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?

While there’s a list of things we shouldn’t do—or feed—our grandchildren, there’s an even more important list of what we should do. Call it best practices. Talking and reading top the chart.

While this may seem like a no-brainer, the explosion of cells phones, iPods and BlackBerrys means too many moms and nannies are communicating with everyone except the baby, so has been the observation of New York Times columnist Jane Brody.

Maybe mom is multi-tasking, trying to keep the boss happy while pushing the stroller. But grandparents can give undivided attention. So talk, sing, coo and point out the world. Reading can never start too early, although the attention span might be limited to just a few minutes with infants. Make eye contact as often as possible so baby can “read” your facial expression.

The Brody column article reminds us that communication is critical for a child’s verbal development, beginning with newborns. So turn off the cell and starting chattering away.