Grandchildren

We do not usually identify ourselves by what we are not. We do not say I am not blonde or not good at knitting or I do not come from a large family. Nor do other people think about these things when they think of us…

I clearly remember the day the job of grandmothering started. My daughter walked in from the kitchen, carrying a dish of lasagne. She put it down on the table. She stood up and cleared her throat. ‘We have some news for you,’ she said…

Now we are 60 (as A.A. Milne of Christopher Robin fame might have said), we are of an age to think about grandmothers. Perhaps you are a grandmother or hoping to be one. Perhaps your friends are grandmothers…

When my husband and I were traveling in Germany several years ago, we had the most delightful driver who brought us to the airport. We started with polite conversation, as one does, and soon discovered we had quite a bit in common…

Many of us whose children have entered their 30s are still waiting to become grandparents. We understand that our kids have every right to make their own decisions about when and whether to become parents. If they never want to have children…

Things don’t always turn out as expected. More often than not, I think, the expectations were probably too optimistic in the first place and the surprise is an unwelcome one. This is a lovely story of the reverse…

As a grandparent, you are in a unique position to enrich, enhance, and positively influence your grandchildren’s lives. One way to do this is often overlooked or undersold – reading aloud with your grandchildren. Books are convenient…

In this short series of articles for Sixty and Me, we looked at the issue of children moving away from books and also explored 20 ways to get them started – or to help them continue – their reading journey. Whether you have grandchildren…

In my previous article, I wrote about the lack of reading habits – and lack of love toward reading – in the younger generations. Our grandchildren don’t seem to have a healthy exposure and/or regard toward books which, in turn, inhibits the development of their critical thinking capabilities. Naturally, the whole society will suffer in future years.

One day, while visiting one of our grandchildren, an 8-year-old, I stepped out the back door to locate her. She was perched snuggly up in an oak tree, reading; as if that’s where everyone might choose to spend their afternoon…