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Monday 8 December 2014

Grandparenting in the Twenty First Century



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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