GRANDPARENTHOOD 3.0

In her essay Gained In Translation from Eye of My Heart, novelist Bharati Mukherjee brilliantly captures the complexity and wonder of our fast-changing global world.

On an unseasonably hot April morning in 2004, we gathered on the roof deck of an apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for the naming ceremony of a fourteen-month old baby girl.  “We” were her family and her parents’ friends. Relatives had flown in from California, Oregon, Wyoming, Minnesota and Michigan; one had come from India. There were Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists among us—the usual modern American mélange. Each of us had memories of christenings or naming ceremonies as practiced in the culturally homogenous families of our childhoods.

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GRANDPARENTHOOD ON TV VS. REAL LIFE

In a recent episode of Parenthood, Grandpa Zeek shows up on his daughter Julia’s doorstep at the crack of dawn to accuse her and her husband, Joel, of “coddling my granddaughter.” This, after 7-year-old Sydney threw a hissy fit when she lost during a family game of charades.

“If she doesn’t learn how to lose, then she’s not going to learn about real life,” Zeek warns. “You coddle, coddle, coddle!”

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LA-Z-NANA

La-Z-Nana by Abigail Thomas
Adapted and excerpted from Eye of My Heart
 

Live each day as if it were your last, Nana has heard them say, but she says rubbish. Live each day any way you want. Take a nap if you feel like it.

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Eye of My Heart

Excerpt from the title essay in Eye of My Heart.

I am 58-years-old. I’ve been a grandmother for twelve days. I’m stunned by the swell of feeling: not the love part, I expected that, but the urgency, the hunger to hold Isabelle, to feel her body next to mine. This is love beyond reason and I’m fuzzy on protocol. I don’t know yet where I belong in the new order. In fact, no one seems to know how the pieces of the expanded family puzzle fit together—neither my son, Clay, nor Tamar, his wife and Isabelle’s mother, not Hugh, my husband and the baby’s step-grandfather, nor the rest of the grandparents. We’re as clueless as a bunch of earthlings who go to sleep in their own beds and wake up on the moon.

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ARE WE HELICOPTER GRANDPARENTS?

I can’t believe I’m packing again. When I board the plane in a few days, it will be the fifth time this year that I’ll be making the long-distance haul to visit my granddaughters.

All I can say is: Yipee for frequent flyer miles or I would be forced to swab the decks on a transatlantic freighter—and I’m not all that great with a mop.

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GRANDPARENT ANGST

As grandparents, it’s hard to forget time: that damn ticking clock. Which is why most of us feel such a sense of urgency—and sometimes, panic—about spending time with our grandkids. We know we won’t be here forever. We want to make sure they’ll remember us. Fondly. (Which may or may not be the case with our own children.) Letty Cottin Pogrebin captures this brilliantly in her essay “Making Memories” in Eye of My Heart:

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10 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BEING A GRANDMA

Before I get to the love part, I must confess that I never expected to be a grandma — not because my son, who is married and will soon turn 40, wasn’t old enough to be a father, but because I never dreamed that I’d be old enough to be a grandmother. Moi, a former 60′s wild child, somebody’s nana? How could this be? Even after I got the news that my daughter-in-law was pregnant and I was moving up a notch in the life cycle, I was as nervous as I was excited. What sort of grandma would I be? Would I remember how to hold a baby or change a diaper? How would I fit into the expanded family circle, in which I would be just one of six grandparents? Would I be as love struck as my nana friends, all of whom seemed so gaga over their grandkids it was as if they’d come down with some sort of viral condition. In other words, how would I measure up?

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3 GENERATIONS, 1 ROOF PART II: HOW TO LIVE WITH YOUR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS

Some people live in multigenerational households out of necessity. Others do it by design. Some situations are long-term. Others are temporary. Countless practical reasons account for the growing trend — economics, health issues, divorce, childcare needs, relocation, renovation. For Shelley and her partner, Linda; their children, Owen, 9, and Charlie, 6; and Linda’s parents, Tom and Elizabeth, all of whom now share Tom and Elizabeth’s Washington, D.C. home, the decision to live communally was based, along with some practical considerations, on the belief that regular exposure to different generations, talents, and interests — and abundant love — is good for everyone.

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3 Generations, 1 Roof

Two grandparents, two parents, and two kids, all living under one roof — in perfect harmony? I’m in awe. This bunch could be the model for a contemporary version of The Waltons. They even have a name for their communal arrangement: Project for Intergenerational Living — or PIGL, as they jokingly call it. They have PIGL meetings, PIGL systems, and even a master PIGL schedule.

Continue reading this on Grandparents.com….

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EVEN FORMER 60′S FLOWER CHILDREN BECOME GRANDPARENTS

If we’re lucky, even former 60′s flower children become grandparents. The truth about my hippie past revealed in an interview on the terrific web site, Fab Over Fifty.  Here is the link:   Even Former 60′s Flower Children Become Grandparents.
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