Home
>
The Living Room
>
Topic
The reluctant granny
Posted by Anonymous User
Anonymous User
The reluctant granny March 24, 2009 |
Times online
Four months into grandmotherhood and I still feel quite unprepared for it. What, me? How did this happen? For years, friends have been hymning the raptures of grandparenting with cries of “We are absolutely smitten by our gorgeous grandson†and “It just gets better and betterâ€, etc . I have heard Virginia Ironside telling an audience that “grandparenthood is God's reward for not killing your childrenâ€, which drew applause. Yet I still feel thoroughly sceptical about the whole deal.
I don't feel ready for it - yet. There may be a pram in the hall, but I still have three bikes there. I have barely got used to being a mother and still have a lot of anxious mothering to do. The eldest is past 30, but I am still restless when she goes trekking or swimming the Hellespont.
The thought of starting all over again with a helpless infant - it's almost too much and too soon. Not long ago we cleared out all the cots, tricycles, scooters and rollerskates from the lumber-room, as none of our brood showed any sign of needing them and, besides, no modern parent wants toys of 30 years ago. A friend once lamented that her three children had grown up and gone and she'd never got round to unpacking the ping-pong table. Parenthood is like that - it hurtles past and suddenly they're off, and you forgot to teach them how to deal with life: pay a bill, unblock a sink, fill in a tax return. More importantly, our nest is far from empty. I still have a 25-year-old son in the attic, and my granddaughter's other granny, the writer Mary Kenny, still has a son of 34 in hers. Both boys have been away and come back, as the young now do when the going gets rough. Our other bedrooms are still crammed with their clothes, books, CDs and electrical paraphernalia, a free repository so that they feel they can come back anytime - as they frequently do.
Moreover, I am not sitting here with time on my hands, yearning to dandle a baby on my knee again. I have deadlines to keep, and no moments that I would call spare time. All the Good Grandparent guidebooks stress that “time is the most valuable contribution a grandparent can bestowâ€. I shall be deficient in that area, and I already feel guilty about it.
Grannies in nursery stories reside in neat cottages, waiting with a smile to greet their offspring's offspring and bake cakes. These stories give children unrealistic expectations of grannies - the first being that she is always there. I had one granny, who sat in her chair by the fire all day, but she was quite deaf and almost immobile. My other granny was active, independent and busy, devoted to her garden and to baking and bottling fruit and making jam. Whenever I was off school with measles or mumps the active granny would stump up our path with a bottle of Lucozade, which she regarded as a panacea for all ills. The only things my grandmothers had in common was that they were both white-haired widows, and seemed really old: they were respectively 58 and 60 when I was born.
The 21st-century template of grandmotherhood is quite different. Mary and I still have our work, our husbands and, thanks to modern aids, our hair colour. But our grandchild Kitty (Katharine) seems to require her grandmothers to be earners. I rashly said that I'd buy the baby a buggy. Did you know a Bugaboo costs more than £600, or second-hand £300? Neither did I. On the day the baby was born I went out to buy a baby-sling, proudly remembering having worn the first one that came on the market in 1976, which cost £15. The new version was £50. And as there will be no question of a live-in nanny for Kitty's mother when she returns to work, a good deal of baby-minding will be expected of us. Lots of my friends take on this duty, without demur.
Perhaps this is only a return to the past when inter-generational families lived communally, mucked in together, those at work assuming responsibility for younger and older generations. But there is a short straw here and I seem to have drawn it. My 88-year-old mother is still near by, in her own flat, but in need of daily calls and help with shopping. I am in that modern double-bind, sandwiched between two, now three, generations of semi-dependants.
Though the baby-minding duties have yet to be required, I already fall into various clichés of first-time grandmothering. Apparently we all re-experience that lack of confidence we felt about our own firstborn: astonishment at the vulnerability, the smallness, the “perfect little handsâ€. There's another source of astonishment too - imagine our Emma, who was always so volatile and unpredictable, sitting so placidly nursing her babe for hours on end. This is a marvel to behold.
I am reading all the granny-textbooks, absorbing rules such as “Don't behave as if it's your baby. Step back.†“Daughters sometimes want advice, but more often don't.†There was a wonderful cartoon strip, Augusta, by Angus McGill and Dominic Poelsma. Augusta had two grannies: rolypoly Granny Bravo, with hair in a bun, forever sweeping the floor; and Liz, a thin elegant blonde with cigarette holder and mink stole, demanding a gin and tonic, and with a gigolo in tow. Neither quite me, I think.
Mary will have no problem, being full of Irish warmth and wisdom, and already given to wearing exotic garments and hats. And my husband has no qualms about babysitting: he has always been a repository of child-centred skills, quick to invent a game for any toddler he meets. He loves dressing up as Father Christmas and is always willing to bake a gingerbread man.
I don't bake, or knit, but let's see... I can offer a perfect cat, an amiable dog, a hearth, a garden, a dolls' house, a piano, a trunk of dressing-up clothes, piles of boardgames and drawing paper and photograph albums and scrapbooks - and books galore. I do long to read aloud again - that was my favourite thing in my mothering days. I have lots of stories to tell Kitty about how very badly behaved her mother was as a child. The time she wandered off from blackberrying to visit some kittens and was lost for hours, and the police had to be called. The time she pretended to be an idiot, with lolling tongue, when being interviewed by the headmistress of a prissy girls' school. The time she cut off her fringe the day before being a bridesmaid.
And I shall insist that Kitty learns poems by heart. Perhaps my psyche is changing imperceptibly. What I most look forward to is laughter. I kept a notebook of the funniest things my children said, and they never tired of reading about themselves in it. Kitty's mother, aged 4, once observed her father in the bathroom and declared: “If I was a daddy, and had a willy, I wouldn't hide it in my underpants.†I do hope Kitty starts saying amusing things soon. Until then, she merely sleeps, suckles, gurgles, bawls, etc, so all my plans are rather academic.
But some day, I will try to be a Good Granny - from time to time.
Four months into grandmotherhood and I still feel quite unprepared for it. What, me? How did this happen? For years, friends have been hymning the raptures of grandparenting with cries of “We are absolutely smitten by our gorgeous grandson†and “It just gets better and betterâ€, etc . I have heard Virginia Ironside telling an audience that “grandparenthood is God's reward for not killing your childrenâ€, which drew applause. Yet I still feel thoroughly sceptical about the whole deal.
I don't feel ready for it - yet. There may be a pram in the hall, but I still have three bikes there. I have barely got used to being a mother and still have a lot of anxious mothering to do. The eldest is past 30, but I am still restless when she goes trekking or swimming the Hellespont.
The thought of starting all over again with a helpless infant - it's almost too much and too soon. Not long ago we cleared out all the cots, tricycles, scooters and rollerskates from the lumber-room, as none of our brood showed any sign of needing them and, besides, no modern parent wants toys of 30 years ago. A friend once lamented that her three children had grown up and gone and she'd never got round to unpacking the ping-pong table. Parenthood is like that - it hurtles past and suddenly they're off, and you forgot to teach them how to deal with life: pay a bill, unblock a sink, fill in a tax return. More importantly, our nest is far from empty. I still have a 25-year-old son in the attic, and my granddaughter's other granny, the writer Mary Kenny, still has a son of 34 in hers. Both boys have been away and come back, as the young now do when the going gets rough. Our other bedrooms are still crammed with their clothes, books, CDs and electrical paraphernalia, a free repository so that they feel they can come back anytime - as they frequently do.
Moreover, I am not sitting here with time on my hands, yearning to dandle a baby on my knee again. I have deadlines to keep, and no moments that I would call spare time. All the Good Grandparent guidebooks stress that “time is the most valuable contribution a grandparent can bestowâ€. I shall be deficient in that area, and I already feel guilty about it.
Grannies in nursery stories reside in neat cottages, waiting with a smile to greet their offspring's offspring and bake cakes. These stories give children unrealistic expectations of grannies - the first being that she is always there. I had one granny, who sat in her chair by the fire all day, but she was quite deaf and almost immobile. My other granny was active, independent and busy, devoted to her garden and to baking and bottling fruit and making jam. Whenever I was off school with measles or mumps the active granny would stump up our path with a bottle of Lucozade, which she regarded as a panacea for all ills. The only things my grandmothers had in common was that they were both white-haired widows, and seemed really old: they were respectively 58 and 60 when I was born.
The 21st-century template of grandmotherhood is quite different. Mary and I still have our work, our husbands and, thanks to modern aids, our hair colour. But our grandchild Kitty (Katharine) seems to require her grandmothers to be earners. I rashly said that I'd buy the baby a buggy. Did you know a Bugaboo costs more than £600, or second-hand £300? Neither did I. On the day the baby was born I went out to buy a baby-sling, proudly remembering having worn the first one that came on the market in 1976, which cost £15. The new version was £50. And as there will be no question of a live-in nanny for Kitty's mother when she returns to work, a good deal of baby-minding will be expected of us. Lots of my friends take on this duty, without demur.
Perhaps this is only a return to the past when inter-generational families lived communally, mucked in together, those at work assuming responsibility for younger and older generations. But there is a short straw here and I seem to have drawn it. My 88-year-old mother is still near by, in her own flat, but in need of daily calls and help with shopping. I am in that modern double-bind, sandwiched between two, now three, generations of semi-dependants.
Though the baby-minding duties have yet to be required, I already fall into various clichés of first-time grandmothering. Apparently we all re-experience that lack of confidence we felt about our own firstborn: astonishment at the vulnerability, the smallness, the “perfect little handsâ€. There's another source of astonishment too - imagine our Emma, who was always so volatile and unpredictable, sitting so placidly nursing her babe for hours on end. This is a marvel to behold.
I am reading all the granny-textbooks, absorbing rules such as “Don't behave as if it's your baby. Step back.†“Daughters sometimes want advice, but more often don't.†There was a wonderful cartoon strip, Augusta, by Angus McGill and Dominic Poelsma. Augusta had two grannies: rolypoly Granny Bravo, with hair in a bun, forever sweeping the floor; and Liz, a thin elegant blonde with cigarette holder and mink stole, demanding a gin and tonic, and with a gigolo in tow. Neither quite me, I think.
Mary will have no problem, being full of Irish warmth and wisdom, and already given to wearing exotic garments and hats. And my husband has no qualms about babysitting: he has always been a repository of child-centred skills, quick to invent a game for any toddler he meets. He loves dressing up as Father Christmas and is always willing to bake a gingerbread man.
I don't bake, or knit, but let's see... I can offer a perfect cat, an amiable dog, a hearth, a garden, a dolls' house, a piano, a trunk of dressing-up clothes, piles of boardgames and drawing paper and photograph albums and scrapbooks - and books galore. I do long to read aloud again - that was my favourite thing in my mothering days. I have lots of stories to tell Kitty about how very badly behaved her mother was as a child. The time she wandered off from blackberrying to visit some kittens and was lost for hours, and the police had to be called. The time she pretended to be an idiot, with lolling tongue, when being interviewed by the headmistress of a prissy girls' school. The time she cut off her fringe the day before being a bridesmaid.
And I shall insist that Kitty learns poems by heart. Perhaps my psyche is changing imperceptibly. What I most look forward to is laughter. I kept a notebook of the funniest things my children said, and they never tired of reading about themselves in it. Kitty's mother, aged 4, once observed her father in the bathroom and declared: “If I was a daddy, and had a willy, I wouldn't hide it in my underpants.†I do hope Kitty starts saying amusing things soon. Until then, she merely sleeps, suckles, gurgles, bawls, etc, so all my plans are rather academic.
But some day, I will try to be a Good Granny - from time to time.
|
Re: The reluctant granny March 24, 2009 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 5,275 |
She sounds a bit overwhelmed by "three semi-dependent generations." Taking care of her own aged mom should be the only thing she's saddled with. Kick out the 25-year-old in the attic and tell the new mom to buy her own blessed pram and bring it over when she visits. She also needs to draw some boundaries. She's still working; she doesn't necessarily have time to babysit and sounds as though she rather dreads it. If the new mom can't afford child care--that's her own bad planning, not the grandmother's responsibility.
|
Re: The reluctant granny March 24, 2009 | Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 4,532 |
|
Re: The reluctant granny March 24, 2009 | Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 3,897 |
CFBitchfromLA
Re: The reluctant granny March 24, 2009 |
How is this for tough love, Grandmoo?
1) Boot the 25 year old's ass to the curb. He is old enough to be on his own and needs to grow the fuck up and very quickly. Stop coddling these brats. You are your own worst enemy, toots. Brats are parasites--the more you give, the more they take until they bleed you dry. Got it, hon?
2) Tell your lazy moo daughter that can damn well buy her own brat crap. You are not financially obligated to do anything for that snotminer, despite what pressure you get from your ungrateful mootwat of a daughter. And please, bitch, check the internet for prices before you go off promising to buy a stroller. Why does your mootwat daughter NEED an expensive stroller anyway? Is a Tesco or other cheapie stroller too embarrassing for her? If so, too fucking bad. Buy her a cheap stroller and tell her to live with the "shame".
3) Get a fucking spine!!! You keep enabling your brats by playing the doormat. Of course they will walk all over you if you let them. I take care of my mom also, but I also insisted that she make appropriate plans for care if I were not available or not around. You have to do the same for your own mother and in very short order. Get off your ass and explore the alternatives for your mom, if she is unable or unwilling to do this for herself.
4) Stop fantasizing and romanticizing the notion of grandmoohood. So your bitchy daughter shot out a twat rocket? Who cares?! No one. It happens every day. Stop whining and get moving. You have a life to lead, and you better damn well stand up for yourself. And honey--we are sick of your whining too.
1) Boot the 25 year old's ass to the curb. He is old enough to be on his own and needs to grow the fuck up and very quickly. Stop coddling these brats. You are your own worst enemy, toots. Brats are parasites--the more you give, the more they take until they bleed you dry. Got it, hon?
2) Tell your lazy moo daughter that can damn well buy her own brat crap. You are not financially obligated to do anything for that snotminer, despite what pressure you get from your ungrateful mootwat of a daughter. And please, bitch, check the internet for prices before you go off promising to buy a stroller. Why does your mootwat daughter NEED an expensive stroller anyway? Is a Tesco or other cheapie stroller too embarrassing for her? If so, too fucking bad. Buy her a cheap stroller and tell her to live with the "shame".
3) Get a fucking spine!!! You keep enabling your brats by playing the doormat. Of course they will walk all over you if you let them. I take care of my mom also, but I also insisted that she make appropriate plans for care if I were not available or not around. You have to do the same for your own mother and in very short order. Get off your ass and explore the alternatives for your mom, if she is unable or unwilling to do this for herself.
4) Stop fantasizing and romanticizing the notion of grandmoohood. So your bitchy daughter shot out a twat rocket? Who cares?! No one. It happens every day. Stop whining and get moving. You have a life to lead, and you better damn well stand up for yourself. And honey--we are sick of your whining too.
|
Re: The reluctant granny March 24, 2009 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 2,301 |
Grow a spine, bitch, and tell moocunt that she will have to get her own childcare. You took care of your children and raised them..you are not required to do the same for grandbrats. I would NEVER have expected this shit from my mum. You have kids, you fucking TAKE CARE OF THEM AND LEAVE GRANDMUM THE HELL ALONE!!!!
CFinPDX
Re: The reluctant granny March 26, 2009 |
Quote
CFBitchfromLA
How is this for tough love, Grandmoo?
1) Boot the 25 year old's ass to the curb. He is old enough to be on his own and needs to grow the fuck up and very quickly. Stop coddling these brats. You are your own worst enemy, toots. Brats are parasites--the more you give, the more they take until they bleed you dry. Got it, hon?
2) Tell your lazy moo daughter that can damn well buy her own brat crap. You are not financially obligated to do anything for that snotminer, despite what pressure you get from your ungrateful mootwat of a daughter. And please, bitch, check the internet for prices before you go off promising to buy a stroller. Why does your mootwat daughter NEED an expensive stroller anyway? Is a Tesco or other cheapie stroller too embarrassing for her? If so, too fucking bad. Buy her a cheap stroller and tell her to live with the "shame".
3) Get a fucking spine!!! You keep enabling your brats by playing the doormat. Of course they will walk all over you if you let them. I take care of my mom also, but I also insisted that she make appropriate plans for care if I were not available or not around. You have to do the same for your own mother and in very short order. Get off your ass and explore the alternatives for your mom, if she is unable or unwilling to do this for herself.
4) Stop fantasizing and romanticizing the notion of grandmoohood. So your bitchy daughter shot out a twat rocket? Who cares?! No one. It happens every day. Stop whining and get moving. You have a life to lead, and you better damn well stand up for yourself. And honey--we are sick of your whining too.
What she said!!!
Anonymous User
Re: The reluctant granny March 26, 2009 |
This is so trite. I'm sure there must be hundreds (thousands?) of similar articles written by PSEUDO-reluctant moos, duhs, and grandmoos/duhs on the internet, all along the cutesy lines of "Am I cut out for this?" / "Oh, the expense / mess" / "tee hee, can I do it? I don't bake" etc. The underlying message of this oh-so-precious piece of crap is "I'm over the moon that my adult sprog is sprogging in turn". Or maybe, I'm just unusually mean today, picking on a little granny....
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.