“I was worried about my grandkids”
Marian Shields Robinson didn’t want to move to Washington, D.C. when her daughter, Michelle Obama, became First Lady in 2009. But her grandchildren, Sasha and Malia, were only seven and ten, and Marian was worried about them, she said in a recent interview with Gayle King of CBS This Morning.
We have this woman to thank for Grandparents Day
A housewife from West Virginia fought for years to get a national holiday for grandparents declared. In 1978, she won.
The best movies about kids and their grandparents
Most movies put grandparents on the sidelines, when they put them anywhere at all. Here are some great ones that give them their due.
The best picture books about kids and their grandparents
These books aren’t just stunningly written and illustrated. They also perceptively observe the complexities of the new American family.
From grandfather to granddaughter, lessons in cooking and life
Celebrated chef Jacques Pépin and his granddaughter, Shorey, have created a video series and a cookbook together.
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.
“What the elders see while sitting, the young ones standing on their toes won’t see”
Proverbs about grandparenting from around the world.
In Moana, Grandma knows best
You’ve probably heard about the latest blockbuster Disney movie and its teenaged heroine, Moana. But have you heard about her really awesome grandma?
A grandmother and her Girl Scouts
All the Girl Scouts troops in her California town were full, so Kathy Richardson started a new one for her granddaughter and her friends.
From his grandparents, Obama learned these simple truths
“America has changed over the years,” President Obama told the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “But these values that my grandparents taught me, they haven’t gone anywhere.”
The very best books about the very best season
For kids, summer means freedom. These books beautifully capture that.
Boys, grandparents, and “the best week ever”
A picture book about what happens when parents get out of the way.
What if every classroom had a grandparent?
Kids need love. Grandparents are good at giving it. That’s why an army of them is being recruited to serve in the public schools of Syracuse, New York, where too many students have been getting suspended and too few have been graduating.
The best picture books about spring
I spent the final weeks of winter reading all the picture books I could find about spring. Here are my favorites. They’re simple, they’re deep, and they’re as gorgeous as the season.
“Grandma’s love is what made Grandma’s garden grow”
A moving new song by country music star Zac Brown.
How Miss Rumphius made the world more beautiful
In this extraordinary picture book, a girl’s grandfather inspires her to live well and do good.
It’s never too late to join the Peace Corps
Alice Carter, 87, a grandmother from Boston, is halfway through a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Rabat, Morocco, where she’s volunteering at a youth center.
What Eleanor Roosevelt gave her granddaughter
After her husband died in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt traveled the world as a diplomat, speaker, and activist. But she was never too busy for her granddaughter.
Grandparents matter. Here’s how.
Grandparents matter in profound, enduring, and sometimes unexpected ways. That’s what I learned from these recordings, which were made by three American families for the oral history project StoryCorps.
How to be a grandparent to a kid who needs one
Here’s a beautiful video about the national Foster Grandparent program, which pairs volunteers ages 55 and over with children who need a tutor, a mentor, or both.
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.
In elephant families, Grandma is boss
A family of elephants is led by its eldest female, who’s often a grandma many times over. And the older she is, the better, scientists have learned.
How to help a teenager thrive
A new study finds that teens who maintain close, loving relationships with their grandparents suffer fewer emotional and behavioral problems than their peers.
Help a child to wonder
It’s not important that children know about nature, Rachel Carson believed; what matters is that they delight in it. But they won’t unless they’re shown the way, she warned.
Meet the grandmas of the Mississippi Delta
A new book profiles more than 50 black women who suffered brutal discrimination as children but survived to make a better life—and a better world—for their heirs.
Meet the First Grandmother
“It’s important to remember the White House is such a bizarre place,” says the author of a recent book on the Obamas. “I think Mrs. Robinson acts as a calming presence.”
The art of love
There’s not enough good art about the bond between kids and their grandparents, so I asked Rebecca Layton, an illustrator based in Austin, to create some.
Are Chinese-American grandparents under too much stress?
Chinese Americans often devote long hours to their grandchildren, but many of them experience this as a burden, a new study reveals.
“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.
Everyone on earth is this man’s cousin
A.J. Jacobs, a journalist and bestselling author, thinks he can build a family tree for all of humanity. Here’s what he told me about his project, his grandparents, and his most famous ancestor.
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.
In army families, grandparents are heroes, too
A letter from a grateful mother whose husband was deployed a dozen times.
Do grandparents know the secret to happiness?
Mo Rocca hopes the grandparents on his TV show can teach him how to live.
“I am so exhausted at the end of the day I can barely move”
A grandmother in Oklahoma finds babysitting both magical and tiring.
A grandma, a girl, and their secret world
“We’d make tiny boats of walnut shells, line them with moss, and float them down the streams, where we were sure the fairies would climb aboard.”