About this project

Grandparents are healthier, wealthier, and longer-lived than ever before.

What does this mean for us all?

At this site, I consider the growing importance of grandparents to their children and grandchildren.

I hope to entertain you.

And I hope to turn everything you thought you knew about grandparents upside down.

My mother's parents, Henry and Dorothy Fischer, who lived to 94 and 93, respectively. I miss them every day.

My mother’s parents, Henry and Dorothy Fischer, who lived to 93 and 94, respectively. I miss them every day.

I’m Olivia Gentile, an author, a journalist, a wife, a mother to a preschooler, a stepmother to two 20-somethings, and a daughter to two vigorous 70-somethings. I celebrated my 40th birthday last summer.

I’m lucky: I was a grandchild until just a few years ago. As a kid, I only knew my mom’s parents casually, but later, when I was in my 20s and they were in their 80s, they became two of the most important people in my life.

I’ll tell our story on this site.

My mom’s dad died in 2005, when he was 93 and I was 30. My mom’s mom survived him by six years—long enough to help me finish my first book, get to know my husband, and hold our newborn girl.

After my grandmother’s death in 2011, I decided to explore the role of the American grandparent by interviewing all kinds of families from coast to coast.

So far, I’ve talked to more than 50 families. They’re rich, poor, and in the middle. They’re black, white, Latino, Asian, and mixed. They speak English and every other language you can imagine.

I’ll tell their stories here, too.

I’ll also write about the big picture: why, in millions of American families, grandparents are more significant than they were a generation ago, even if their rise has been largely unsung.

Rose Stigger, 61, with her granddaughters at the apartment they share in Kansas City, Mo. I interviewed Rose last year. Photo by Nick Schnelle for NationSwell.

And of course, I’ll link to all the best content from around the web about grandparents and the extended American family.

Wondering how I came up with the title The Grandparent Effect? Read this post.

Welcome, enjoy, and let me know what you think.

I can’t offer enough thanks to my family and to all the families who have invited me into their lives over the past few years.

Thanks to Jennifer Hauck, for taking many of the pictures on this site; to Michael Bierut and Jesse Reed at Pentagram, for designing its logo; and to Cynthia Colonna, for transcribing endless hours of interviews.

Thanks to The Theme Foundry for designing the template for the site. Thanks to Jayme Johnson and her team at Worthy Marketing Group for refining the design and providing technical help.

Most of all, I want to thank my husband, Andy Borowitz, for everything.