Pandemic grandparenting: overwhelming sadness, but some sweetness, too
Millions of grandparents have been torn from their grandkids. Others are responsible for raising them, and worry about who’ll finish the job if they can’t.
Amid a crisis, a serenade
Collin Fowler of Albuquerque, New Mexico serenaded his quarantined grandparents with bagpipes to mark their 55th wedding anniversary. He stood in the middle of their cul-de-sac, while they listened from the safety of their stoop.
Keeping up with the science of the pandemic
The Coronavirus Resource Center is a new site from Harvard Medical School.
“How do families decide what to do?”
Here’s an excellent article from The Washington Post by a retired professor who typically cares for her grandkids after school. Last week, she was “laid off” from this job for her own protection.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More myths about grandparents that it’s time to trash
Many stereotypes about grandparents are wrong.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known then?
I asked grandparents around the country what they wish they’d known—but didn’t—when their first grandchild was born. Here are some of my favorite responses.
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.
She lost her daughter to murder. Will her grandson be taken from her, too?
A grieving mother seeks justice.
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.
“Why I train grandmothers to treat depression”
Depression is common in Zimbabwe. Psychiatrists are not. So grandmothers are being trained to step in.
How grandparents prevent kids from being ageist
Children who see their grandparents at least once a week and describe these visits as “happy” are much less likely than their peers to buy into negative stereotypes about elders, a new study suggests.