Picket Fence Post

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.