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Today's Grannies Are Like a Box of Chocolates

Thursday, November 6, 2008
filed under: kid logic

Guest blogger Grandma Kitty: You never know what you're going to get.

So finally, I too joined the wild and enchanted world of grandmotherness. Sometimes it truly feels like a trip to Oz, complete with Munchkinland -- but most definitely without the wicked witch. It's surely not my Grandma Rose's era, that spunky woman  -- most likely younger than I am today -- who wore whalebone corsets until she died, had natural salt and pepper hair (permed regularly), adored "Mox" aka Clark Gable, romance novels and her grandchildren, of course.

box of chocolates with senior woman face

Indeed, some of us do have natural gray hair (although most of us need that monthly touch-up of auburn or blonde), some of us wear Juicy Couture, some of us refuse to be called grandma (and definitely not granny), and some of us redo our entire house as a playroom, including a trampoline and several king-sized beds lined up! And many of us keep close through video chats instead of weekly visits complete with chocolate chip cookies. We were, many of us, the Supermoms of our generation -- and the Ubermoms. In our time, we were at the top of our games, raising kids, feeding kids, shopping, balancing our mothering with full-time careers as lawyers, accountants, teachers, even diplomats -- and yet our lives were expanded by those soccer games, dance classes and homework.

So it's no surprise that lots of us have just slipped right into being Ubergrandmas. We help raise the grandkids, we shop for the grandkids, we go to their dance recitals and their soccer games, we even fly weekly from state to state to be there for our own Ubermom daughters and daughters-in-law -- and, at the same time -- have jobs, as one grandma I know who appears regularly in TV commercials and takes parts in movies. We are even now taking care of our own elderly parents, the great-grandparents. We embrace the challenge. We weren't stay-at-home mamas and we are not stay-at-home grandmas now.

Of course, lots of grandmas are happy to be stay-at-home grandmas. But we're hardly "The Goodnight Moon" grandma -- with all her white hair tucked into a bun. (That truly confuses my granddaughter.) And not like Grandma Rose either -- we wear Spanx and not corsets. And while some grandmas continue to make chicken noodle soup, many prefer tofu burgers. So while today "grandmotherness" can be "grand-otherness," we all give love and give ourselves.

Are you a Grandma or a mom with a good Grandma story? We want to hear from you....comment in the momlogic community.

It's a small world after all.



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filed under: kid logic

2 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

 
Great Story and so very true! I’m working om my playroom right now. It will be filled with lots of great toys that their parent’s played with…..blocks, legos, lincoln logs, lite bright, work bench, kitchen set…..the list goes on and on. The bedrooms are ready for sleep overs and is their “Nona”. I do have a life but there’s nothing like these babies. I also have a mac computer that I use all the time to see what’s he’s doing at home. We love it. His other grandparents have one also. It’s the best investment. And, I have my 86 year old mother that’s right down the hall who’s resting in her hospital bed. Family is everything and I’m very grateful to be have mine. But don’t ever call me Grannie!
- linda Miller
Posted 11/06/08 09:28 AM
 
itty’s story was really evocative and brought back memories of my two grandmothers. They both definitely looked like the old ladies who used to populate movies of the 1930s — gray hair, clumpy shoes, “house” dresses in pastel floral prints and corseted bodies no longer hourglass. My Belgian grandmother would never leave the house without her “foundation,” her word for what I would learn later was a girdle. Using her French grammar, she told me “I have to wash my hairs, they are dirty.” My Polish grandmother, who I thought was very old, taught me to dance the Polka. She died of congestive heart failure when she was in her mid-fifties. So now we grandmothers go around looking like Gena Rowlands or Debra Winger. While I love it that my 13 year old granddaughter introduces me to her friends as her “hot” Nana, I wonder if the grand children aren’t missing out a little by not knowing any “old” ladies with their funny quirks and old fashioned ways. Just a thought.
- nana N
Posted 11/09/08 04:42 PM
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