Welcome to The Grandparent Effect
Grandparents are healthier, wealthier, and longer-lived than ever before. What does this mean for us all?
The boarding school from hell
When my grandparents went abroad in the fall of 1958, they found two very different Swiss boarding schools for their kids.
Step-grandparents, make yourselves known!
Little is known about step-grandparents, even thought they’re increasingly common. If you’re a step-grandparent, what’s it like?
My grandmother, the Francophile
My mom’s mom read everything in French. Even though she wasn’t French, didn’t live in France, and didn’t learn the language until well into middle age. Best of all, she never bragged about it.
The grandmas who snorkel with snakes
Some days, they take care of their grandchildren. Other days, they prowl the bottom of the sea in search of venomous snakes.
The ‘pasta grannies’ still roll it by hand
To document the dying art of making pasta from scratch, British journalist Vicky Bennison has filmed hundreds of Italian grandmas in their kitchens. The result, she says, is a “Noah’s Ark” of knowledge and skills that might otherwise have been lost.
The new American family, animated
The millions of American kids who live with their grandparents will recognize themselves in The Casagrandes, a new cartoon from Nickelodeon.
“We stand in solidarity with the youngsters”
Concerned about the impact of climate change on their grandchildren, elders in London have taken to the streets.
6 new novels about kids and their grandparents
In these recent novels for preteens—by some of the best children’s authors of our time—grandparents give kids the inspiration, strength, and love they need to navigate a perilous world.
“Do your best every day!”
The grandmas and grandpas at Garden View Assisted Living in Carroll, Iowa have lots of back-to-school advice for kids. Recently, they posted it on Facebook.
He’s taking his 89-year-old grandma to each and every national park
Joy Ryan had never seen the ocean or climbed a mountain. Then her grandson took her on the road.
Four generations, one race
An 88-year-old woman, her daughter, her granddaughter, and her great-granddaughter recently teamed up for a 5K in Albany.
The 97-year-old blogger of Seattle
“Anyone who thinks of old age as a time of stagnation just hasn’t been there,” writes Doris Carnevali.
Bonobo moms play matchmaker for their sons
An adult male bonobo who lives with his mother is three times more likely to become a father than one who’s gone his own way.
The difference being a mother of a single daughter is that you become part of her family—which I think is very different from grandmothers in general … We come, we stay for a few days, there’s no tension about the son-in-law who’s wondering when we’re gonna leave, when he’s gonna have his family back. We have much more access to the grandchildren.
Judi, grandmother of four, Massachusetts
Anna Quindlen has learned to butt out
“Hang back,” Quindlen, who has two grandkids, advises grandparents in her latest book.
A prom for sixth-graders and their grandparents
A middle school in Ohio has a novel take on the Senior Prom.
I’ve been very careful about not giving unsolicited advice to my kids about their children, because I think everybody has to make their own mistakes. My favorite thing to tell my children is, ‘Every day I did the best I could, and some days it was better than other days, but it was always the best I could do that day.’
Arlene, grandmother of four, New York
At this South Korean school, children and their grandmas learn together
Faced with declining enrollment, an elementary school in rural South Korea is welcoming grandmothers, many of whom were not permitted to attend school when they were girls.
“Go see your mom and your grandparents. They miss you!”
When three young men saw an older woman eating dinner alone at a restaurant in Oxford, Alabama, they asked her to join them. It turned out that she was a widow, and that the next day would have been her 60th wedding anniversary.