The husband and I don’t have grandchildren, not a single
one, in fact none of our children seem to fully understand how to
procreate. The other day somebody gently
suggested that it might have something to do with all the years of home
schooling and added that you learn more than how to be a good loser and part of
a team at primary school but I don’t subscribe to that idea.
The fact remains that ALL of my friends have
grandchildren. I’m not talking about a
trifling one or two here because several people I know have five or six, even
seven of them. Grandmothers are no
longer apple cheeked white haired old dears baking muffins. They are today much more inclined to sport
trendy hairdos and have regular injections of botox. Some have
jobs – and one or two run businesses.
Not full time jobs though because today’s grandchild requires a greater
investment of time and energy than yesteryear’s.
In fact if I could be re-assured that I wouldn’t be rendered
totally friendless, I would almost say that there is a whole generation of over
sixties who are actually being exploited.
Yes, exploited!
A decidedly different set of grandparent rules seem to apply
than those of past years and some are difficult to navigate.
For one thing there are new names to be chosen because being
known as Granny and Grandpa or Nanny and Grand-dad no longer appears to be appropriate. The more
avant-garde are Josie and Tom or Mary and Bill. More often they are Momma and Poppa or Ma
and Pa, possibly in the vain hope that those within earshot in parks and cafes
will mistake them for the child’s parents.
One couple I came across recently have chosen to call themselves Oma and
Opa, and my neighbour along the road assures me that the three year old twins
themselves chose Nonna and Nonno. There
doesn’t appear to be a solitary Dutch or Italian gene in either of these
families at first glance but of course you can never be absolutely sure.
However, they have a perfect right to decide what they want
to be known as of course and more especially since many of these older couples
spend far more time caring for the grandchildren than they did for the
children’s parents. I know for a fact
that Nonna and Nonno employed a full time Nanny in the early eighties.
Because of the inordinate amount of time that is taken up
with grand-parenting, from time to time theatre and dinner dates have to be
cancelled at the last moment. There are
also occasions when they are forced to
bring the children along on lunch dates or shopping expeditions, often dressed
in new outfits flown in from Marks & Spencers or in one case Harrods, and
looking very endearing, like fashion statements from the pages of Hello
Magazine. One local grandfather
frequently takes little Jemima-Jane with him to tennis games with his friends. He
says they find her absolutely adorable.
Social liability aside, a grandchild can be an expensive
luxury, what with the mounting cost of grandma hosted birthday parties, flights
to London to visit Santa in Selfridges Grotto, birthday laptops and school fees. More prosaically as mothers themselves are
generally working full time in corporate law or accountancy, the subsequent
calls upon the time of the older generation for child care grow daily more demanding. It could almost be called `Elder Abuse’.
And the abused elders are only too aware of the fact that
they are being maltreated – you can tell by the way their eyes harden and
glitter whenever a well-meaning friend strays anywhere near the topic of how
exhausting it must be spending three weekends in a row taking half a dozen
assorted under eights to swimming galas.
They usually hasten to assure you
that they love every minute of it and it keeps them young. Occasionally they are more honest.
`My choice,’ snapped one tired and drained looking seventy
year old, more aggressively than I thought was really necessary.
`D’you have a problem with it?’ another who had recently gone
back to smoking, demanded.
See what I mean about losing friends?
Despite all this, I cannot help thinking that it would be rather
nice to have just one under five year old on hand for Christmas because there’s
something very engaging about a tousle headed small person in pink pajamas helping
to decorate a real pine tree.
If only it was possible to hire one for a day or two.
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