Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Grandparents Want Hip Names

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about how I thought the media were unfairly maligning Baby Boomer grandparents — specifically grandmothers – portraying them as too narcissistic to be bothered to do “grandmotherly” duties and pitting them against one another.

This week I saw yet another grandparent-centric article which deepened my suspicion that the media have grown tired of the old working mom/at-home mom “mommy wars” and is trying to drum up some excitement for the so-called ”nana wars.” This page one article in the Boston Globe focused on the fact that some grandparents don’t want their grandkids to call them by traditional names and prefer either their first names or something quirkier, hipper. The article entitled, “They love being grandparents, but call them something else,” begun this way:

“As the youth-obsessed baby boomers advance, albeit reluctantly, into the next phase of their lives, they are embracing grandparenthood with the same gusto they have expressed for everything else, be it exercise or adventure travel. They’re loading the grandkids’ video games onto their own iPods, listening to their music, and taking them on trips.

But grandparenting comes with a catch: It means you are getting old — or at least older. And that’s not sitting well with a generation that grew up on The Who singing, ‘I hope I die before I get old.” Sure, they want to be grandparents. Just don’t call them that.”

The article offered examples of grandparents who prefer to be called by their first names or unusual monikers such as Bubbles, Sharky, Pebbles, Rock, Gram-E and Nanno. Somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the this-generation-of-grandparents-isn’t-playing-by-the-so-called-”rules” stories.

Item #2: ‘Free’ the Kids

I’m currently finishing reading the book Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy, with whom I’m hoping to conduct a Q&A for posting on this blog next week. She makes the compelling argument that we’ve become too over protective of our children in all areas of their lives. And she’s not the only one who thinks so.

In my June Parents & Kids Magazine column entitled, “Free the Children: Not a Slogan for This Generation of Parents,” I addressed how different childhood is for kids today versus when we were youths (like when my parents used to regularly send me to the store to buy them cigarettes whereas today they’d be jailed for doing so). The column calls attention to an incident this spring involving the police, a 10-year-old boy and a mother who let said boy walk down the street solo to soccer practice and got harassed about endangering her child.

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I loathe the phrase “mommy wars,” a short-cut term designed to represent the so-called “divide” between the moms who decide to continue doing paid work after having children and those who decide to become at-home parents. I see it as an overly simplistic controversy that does an injustice to women but makes for good drama, pitting moms against moms.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve begun to notice a slow uptick in the number of stories about grandmothers which have begun to lay the groundwork for a new media-manufactured controversy: The Nana Wars. When I see articles with headlines like, “When Grandma Can’t Be Bothered” — about grandmothers who don’t want to be unpaid childcare workers in every free moment – and another portraying grandmothers as competing against one another to buy the best, most impressive presents for their grandchildren and thereby winning their affections, I can’t help but shutter. I thought that once my kids were adults, I would no longer have to worry about “wars.” I guess I was sadly mistaken.

My Pop Culture & Politics column this week takes on the notion of so-called “glam-ma wars,” which I hope is a short-lived thing.

Image credit: Mommy Track’d.

Item #1: Your Tweens Are Watching YouTube

General public announcement (particularly to parents of children who attend my kids’ school): Do you know WHAT your young children are watching on YouTube when you’re not monitoring them? Maybe you should ask. Or use the “History” function on your computer. You might be surprised. Unpleasantly so.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Item #2: 33 Percent Negative Rating

My monthly GateHouse News Service column is out. It’s a missive on why I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the fact that one out of three of my kids is always complaining, no matter what I do. Whatever I place on the dinner table, at least one kid will protest. Pick a movie for family movie night, nearly every time a film is selected, somebody’s ticked. Surprisingly, they were all in agreement about going to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop during February vacation. I was the one who was quietly crying on the inside.

Item #3: ‘Glam-mas’ Don’t Want to Babysit?

Give me a break. I so do not buy the notion that the New York Times’  Style section is trying sell, that a significant portion of Baby Boomer grandparents, specifically grandmothers don’t want to babysit or even hang out with their grandkids  (why they’re blowing off the grandfather angle is a sexist mystery to me). It’s a terribly anti-grandma article, the tone set with the nasty headline, “When Grandma Can’t Be Bothered.”

By the way, the term “glam-ma” that I read for the first time in this story, HATE it. With a passion.

Item #1: First Granny

Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, is moving into the White House along with the Obama family in order to help 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha adjust to their new situation while their parents settle into their new jobs.

Apparently the Obamas aren’t alone in forming a multi-generational household. The New York Times profiled several families with young children and two working parents who also have Grandma living with them, and cited statistics saying that this trend is heating up.

“A recent study by AARP shows that multi-generational households are on the rise, up from 5 million in 2000 to 6.2 million last year, an increase from 4.8 percent of all households to 5.3 percent,” the Times reported. An AARP official added: “Our cultural norms [about having grandparents moving in with their adult children] are shifting. There is a great renaissance of what we think about when we think about family.”

I wrote a column a few weeks ago about how I was coveting Marian Robinson and musing about how much easier my life would be if I had a grandmother like her, who was retired, ready, willing and able to cart the kids around to their activities, help out with the homework and dinner prep.

Item #2: Pediatrician Channels Miss Manners

A pediatrician fumed in a column in the New York Times this week that a particular patient of hers — who she nicknamed “The Rude Boy” — hadn’t been taught any manners. She fretted that if his situation was left unchecked, the child could grow up to become become a bully at worst, or an adult with grossly undeveloped social skills that could hinder him in the future.

“As a pediatrician, I worry about the trajectories of children’s growth and development: measuring a baby’s head size, weighing a toddler, asking about the language skills of a preschooler,” wrote Dr. Perri Klass. “Manners are another side of the journey every child makes from helplessness to autonomy. And a child who learns to manage a little courtesy, even under the pressure of a visit to the doctor, is a child who is operating well in the world, a child with a positive prognosis.”

Rude little heathens running around like maniacs in public make me crazy too.

As far as I know, my own three heathens aren’t rude in public; they save their savageness for me. However, if you hear or see differently, please contact me immediately.

Item #3: TV/Video Games for Recess

Guess I’d better re-work my kids’ TV/video game schedules. Typically, my three children (10, 10 and 7) are allotted one hour a day (give or take five minutes) for TV and/or video games, though that rule doesn’t apply to weekends when we have things like family movie night, or watch news or sports programming (a la NBC’s Nightly News or MSNBC’s Morning Joe, or a Red Sox or Patriots game).

Then I heard from The Girl yesterday that during indoor recess for her fourth grade class, they’ll be watching TV. Her twin brother told me he and some buddies have been playing video games on the internet during recess.

So when I told them that maybe I shouldn’t allow them to have their one hour of screen time on days when they’ve already had recreational screen time in school, that went over about as well as the matzo ball soup I served last week for dinner, which only one out of my three children would eat. (The two who found my homemade soup “gross” at cereal.)

Whatever happened to playing board games, games involving the class, doing something with arts and crafts or, horror of all horrors, reading during indoor recess at SCHOOL? I must just be horribly out of touch and old fashioned.

Image credit: New York Times/Gary Hovland.

Item #1: Yuletide Simple

Still haven’t gotten anywhere with my Christmas cards, although I did spend two quality hours in Target yesterday racing around, trying to make sure I didn’t forget stuff. Have tons more to do. In the meantime, my plea for a simple Christmas is featured in this month’s Parents & Kids Magazine.

Item #2: Christmas Carol Reading

So, even though I’ve been aspiring for the Picket Fence Post family to have a holiday season filled with simple pleasures, I’ve been toying with the idea of reading Dickens’ A Christmas Carol aloud to the kiddos. Wonder if they’d even be interested or if I’d be wasting my time trying to force a wholesome family moment?

Item #3: Mama Drama?

During Thanksgiving weekend in between our two family dinners, The Spouse and I stayed up way too late one night watching a string of Entourage in order to finish the fifth season of the HBO dramedy. After many hours of wallowing in the world of Entourage, we engaged in a ridiculous conversation about characters and who was most like whom. And that’s when The Spouse said I was most like Johnny Drama. (He, of course, fancies himself as Eric.) Then he put a twist on it. Started calling me Mama Drama. Sweet, huh?

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