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.
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.
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.
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.
What do your grandkids call you?
I’ve been asking grandparents around the country what they’re called and why. Here are a few of their stories.
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.
“This is not the way we thought our lives would be”
Guy and Joanne Sinclair have been raising their granddaughter since their daughter got hooked on heroin.
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.
Do you dream of living near your grandkids?
There are a lot of good reasons to move closer to your grandkids. Then again, there are some good reasons to stay where you are. I asked some grandparents who made the move what happened next.
A grandma and her grandson learn to swim
Mary Walker and her 17-year-old grandson are taking swimming lessons together at a pool in Tulsa, Okla.
To nurture your family, nurture yourself
Parents and grandparents need one another. How can they learn to get along?
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.
British grandparents may get a break
Politicians in Britain have realized that grandparents are struggling to balance work and childcare just as parents are.
Do grandparents know the secret to happiness?
Mo Rocca hopes the grandparents on his TV show can teach him how to live.
Could your grandkids get by without you?
A sociologist spent years interviewing grandparents who give a ton of time and money to their grandkids, often because their grown children are struggling.
Lamentations of a long-distance grandmother
“I think there should be legislation that keeps children and their offspring in the same town, but it didn’t work out that way.”
“To my shock and amazement I burst into tears”
Here’s a beautiful account of the very beginning of grandmotherhood by Lois Wyse, an author and advertising executive who died in 2007.
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.”
The secret to this mother’s success is her own mother
If you have to bring your kids along on business trips, it helps to bring their grandma, too.
Three generations. Three species. One home.
My sister’s family tried living at my parents’ house. Chaos ensued.
Is grandmotherhood intensifying?
Instead of just spoiling their grandchildren, many grandmothers now make significant contributions to their daily care, says Madonna Harrington Meyer, a sociologist at Syracuse.
Calvin Trillin, grandfather: He babysits. He spoils. He turns the kids into movie stars.
When he’s not writing some of the best humor and journalism of our time, Trillin spends a lot of time grandparenting.