Grandchildren

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…

My husband and I did this on purpose. We were not forced into it for reasons of physical infirmity or financial difficulties. Instead, we were drawn to it by the sheer force of the potential advantages we saw. Chief among those was the ability…

Grandparents have had an outsized role in my life. No, I was not blessed with four doting “Grans.” I only had three: one disinterested grandparent who lived at the shore, and two who primarily spoke Yiddish and whose hearts were scarred by the Holocaust…

What Baby Boomer doesn’t know at least the refrain from Nat King Cole’s rendition of “Get Your Kicks on Rt. 66”? Rt 66. The “Mother Road.” Neon signs, motels, offbeat and over-sized roadside attractions…

In today’s world – with grandparents living far away from their grandkids, and grandparents often needing to work well into what should be their retirement years – what can we do to reinvent grandma and make good connections with our grandchildren?

I heard a simple quote years ago, but back then didn’t understand the meaning. I had to look it up to check. Initially, I thought I remembered Groucho Marx, who said, “The best reason to have children is in order to have grandchildren…”