Grandmother's Garden by Sarah Davis

Grandmother: The word evokes images of a sweet, gray-haired granny sitting in a rocking chair. Many of us baby boomers recall our own grandmothers exactly like that:  My mom’s mother was the Hallmark Card variety, always ready with a bag of toys and a box of  cookies when we visited.  But while my dad’s mother was gray haired indeed, a hard-working Irish immigrant, she was still chopping backyard bushes by hand at age 70.

What about Baby Boomers as grandparents?  Not too many gray-haired nannas in our circles. So how does the generation that invented helicopter parenting take to grand parenting?  A fascinating, and alternatingly loving and blunt answer, is offered by 27 well-known women writers in “ Eye of My Heart.”

The idea for the book came from author Barbara Graham who wondered about the “cultural cliché of grandmothers as adorable and adoring creatures, as devoted and doting as puppies.”  In search of real-life stories, she asked noted women writers to explore the emotional angst and joys of grand parenting.

For the most part, the book is unsentimental, pulling back a curtain to tell the sometimes harsh truth about their relations with their adult children and their offspring.  Many of the writers found that while they passionately love their grandchildren, their own adult children are often roadblocks to the full expression of that love. So what is the role of grandparents?  What is their place in the family dynamic? “Reviving Ophelia” author Mary Pipher offers:

“I am not the same person as a grandparent that I was as a parent.  I have different roles, different responsibilities, and a different perspective….My job is simply to love those kids for who they are.”

The essays reflect how family life has changed over the decades.  Now grandparents often live at a distance, and even with Skype grandchildren don’t automatically cuddle during twice-a-year visits.  Many grandparents work and have their own busy lives so they’re not  in the kitchen baking cookies (especially not for this new hyper-healthy generation of grandkids). Journalist Rona Maynard considers new ways to define grandma and offers the “Pilates grandma,” the “gourmet grandma,” “the subversive grandma,” the “truth-telling grandma,” and the “Facebook Grandma.”

The biggest struggle is the switch of gears: a generation of hands-on parents find difficulty in not offering advice on everything from nursing to manners.   That’s a difficult realization for brand-new grandparents: This is not parenting the second-time-around.  Many of the essays focus on that dilemma. Author Anne Roiphe has learned not to offer advice:

“Not speaking your mind is the number one commandment for would-be beloved grandparents.”

Some of the essays about estranged grandparents are heart-breaking and serve as cautionary tales.  Others are loving, and among the most heartwarming was an essay by Ms. Magazine founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin whose six grandchildren live in Manhattan as she does.  She and her husband delight in planning outings—some for a few hours, others for the weekend–with their grandchildren “to create the kind of fun that leaves lifelong memories.”

She also confronts the harsh reality that as our grandchildren age so do we.  Someday we will be sitting in those rocking chairs because the knees finally gave out.  And what then?  Ms. Pogrebin writes,

Only by growing old can we witness our grandchildren growing older.  It’s an existential  trade-off.  We lose years, they gain them.  Someday I will be addled or decrepit and unable to organize adventures.  But at that point it won’t matter.  If all goes well, my grandchildren will be too busy making memories of their own.  And every now and then, in the midst of some perfect pleasure, maybe they will smile at their kids and say, “You know, this reminds me of something I used to do with my grandma.”

The spring thaw reveals that my in-laws’ driveway is deeply rutted and in need of fresh gravel after this year’s harsh New England winter. Toting his steel rake, my husband, Richard, the oldest of Daisy and Walt Smith’s five children, walks to their house to lend a hand and stay for supper. He’s joined by all four of his siblings, only one of whom lives more than three miles from this country road where they all grew up.

In a world of constant change, my husband’s family seems rooted in a gentler time and place: a bucolic neighborhood where they’ve shared each other’s lives, and watched each other’s backs, for more than 60 years.

It’s every aged parent’s dream, and my reasonably robust 89-year-old in-laws are living it. Their daughter Kathy lives around the corner from them with her family, as does Richard and our crew. David and Marilyn and their families lived on the block, too, until the need to downsize took them a few miles down the hill. Emily, the youngest, is the only one who lives in another state, where her husband runs a business. But she comes home to Forest Lane as often as possible. Partly because, to her ten-year-old son, Jack – who’s raking away, surrounded by his aunts and uncles – this is the best place on earth.

It’s easy to see what a child finds enchanting. The 18^th century barn filled with Grandpa’s world-class antique tool collection. The big old spinning-wheel on the landing.  The richly colored folk-art rugs hooked by Grandma’s own hands; the stone hearth where her mac-and- cheese bubbles away. Most of all, Jack’s enamored of his pack of sharp-witted, good-looking older cousins – the eleven young adults (including my three) who also grew up together in this place. Some still in college, some off chasing their dreams (waitering/scriptwriting in Hollywood, rebuilding in New Orleans, outward-bounding in Oregon), some recently boomeranged home.

The irony is, what got us to stay here is what forces many people to move away from family: the economy. In the early 1950s, Walt Smith was hired to build a house in a sparsely populated section of town.  Its cash-poor owner offered to pay him in several acres of land instead. Who knew that over the next several decades, property values would skyrocket, and this sleepy Connecticut burg would become a posh suburb known for fine schools and gracious living?  In the 1980s, Walt gifted each of his adult children a plot of land (or its value). We could never afford to live here otherwise. And so the Smith family neighborhood – or Walt(on)’s Mountain, as it amuses me to call it – was born.  It’s been a sweetheart deal. Always a babysitter somewhere, a spare vehicle when yours is in the shop, a can of tomato sauce when you run short.

If nobody’s home, just let yourself in and take what you need.

After the yard-work’s done, Sunday supper goes on the table – at six o’clock, like it has every evening for the past 65 years. The boomerang kids rush in to partake.  Long tapers in brass candlesticks are the room’s only illumination. No topic is taboo or will be met with derision. A bit of deft teasing, maybe, but never derision.

And after dinner, the three aunties (who have seven sons between them) huddle around my daughter for girl-talk about her upcoming wedding. Grandma pulls out some old photos: the marriage, on January 27, 1946, of Miss Daisy Alice Ahern of Mitchell, South Dakota, to Mr. Walter Roswell Truman Smith of Stamford, Connecticut, whom she met when he drove out to Mitchell to deposit his brother at college there. She didn’t know him very long before he went off to war and she promised to wait.  They were 23.

“What time is it, Daiz?” Walt calls out pointedly, and we know it’s time to go home. On this last night of winter, a full moon lights our way; each step is familiar and holds a memory.

Across the street: the original house where Daisy and Walt lived and raised their kids. And where they first laid eyes upon me: Richard’s brash bride-to-be, the city girl who couldn’t drive a car, grow a plant, bake a pie, or sew. (I did learn to drive.)

Down the road: Marilyn’s former home, with the in-ground pool that she and her ex added – bless them – so that roving bands of half-naked little cousins could splash away the summer days, under the watchful eyes of as many as a dozen adults who truly cared about them.

Around the corner, on the cul de sac: Dave and Lil’s old house, before Lil got sick, where once reigned a snazzy backyard treehouse complete with electricity, and a zip-line worthy of Tarzan.

And then our house, with a 44-acre nature preserve to the east, and Kathy and Brad to the west. Between our two yards, which are separated by towering birches, is a footpath. A footpath worn so deep, trod so often, by six children and their two sets of parents, that nothing can possibly grow over the jagged tangle of exposed roots.

“Will whoever lives here next, after we’ve all gone, understand what this path was all about?” Kathy sometimes wonders aloud.

Not everyone does understand. The truth is, some people are aghast when they hear I live next to the in-laws. I get this, because in some families, the signpost to such a neighborhood may as well read “Domestic Hell.” But Daisy and Walt are unfailingly rational, careful and respectful, and the rest of us work at following their lead. Take Thanksgiving, which they’ve hosted for each of those 65 years, transforming the old tool-barn into a rustic tableau worthy of Martha Stewart. On Walt’s Mountain, the holiday meal takes place on Saturday evenings, so that children and grandchildren are able to spend the traditional Thursday with the other side of the family, or with friends, or however they choose. All the running back and forth that so many couples undertake,  all that “but we went to your folks last time” business… eliminated. And did I mention: since their oldest son converted to Judaism, married a Jewish woman (me), and raised an observant family, Thanksgiving dinner is kosher – for everyone?

Pure genius.

The flip side? When one of our kids messes up, the whole village suffers. But even then, they can always come home and find the right person to talk to. An aunt who’s a nurse and can discretely reassure you that your weird rash is not herpes. An uncle to expertly guide you through your credit-card woes. A cousin who cares enough to tell you to step up your hygiene if you ever want a girlfriend. Or the resident night owl (me), if you just feel like hanging out and watching a movie at 1 a.m.

Do the kids know how special it is, to grow up like this? It seems they do, now.  “You never feel alone,” said Daughter #2. “You know there’s always somebody looking out for you.”  Beautiful, I gushed.  She sighed:  “Well, yeah, except in high school, when you wanted to throw a party while your parents were gone.”

Will anyone ever understand what this path was all about? When Kathy says this, I want to cover my ears, because we know that the sun will all too soon set upon this glorious day. About the future, I have only one certainty: that I cannot do unto my children as my in-laws – and my own dear, departed, generous parents – did unto my husband and me. We have no land, no nest-egg, no carrot to keep them nearby.  Odds are they won’t choose to replicate the life they’ve treasured here; each of my children is determined to forge a new path, which is as it should be.

But will their children, those cousins, really know each other? Will they know me? Or will my own offspring be among the seven million Americans who are defined as “long-distance caregivers,” i.e. those living at least 450 miles from their aging elders?

In fact,  recent studies by the Pew Organization suggest a shift back to multigenerational households, and to family neighborhoods like Walt’s Mountain: “The majority of U.S.-born adults (56%) have not lived outside their birth state, and of the 37% who have stayed in their hometown, three-quarters say the main reason is because they want to be near family.”

Another Pew survey reports that even families who live far away from each other are keeping in touch better than they once did, thanks to the lower costs and greater ease of communications technologies, “with some 73% report[ing] that on an average day they speak with a family member who doesn’t live in their house.”

Maybe somebody will understand that worn path between the houses. Maybe our own children will. And maybe they will say to us – no matter how far their wings take them from these old roots, and whether or not we’re still around  - the words I say now, to the ones who came before me:

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

In-laws.  Just saying the word invokes jokes. Beyond nasty humor, in-laws issues have generated a cottage industry.  Books with telling titles such as “Toxic In-Laws” and “What Do You Want from Me?” Movies including the hilarious  “Meet the Parents” and “The Birdcage.” Websites ranging from  How to Meet the In-Laws to  I Hate my In-laws.  Even academic studies: “Implications Of Mother-In-Laws’ Perceived Styles Of Relating.” (Yes,  that’s academic-speak!)

While those intergenerational in-law connections get attention, there’s another relationship that’s widely ignored yet is critical to family harmony: the relationship with your adult child’s in-laws.  We don’t even have a name for that connection in English. What do you call your daughter- or son-in-law’s parents? Those people?   Seriously, co-laws? In Yiddish, the word is “machatunim” and in Spanish “consuegros,” but  there’s no English translation.

Whatever the name, when your children get engaged they bring a raft of new people into the family. They may live in the same town or halfway around the world.  The first extended interaction is usually the wedding: Who pays for what? How many guests? What kind of ceremony and reception? The chill or the warmth of the big day often sets the tone and determines whether the machatunim become an intimate part of the extended family or casual acquaintances or simply names on the holiday card list.

Friend or foe, the machatunim can have a ripple–sometimes tidal wave–effect on your relationship with your child’s spouse as well as grandchildren.  So how to get off to a good start?  Mothering21 called on an expert  who knows the topic well,  Dr. Ruth Nemzoff, author of “Don’t Bite Your Tongue.”    The mother of four adult children and a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center, Dr. Nemzoff often speaks on intergenerational family relations.  We chatted with her on the phone earlier this month.

Q. Why do you think we don’t have a word in English for “co-in-laws”?

A. It’s emblematic of the relationship. In America it’s unclear exactly what the relationship is because it varies so much.  Maybe you meet for the first time at the wedding and the next time is at the grandkid’s high school graduation. Then there are those people who expect to have relationship and become friends and you go on vacation together. It reflects our multi-cultural society.

Q. Parents often have preconceived notions before they even meet the other side. How do you handle that first meeting?

A. Start with the assumption that these parents raised someone your kid loves so they must have some good qualities. Try to figure out what they are and focus on those good qualities. Also, there are a million ways to live a life. Why people have chosen the lives they do is often very interesting.  Be curious—in a positive way—about their background.  Share your background too. Use all the social skills you use in other parts of your life.

Q. You’re working on a new book about in-laws because the relationship is so complicated.  What have you found are some of the key sticking points?

A. Many times there’s the expectation that this new family will do things the same way as our family.  Forget it! No two families do things in the exact same way.  There’s also often a dark side to the relationship that may be caused by money. One spouse comes from a wealthy family who takes them on trips to Aruba with all expenses paid and the most the other family can afford is a walk in the park.  Competition can develop over grandchildren: They live close and we are far away. They can give big gifts and we can’t afford to do that.

Q. How do you suggest parents handle those tensions?

A. There’s a saying used by runners: Run your own race; the same in these situations.   A walk in the park can be equally as wonderful as trip to Aruba, particularly for grandchildren.  What matters the most to them is attention. Doing a coloring book together is what’s important, not that you’re doing it in Aruba.

Q. Adapting to this new extended family often means changes in decades-long way of doing things—holiday traditions, celebrating birthdays, when and where we vacation. How do you handle that?

A. One hard thing for parents is sharing.  We told our kids to share as they were growing up. Now it’s our turn to share and that means sharing the holidays and other events.  People are endlessly creative. Develop new traditions.  You can have Thanksgiving on a Saturday or trim the tree on a weeknight.  Just don’t leave an empty space at the holiday table and feel sorry for yourself. You can mourn the change but then move on.  It’s like “The king is dead long. Long live the king.”

Q. On a positive note, how can parents be  good in-laws?

A. Before imposing on them, try asking the young couple, “What would be useful to you?” You might think trip to Aruba is wonderful and they’re thinking, “I have one week of vacation and I don’t want to waste it on the in-laws.”   Maybe they rather have the money to buy a couch.

Appreciate whatever is given by them in terms of time and togetherness and don’t keep asking for more.  Realize that the kids have jobs and their own friends and that are doing best they can. Just be appreciative.

Welcome back to mothering21.com after our two-week holiday hiatus.  We start 2011 with a round-up of  insightful articles on the ups and downs of parenting adult children.  

Losing weight often tops  a New Year’s resolution list.  But suppose that directive is aimed at  your adult child? Does a parent need to remind a child that she’s overweight?  The media, the mirror, the department store, the gym all send her—or him–that message. Parents should be very careful how the approach this difficult topic, according to experts interviewed in USA Today’s “Weight is heavy topic to discuss with grown children.” 

So how to handle?  Some suggestions before you say anything, according to columnist Kim Painter:

Consider your motives. Are you really worried about your child’s health?

Consider the facts. Is your child obese, or just 5 or 10 pounds over some ideal weight?

Be a role model, not a nag.  When your kids visit, serve healthful meals. If they live nearby, offer to cook for them sometimes. Invite them to walk, swim or bike with you

Keep expectations low. It’s unlikely a word from you will be the thing that inspires weight loss

“What was he thinking?” How many times did you ask yourself that question when your young adult did something stupid–yes stupid–like driving back to college with no cash and the gas meter hovering on empty? Well,  it’s not completely his fault, at least according to a round-up on the latest research on the adolescent brain in a Newsweek’s “The Kids Can’t Help It.”

One Harvard study found that young brains are only about 80 percent developed at the end of adolescence. It’s not until the mid-20s, and possibly later, that the brain is firing on all circuits. According to the article:

And one of the last parts to mature is the frontal lobe, a large area responsible for modulating reward, planning, impulsiveness, attention, acceptable social behavior, and other roles that are known as executive functions.

It’s thanks in part to the frontal lobe that we are able to schedule our time with any sort of efficiency, plan in advance to arrange for a designated driver on a night out (or stop drinking before one is over the legal limit), and restrain ourselves from getting into fights any time we get involved in an argument.

Perhaps it’s time for a holiday hand-off?  The winter holidays are over but Superbowl Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day, Passover and Easter are not  far off.  Must mom always play the host position?   In “The Keeper of Christmas,” the Minneapolis Star-Tribune noted:

Being the keeper of a family’s traditions is an honor, but can also be a source of tension if it isn’t a shared responsibility.

Not only does being the chief cook and bottle washer exhaust mom (you!) but in the long term it doesn’t always bbind the famiy together which is the reason many women are willing to be glue. What happens when you become unglued, whether by choice or circumstance? Does the tradition die out oif mom’s not running the show and doing all the work?  So play quarterback and hand off–rather than run with–the ball.   It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help or to suggest that adult children bring their own versions of a treasured recipes.  In the Star-Tribune piece,  Bill Doherty, a University of Minnesota professor of family and social science, notes:

The happiest tradition keepers are those who involve others in the workload. Share some of the decision-making. You don’t have to do it like the queen.

Perhaps your adult child wants to make a new recipe or do something radical like have the holiday in her tiny apartment.  As Martha Stewart would say,  that’s a good thing!

In a related New York Times’ piece, “Changing the Family Traditions”  Linda George, associate director of the Center for Study of Aging and Human Development at Duke University, reminds us why we hold these family events:

At the holidays you want to create a feeling, an emotion, an atmosphere. But it doesn’t mean you have to do things exactly the way they’ve been done in the past. It’s the feelings that are important, not the details that elicit those feelings. 

What would your adult children tell you if they were completely open and honest?  Community service social worker Wendy Garson relates  “Pearls of wisdom from adult children to their parents,” gathered in her counseling work.  Several of the insightful comments:

 Sometimes problems (whether they are yours or your child’s) are really just challenges.  Yes, how you view your “problems” does make a difference.

 Children are always busy. That doesn’t mean that they won’t make time for you, but it does mean you have to ask if it hasn’t been offered.

Life is not a competition. Everyone has a plate full of different ingredients. Your plate is no better or worse than your neighbor’s or your children’s; it is just different.

Family cannot take the place of friends. You are truly blessed if you have both, and neither should be taken for granted. 

There seems to be endless “Advice for living with the Boomerang generation” but this piece from the Dayton Daily News includes some no-nonsense pointers from Gail Parent, co-author of “How to Raise Your Adult Children: Because Big Kids Have Even Bigger Problem”

Encourage your kid to just work for money. They need to at least have pocket money while they search for a “real” job.

Sit down and discuss what you expect from them in terms of financial or other contributions.

You have to be very clear what you’ll tolerate in terms of having friends/significant others over, going out, drinking, etc. But understand that they are going to have a social life.

Above all else remember that it’s your home. Your child needs to respect that.

Grandparenting:   With little prompting, most grandparents will happily share tales about their tiny tots.  Pulitzer-Prize-winning author David Maraniss is no exception and in a New York Times blog post, “Being a Grandparent is Better,” he likens the experience the production of a Broadway play—Lombardi—based on his book on the legendary coach. Now that’s a unique metaphor! 

One of my books happens to be source material for a play that is running on Broadway now, and when people ask me how it feels, I compare it to being a grandparent. “It is all joy and not much responsibility, but in some sense it couldn’t exist without me,” I say. And that is the truth of the situation. We love our children unconditionally, but it is impossible for there not to be complications, large or small. The love for grandchildren is no deeper, yet somehow it seems purer, probably because it is free from the daily ups and downs of family life. We can bop in and out at our discretion.

Just as every generation reinvents parenting, every older generation discovers the unexpected joy of grandparenting. When I am in my office trying to write, brooding over a sentence or a paragraph or the shape of a chapter, absolutely nothing in the world lifts me more than getting an e-mail attachment from New Jersey or Tennessee with the latest picture of Heidi, Ava or Eliza. 

It’s one of those dreaded announcements: “Mom, we’re getting divorced.”  Parents struggle with how to react, from suggesting counseling to giving unneeded—and unheeded–advice.    However it’s hard to stay uninvolved, especially if there are grandchildren.

 In “A Grandmother Struggles with Divorce” Marsha Temlock, author of “Your Child’s Divorce: What to Expect – What You Can Do,”  writes: 

 When a child gets married, parents assume their parenting role is over. But because divorce does not exist in a vacuum, their role may be helping their adult child, ex-law and grandchildren get back on track.

This grandmother may not necessarily agree with her son’s decision, but she got off on the right foot by saying, “I love you. What can I do to help?”

What a grandparent can offer is an emotional haven for a child.  In “How the Grandparents Can Help the Child” author and psychologist Judith Wallerstein relates anecdotes about both grade schoolers and teenagers who found a grandparent gave the unwavering attention and support needed when parents divorced.  Ms. Wallerstein writes: 

The helpful grandparent is the child’s ally and the child treasures that confidence. The unique contribution of this relationship is in providing an unwavering, neutral, caring presence for the child of divorce who is required to adjust to multiple changes in her family and new environments during her growing up years.

When she’s not teaching classes at a local college or writing yet another book or giving workshops, Penny Warner is hanging out with her grandchildren.  No gray-haired granny, this sixty-something Californian provides a great role model for grandparenting 21^st century style.  As she says, “You have to bake cookies and go hiking!”

Ms. Warner’s books range from The Official Nancy Drew Handbook, to activity and party book for kids, to novels for preteens and murder mysteries for adults. “When my children became teenagers started thinking about writing murder mysteries,” she said laughing in a phone interview last week from her Danville, CA home.

Mothering21 discovered Ms.Warner after reading her hilarious post, “Valley Life: G-Ma tips fo shizzle” in the Contra Costa Times.  In the piece she describes four grandma “types”:

• The “Kick-Back Boomer” type tends to take a “whatever” approach to grandparenting, and goes with the flow. She’s likely to be chill-axing on the couch with the G-kids watching “Jersey Shore,” playing “Angry Birds,” or reading to them from “Twilight.”
• The “Tough-Girl Granny” type views life as an action film, preferring a Harley over a rocker. She likes to challenge her grandkids with exciting adventures, such as competing in Japanese game shows, running with the bulls, and playing “Guitar Hero: 3-D.”
•  The “Handy Helper” grandparent wants to help her grandkids learn a useful skill, such as knot-tying, hair-braiding or fire-starting. But she also enjoys learning skills from her grandkids, such as My-Facing, party-hosting, or shizzle-speaking.
• The “Cartoon Character” grandparent wears her gray hair in a bun, sports an apron decorated with cats, and knits yard-sized shawls. If you fall If you fall into this category, you need to dye your hair orange, replace the apron with an Aerosmith T-shirt, and ink your own tats.

 We chatted with her about her take on grandparenting five kiddies from age eight months to five years.  She had just come from a morning of teaching a child development to college freshmen, followed by babysitting so her daughter could go to a yoga class.

 So which G-ma are you?

 No one is classically me; I steal a little from each.  There really is no one typical grandma anymore.

Your article mentions that “grandma” as a name has fallen from favor.  What do your G-kids call you?

My kids were dismayed when they heard I didn’t want grandma or GG as some friends are called. I wanted “Queen Mother” but they call me Penny since it’s sort of a fun name anyway. One of my favorites is Goldie Hawn’s choice,  Glam-ma.

And your husband?  You write that the man formerly known as “grandfather,” has become Big Daddy, Captain, Chief, Coach, Doc, Glad-dad, G-Pa, Moneybags, PopPop, Professor or Grumpy.

He and the grandkids like Pop Pop.  It seems to fit

You have about three careers yet still find time to be a very hands-on grandma.  What do you enjoy about it so much?

I didn’t think I would fall head over heels in love with them yet I have.  And, they keep me young beyond the obvious. While I am often teaching them something I find that I am learning from them too.   I know how to play Super Mario Wii thanks to my five-year-old grandson. He shows me which buttons to press and I’ve become pretty good!

Anything else?

I like that you can be almost subversive and let them have a little fun beyond what they might be allowed to do: What happens at grandma’s stay at grandma’s! Then Grandma becomes your best friend, at least until age 13!

We missed Grandparents Day last weekend, another holiday created by  the greeting card industry, so we don’t feel so bad. We caught up on news on grandparenting,  and two posts in particular were worth noting.    

In a sobering new survey, The Pew Center found that one in ten children lives with a grandparent, with a big spike coming at the start of the recession in 2008.  Of the almost three million children who live with grandparents, the sharpest rise has been among white grandparents. Overall the number of children raised by grandparents has increased 16 percent from 2000, with a 6 percent surge from 2007 to 2008.

The reasons vary from economic, legal, health and emotional problems to divorce, teen pregnancy, extended work hours and military deploymen

According to the Pew Center, most grandparents give themselves high marks for the role they are playing in their grandchildren’s lives — with a majority saying they are doing a very good or excellent job and fewer than 10 percent rating themselves at “fair” or “poor.”

Many grandparents are not raising their grandkiddies but  do play a major role—sometimes overbearing—in their lives and the lives of the parents. In a  primer on how to be a good (not smothering) grandparent, parentdish.com offered “12 Steps to Becoming a Happier Grandparent.”  First,  bravo to the editors on the photo that accompanied the article. In a stock photo, “grandma”  appears as a confident, well-dressed blonde,  not a frail, white-hared granny! 

 The stereotype of grandparents being old and gray still persists when the reality is that the average age of becoming a  grandparents is around 47 and the average age of grandparents is 64, and many are  acquainted with hair coloring to say nothing of healthy living!

The  list, compiled by the editors at grandparents.com, included some great advice. 

Put Your Faith in Your Adult Children. This means not rushing to judgment or second-guessing their every move — even silently. Our faith helps to bolster their confidence; our criticism and doubt undermine it.Agree to Disagree Let’s face it: Our grown children do things differently than we did. 
Forgive Thyself Thy Trespasses We can only try to do our best — and have compassion for ourselves when our best turns out to be imperfect
Befriend the “Other” Grandparents In most families all the grandparents are in the same boat. Our adult children aren’t interested in any of our opinions. Take comfort in numbers.
Take Charge of What You Can That is, your own life. You’re not in control of where grandchildren live or go to school, what they eat for dinner, or the disciplinary habits of their parents.
Let Go of All the Rest. Now is the time to acknowledge a higher power in matters pertaining to your grandchildren — their parents.
Remember, Love Trumps All Grandparents are messengers of love…Revel in it, and give thanks that you get to sleep through the night.

 When our adult daughters become mothers the relationship often strengthens yet gets more complicated.  So much help to give; so much advice not to give!  Author Melinda Blau has teamed with her daughter, Jennifer Blau Martin, the mother of three sons, to write a new blog called MotherU. 

The “U” stand for the motherhood union: the one forged when a daughter becomes a mother and her mother becomes a grandmother and all that follows.  And we’ll be following Melinda on her blog!

Melinda is a “consequential stranger”  of mine: I first heard about her when I interviewed  the  co-author of her latest book and then met when she came to talk to my graduate class.  Now we follow each other online.   ”Consequential Strangers” happens to be the title of her fascinating  book about the impact casual acquaintances have on our lives.  She is also the author of a dozen other books including some great gift books for new moms,  The Baby Whisperer series.

Admit it: We baby boomers love becoming grandparents but we’re not so sure  about being called grandma or grandpa.  Indeed many grandparents have come up with alternates, everything from first names to nicknames like Bubbles, Mimi, and Dumpa.  Why?  Because we don’t want to sound old!

Baby boomers have managed to massage, change or throw away every other stereotype as we aged  from tweens to unretirement.  Now we need to banish the notion that grandparents are synonymous with old! We have strength in numbers, considering that one in four Americans is a grandparent.

Here’s some facts from Met Life and Grandparents.com that could help change the gray-haired image:

• The average age an American becomes a grandparent today is 48
• Grandparents spend $50 billion on grandchildren
• They buy one of every four toys, four of every 10 children’s books
• They go online to research products (83 percent) and to purchase products (70 percent).
• Goldie Hawn is a grandparent as are Ringo and Paul and four Rolling Stones (but they do look old!)

So get out there with your bikes, basketballs, and baseballs and play with your grandkids to prove to those younger generations—and your friends—that grandparent does not mean old! And bring the Advil.

Gen U?

Different generations carry various nametags:  Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y.  In a Psychology Today blog, Lynn Taylor comes up with another term for Baby Boomers, calling them Gen U for “Unretired.”

 We have reached a critical mass in which Baby Boomers now say they do not plan to retire. Retirees are applying for jobs, either out of economic necessity or the realization that it’s not “greener” on the golf course or tennis court.

 She cites statistics:

• 93% of the growth in the American labor market from now until 2016 will be from workers 55 and older
•  20% of retirees now feel very confident they have enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement, down from 41% in 2007.
•  36% of those 56 or older are still working, twice as many as in 1984
• 9.5 million Americans are considering at least a partial return to the workforce because of the economic downturn.

InterFaith Marriage and Going GaGa

Two recent articles in JWeekly.com raised issues of interest to many grandparents, not just those in the San Francisco Jewish community that the website covers.

The first article, “Circles,” looks at a program for grandparents who are concerned about  their grandchildren being raised in Jewish in interfaith marriages. 

Many of the grandparents are wary of interfering.   “If adult children make choices that aren’t the same as the grandparents’ choices, there’s some pain in that. So we work on processing those feelings within the group,” says Rabbi Melanie Aron who co-led a Circles group.

  “Here’s one group that’s going GaGa” looks at  the GaGA Sisterhood, a group for women who go “gaga” over their grandchildren yet realize there’s more than just cooing to be a good granny. 

 “The role of the grandparent is way more complex than it used to be. It helps to talk to other grandparents about what we’re going through and to get advice and affirmation that we’re not alone in our feelings,” says the group’s founder Donne Davis

No cookies, no television, tucked in no later than 8 p.m.  Parents today have a plethora of no-no’s, most of which weren’t even on our radar when we were raising the kids.  But as grandparents, can’t we cross some of these boundaries?  Let’s face it; breaking the rules makes being with grandma all the better.

So exactly when can we rewrite the rules?  Common sense has to reign. Cookies before dinner?  Of course not, even if those little voices are howling “I’m so hungry. Isn’t it ready yet? I have to eat something.”  Mom and Dad may make the kids wait no matter how much they complain, but maybe some carrot sticks or even some melon from Grandma isn’t all that bad.

Our kids have infinitely more information than we ever had to help them make important decisions which benefit their kids’ short-term and long-term health.  So just maybe, because there is a conscious effort by parents to make prudent and healthy choices for the kids at home, grandma has some wiggle room when the kids are with her.

It’s not that we grandparents haven’t heard the ubiquitous warnings about obesity and childhood diabetes.  It’s hard not to know that the percentage of kids who are overweight has more than doubled since the ‘70s. But we’re talking about carrot not chips!

In addition to the health issues there are dire warnings about Grandma spoiling the grandkids.

If you take the “sp” out of spoiling, you have “oiling” and that’s what we are really trying to do.  We’re oiling the bond between grandparents and grandchildren.

But keep in mind that there are many ways for grandma to grease the gears.  This doesn’t mean that you have to buy out Toys r Us or break all the at-home rules.

Take a look at “101 Ways to Spoil your Grandchild” by Vicki Lansky, Kaye Pomerac White and Rondi Collette. There are some great suggestions like creating a special handshake with your grandchild, keeping a jigsaw puzzle out on a table that you work on only when your grandkids visit or buy a disposable camera so your grandchild can chronicle the time with Grandma.

Yes, there are words of warning out there about spoiling children but in my mind spoiling has been given a bad rap.  Maybe we should call it  “specialing.” Doesn’t that sound a lot nicer?