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.
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.
Are you a typical American grandparent?
There’s a new study out about grandparents. Some of its findings surprised me.
Why grandparents outnumber grandchildren
There used to be many more children than elders; now, for the first time in history, the old outnumber the young.
What do Okinawans know that we don’t?
The five places in the world where people live the longest are also places where elders spend a good deal of their time tending vegetable gardens.
I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting. It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand. ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.’ So should a child’s … I will never talk down to—or draw down to—children.
Barbara Cooney (1917-2000)
Is mental illness the biggest problem facing teens?
Seventy percent of American teens see anxiety and depression as “major problems” among their peers, according to a new study.
Of baby birds and their grandparents
So far, grandparent care has been observed in only one bird species: the Seychelles Warbler, which inhabits five small islands in the Indian Ocean.
Inspired by her grandpa, she fights the fires of Cleveland
Lauren Phillips is the first woman to join the ranks of the city’s firefighters in 30 years.