As soon as I announced my daughter's pregnancy to friends, the inevitable question popped up.
"Does she know what it is?"
"Yep, it's a baby!" I said.
At that point, it was too early to know the baby's sex. I just wanted a healthy grandchild so much that whether it was a boy or girl didn't matter.
My daughter, Stephanie Mirmina and her husband, Steve, were eager to know.
"We figured we'd have enough surprises," she said. "We wanted to talk to the baby in the right way — to bond with this little boy or girl from the very beginning.”
At about 20 weeks into the pregnancy, she told me I was going to have a grandson and showed me the ultrasound pictures.
It was a leap over an emotional hurdle. I soon learned it was merely the first of the big three questions. In a flash, my initial nonchalance when it came to knowing every last detail about the baby — before birth — grew to be an insatiable craving for more information.
Not wanting to pry, I'd ask a subtle question such as, “With so many names to choose from, how will you ever decide?” My daughter would kiss me, and say nothing.
Wherever Did They Come Up with That?
My husband, Michael, and I played the “Name that baby!” game with our not-yet-born grandson’s parents. We tried out family names, fancy names, silly names. We offered names we liked. We discouraged names we didn’t like.
Of course this was just a warm-up. In the final round, we weren’t consulted. Oh, the suspense! Would they choose a name we loved off the bat? Or would they go with one we'd have to get used to and grow to love?
They opted for Adam, after my son-in-law’s dad. For the middle name, they selected Matthew, after my husband.
Bonnie Waterman, 63, a Cherry Hill, N.J., grandmother, has four granddaughters with unusual names. Each time one of her children asked Waterman and her husband, Mark, what they thought of the new grandchild’s name, they said, “Oh, that’s nice.”
New parents should be left to make their own decision about their baby’s name, said Waterman. “I tried not to impose my views. Besides, once you start talking to the child and using the name, it doesn’t matter how different it is. I love my grandchildren dearly," she said. "They’re wonderful little people.”
And the Religion Is…
The last biggie question you want to ask the new parents is: How will the baby be raised spiritually? Not all grandparents have this question to think about, but with the rate of mixed marriages climbing, many do. For example, the United Jewish Communities reports that the intermarriage rate for Jews who married before 1970 was 13 percent. By 1996, this number had climbed to 47 percent. My sweet new grandson was being born into a blended family — three-quarters Jewish, one-quarter Catholic, with a dash of Buddhism thrown into the mix from an uncle.
I wondered how my grandson would be brought up. Yet I didn’t feel it was my place to ask. Adam had a bris, the ritual Jewish circumcision. And at Christmas, decorations filled his house. Considering his parents were married by an interfaith minister, I took the visual cues and suspected that all spiritual perspectives would be honored.
After her own experience growing up, Janis Cohen, a 54-year-old grandmother from Cherry Hill, N.J. decided to outright ask her daughter how she would raise her children.
Cohen had a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. Her father had wanted the children to be raised Catholic, so she and her sisters were baptized. Years later, after her parents divorced, Cohen started Hebrew school. As to how her grandchildren will be raised, the verdict is still out.
Mary Woolley, a 69-year-old grandmother from Haddonfield, N.J., is hoping that her grandchildren will have a spiritual focus in their upbringing. “I was raised religiously,” said Woolley. “As adults, my grandchildren can make their own decisions. But I think they should be exposed to religion as children.” She, too, is waiting to see what her adult children will choose to do.
When you first hear the news that a grandbaby is on the way, you want to know everything — and more! — there is to know about that little bundle of joy. Asking gently may yield the answers for which you are looking. And it may not. But who doesn't like the thrill of a surprise once in a while?
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