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.
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.
The year in grandparents
In 2018, I wrote about a caravan of grandparents who stormed the Texas-Mexico border to protest Trump’s treatment of migrant children, Gabriel García Márquez’s memories of his grandmother, and many other topics.
The Scottish grandmother and the wonky donkey
The world has fallen in love with the way Janice Clark reads to her grandson.
Why does Trump want to keep children and their grandparents apart?
Many immigrant parents seek to bring their own parents here to help with childcare while they toil in grueling jobs, two sociologists recently wrote in The New York Times. President Trump wants to stop them.
The grandfather and the frog
A zoologist who just identified a new species of frog has named it after his three-year-old granddaughter, Sylvia.
When your grandma is Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Clara Spera recently graduated from law school. Her inspiration was her grandmother, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Because of his grandma, Gabriel García Márquez knew magic was real
Until he was eight, Gabriel García Márquez was raised by his maternal grandparents and a bevy of aunts and servants in Aracataca, Colombia, a small town near the Caribbean Sea that he fictionalized in his most famous novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. “I cannot imagine a family environment more favorable to my vocation than that lunatic house,” he later wrote.
Trump thinks this grandma is a threat to our country
Trump’s travel ban has torn apart thousands of families. Here is the story of one of them.
The restaurant where grandmas dish up the world
At Enoteca Maria on Staten Island, the menu changes daily, and so do the chefs: they are grandmothers from all over the world.
“Why I train grandmothers to treat depression”
Depression is common in Zimbabwe. Psychiatrists are not. So grandmothers are being trained to step in.
Does modern parenting ruin kids?
Because of how their parents are raising them, kids will grow up to be more entitled, less disciplined, and less independent than their elders, an overwhelming majority of Australian grandparents believes.
The woman with 10,000 grandkids
Many kids in India are growing up far from their grandparents, so a grandma in Bangalore is using her smartphone to tell them bedtime stories.
Do grandparents wake up early to keep their families safe?
New research suggests that our ancestors stayed safe at night thanks to the divergent sleep habits of the young and the old.
How Baby Boomers and Millennials can help one another
A new app will connect young people who need housing with empty-nesters who need income.
“What the elders see while sitting, the young ones standing on their toes won’t see”
Proverbs about grandparenting from around the world.
The grandmas Trump has banned
A new Instagram feed celebrates the Muslim grandparents in the Middle East and Africa who are now banned from visiting their grandkids in the United States.
Japanese millennials are building lives with their grandparents
In search of meaning, urban 20-somethings in Japan are migrating to the countryside to live with or near their grandparents.
How grandmas are mending the mental health crisis in Zimbabwe
Millions of people in Zimbabwe suffer from depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, but the country has only 13 psychiatrists.
Why this 117-year-old matriarch has more living to do
The hopes of a great-great-great grandmother in Kenya.
“We feel proud that we are able to learn so well”
There’s a special school in a small village in India for grandmothers who want to learn to read.
What you can do to help refugees right now
Are you looking for ways to support refugees in your community and around the world?
Grandmothers, unite!
With Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Steve Bannon headed to the White House, many of us are feeling powerless. We’re not.
The four-generation barbershop
Bob Townsend of Summersville, West Virginia practically grew up in the barbershop that his father opened in town during the Great Depression. Now, he owns the shop and employs his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson there.
Grandparents are healthier than ever
Grandparents are healthier than they were 30 years ago, even though they’re also older, a Canadian study has found.
Whales need grandmas, too
Female orcas who’ve undergone menopause play a critical role in helping their extended families find food, particularly during times of scarcity, scientists have learned.
How to cook like an Italian grandma
You’ll need some olive oil, a good butcher, and this recipe for Neapolitan ragù.
“I think I know my grandfather now”
As a boy, Allen Say barely knew his grandpa. As a man, he came to understand him. That’s why he created Grandfather’s Journey, a picture book for which he won the Caldecott Medal in 1994.
“Her mind was as sharp as ever”
Would her grandma remember her? Jane Kim, 41, wasn’t sure. It had been 23 years since she’d last visited her in Korea, and she was nearly 100 years old.
Margaret Mead learned everything from her grandma
The legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead was homeschooled for most of her childhood by her grandmother, an iconoclast who rejected rote instruction as “stultifying” and emphasized learning by doing instead.
Is grandparenting good for you?
Babysitting for grandkids may boost your wellbeing, but if you’re pressured into providing care, you may suffer.
Why stepgrandparents matter
“Standing at one remove from the new partnership, and all the hue and cry the blending of a family can involve, they have the potential to play a unique role for the stepgrandchild—part grandparent, part wise, trusted confidante.”
“I grew up with the possibility of magic”
Isabel Allende, a novelist with millions of readers around the world, says her grandparents shaped both her character and her career.
A grandmother and her granddaughter graduate side by side
Cathy Williams, 62, and her granddaughter, Chelsea Washington, both earned bachelor’s degrees this spring from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee.
Hunt, teach, love: What grandparents do in the rainforest
Grandparents have been going to bat for their grandkids for hundreds of thousands of years, a new study of South American foragers suggests.
British grandparents may get a break
Politicians in Britain have realized that grandparents are struggling to balance work and childcare just as parents are.
Could grandmothers make the difference between life and death?
Maybe women outlive their fertility to ensure that their grandchildren thrive.