I can't believe I'm packing again. When I board the plane in a few days, it will be the fifth time this year that I'll be making the long-distance haul to visit my granddaughters.
All I can say is: Yippee for frequent flyer miles, or I would be forced to swab the decks on a transatlantic freighter — and I'm not all that great with a mop.
My grandchildless friends think the reason I make the trip so often is because of where my son and his family live: Paris. Yes, the City of Light is a definite plus, but to be honest, I don't see all that much of the city when I'm there, unless you count parks and playgrounds. As far as I'm concerned, I would see the kids no less (and probably more) if they lived in Paris, Texas.
I realize I'm a jumbo-jet kind of grandparent, but does my yearning to spend so much time with
les petites, to know them so intimately, not also make me a helicopter grandparent?
I certainly didn't inherit either the helicopter (or jumbo-jet) gene from my own parents, who saw my son once or, at most, twice a year when he was small. When they did visit, it was for a few days and they decamped to a hotel. They didn't seem to feel the same urgency I feel to be a consistent presence in the lives of my grandchildren.
I didn't know what to expect before I became a grandmother five years ago, but I certainly didn't anticipate falling so hard. After all, I'm a happily married working woman who prizes her independent spirit. I have a life. I never would have predicted that I'd feel like a teenage girl with her first crush — even now, five years and two granddaughters into this granny business.
I long to be with them, even though after several days I feel so exhausted I can hardly remember my name. And it's nothing short of a miracle if I don't come down with one of the viral bugs that seem to proliferate around them like mosquitoes in a swamp. Still, I wouldn't trade my time with les petites for anything — and I have plenty of company.
"I never thought I would want to be as involved as I am," says my friend Mary, the grandmother of a one-year-old. "I'm a little surprised by how deeply connected I feel. Before the baby was born, I thought there was nothing more boring than listening to a grandmother go on and on about her grandchild," she adds. "But now, no matter what my granddaughter does, I think she's the smartest and cutest kid who ever lived, and I'm the one who needs to shut up and stop talking about her so much."
Many people I know feel the way Mary and I do. And it's not just the nanas. "Although I expected to be involved, I'm joyously surprised by the transformative experience of being a grandfather," says Porter Shreve, a family therapist. "I'm discovering that I love to play and do silly things and just be in the moment with the kids." This was not the case, he notes, when he was the super responsible father of four, at a time when men's roles were far more narrowly defined.
Of course, grandparent love is hardly a new phenomenon. Still, the intensity of the ardor — as well as the planning that often must go into it these days — seems to be getting cranked up a notch among Boomers.
I'm not the only one of my grandparent friends who has to travel — roughly 45 percent of today's grandparents live more than 200 miles from their grandkids, a number that seems to be rising. Take my friend Karen, who lives in Maryland and has grandchildren in both Northern and Southern California. Karen boards a plane to see one set or the other every four weeks, and because she works full-time, her visits are limited to three-day weekends.
| Are you a helicopter grandparent? |
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Sure am. I swoop in whenever I can. 67.6%
That's not me. I just drop in when I can. 11.9%
I would be, if only the kids' parents would let me. 12.3%
No, I have the kids all the time and I could use a break 8.2%
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"It's completely exhausting, ridiculously expensive, and I use up all my vacation time, but I wouldn't have it any other way," she says. "I want the kids to know me and I want to know them. Before they were born, I worried that I lacked the grandmother instinct. I had no clue that I would feel so passionately."
Another friend, Ellie, thinks that one reason today's grandparents are so kid-oriented is because many of us — especially Baby Boomer moms — spent our own children's early years focused on our careers. "I was distracted when my kids were growing up and I refuse to let that happen with my grandkids," says Ellie, even though she continues to work full time. "When I'm with them, I'm in heaven. I don't want to be anywhere else. With my own children, I always felt so torn."
Then there's the relationship thing. Unlike our parents' generation, today's grandparents are much more psychologically inclined. Many of us have been in therapy. We tend to be introspective and talk about stuff.
"Grandparents now put a lot of thought into the role and their relationships with their adult children and grandchildren. They want to do everything right," says Martha Horne, a social worker who teaches a class called "Grandparenting Theory and Practice" at OLLI, a lifelong learning center in Washington, DC. Horne's classes are well attended, and she's been amazed by the number of men who turn out.
It makes me chuckle to think of my own parents or grandparents signing up for a class in grandparenting. Like parenting, grandparenting was just something they did, without too much heavy analysis. Then again, maybe they didn't have to think about it all that much back in the day when most families resembled Team Ozzie and Harriet — a couple of kids, and four (if they were lucky) grandparents. "Now with divorce, blended families, multiple grandparents, and people living all over the globe, things can get quite confusing," says Horne.
What isn't confusing is the love part. The ardor. The need to connect in real time and space. Which is why I'm about to spend yet one more miserable, sleepless night scrunched up like a sardine as my jumbo jet hurtles its way across the Pond.
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