints were dusted off publicly the following year, only to be mothballed again. So why has it resurfaced? Roger Gooch, chief executive of Freedom Cruise Line International,
has taken on a project manager, a designer, and a naval architect among a 12-strong leadership team and insists the demand is strong, claiming we could almost justify building three of these. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Ah, here's the hook. Now, says the brains behind this at the moment, it's just a small matter of raising the startup money.
We're confident, but the capitalization is the key. Yeah, no kidding. I don't know. I'm not going to read all of this, but we're talking megabucks, right? Just imagine the insurance on this thing. Well, good luck on that.
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Chapter 7: What are the benefits of deeper conversations between grandparents and grandkids?
Let's see what happens. And they thought the Titanic was big. But guess what happened to that? All right, here's another travel-related story, and it fits my... I always have something about an airline, right? Those who listen to me know I always manage to slip in an airline story. Here it is. The headlines in the New York Times. Help!
My $7,300 business class seat was broken, and I got a pittance. Oh, poor person. A woman splurged for a lie-flat seat. You know, that's one of those business class seats that flattens right out so you can go to sleep. It's like a little mini bed. A woman splurged for a lie-flat seat, but it got jammed in the horizontal position for most of the 14-hour flight.
14 hours, that's like going to Toronto to Hong Kong. How much should United, that was the airline, compensate her? Okay, let's read a little bit of this. Last October, when my adult daughter and I traveled to China, I treated us to business class seats, something I had experienced only on occasional work trips, spending $7,388 per ticket for United's Polaris class from San Francisco to Beijing.
When the cabin lights were dimmed after dinner about 90 minutes into the flight, I attempted to lie down, but the seat buttons did not work. One flight attendant told me this happens all the time. Another wrenched the seat into lie-flat position, but the seat got stuck there with the seat belt inaccessible.
There were no empty seats in business class, and I assume in economy either, or they would have moved me there. I was forced to lie completely flat with no seatbelt for almost the entire remainder of the 14-hour flight. On several occasions, the pilot advised us to be ready for turbulence and to be sure our seatbelts were fastened.
I alerted the crew that mine was inaccessible, but no one seemed to care. Shortly before landing, two flight attendants worked together to wrench my seat back up, freeing my seatbelt in the process. When I complained to United, I was offered a $150 travel voucher. I countered by asking for 250,000 miles, the equivalent of $3,000 or so, less than half my fare. They offered a $350 travel voucher.
It was all a huge disappointment.
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Chapter 8: How can families foster meaningful connections across generations?
Have you come across complaints like this from others? Can you help? Kathy from Philadelphia. I don't know, Kathy. Um, that doesn't sound like much fun. Um, let's see. The New York times has got like a four page answer. So I'm clearly not going to read all of that. Um, Here's what they say. Such complaints, both in my inbox and on countless online message boards, always go the same way.
Business class seat doesn't work. Passengers demands a refund. Airline gives a pittance. You actually got a slightly bigger pittance than most, as I discovered, when you sent along the documentation of your firm but polite efforts to argue your case with the United Customer Service. You talked them up to $650 in vouchers.
since that $350 voucher was in addition to the original $150 and your daughter got a $150 voucher as well, though I'm not sure if she should be rewarded for watching her mother suffer rather than offering to switch seats with her. Yeah, that's right.
Charlie Hobart, a United spokesman, told me on the phone that you had received more than was typical with such complaints, calling the final result fairer. It was unfortunate, he said, that we didn't provide the sort of experience this customer was expecting. He said, adding that he hoped you would fly United again.
Me too, because otherwise you'll lose that $650 voucher since those one-year vouchers are set to expire in a few months. He added that he would flag your United account so that on your next trip the airline would work to ensure you that this passenger had a pleasant experience with us. So it goes on and on. This is interesting. The New York Times does make this one observation.
If you had been downgraded to an economy seat with a working seat belt... which the airline said should have happened if such a seat had been available, United would have owed you a cash refund of the difference in the two fares, which would be considerably more than $650. That's a federal regulation. Though the airlines, how they determine that figure is shrouded in mystery.
Anyway, you get the point. 14 hours does seem like a long time to be stretched out in a horizontal position. And listen, I shouldn't laugh. I'm very sorry for this person. And hopefully they don't experience this again when they're flying, flying Okay, it's time for a break. And we've got some serious stuff coming up, including a thing about orange juice that I've talked about before.
And I'm going to be interested in seeing this because orange juice is now trying to make a comeback after a lot of the bad things that have been said about it. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday episode. That means an in-bit special. I'm Peter Mansbridge.
You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us. I think it was about a year ago, I confessed to you, and we had some kind of story on about orange juice, and I confessed to you that my doctor had said, you know, Peter, what do you drink in the morning? And I said, well, I drink orange juice. Nice big glass. It's great.
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