Kathleen Stassen Berger - Grandmothering: Building Strong Ties with Every Generation

A survey of more than a thousand grandmothers reports that the arrival of a grandchild often results in an instantaneous unbounded magical love.

Another grandmother wrote about her daughters long labor, My daughter was struggling in this wild current braving those rapids, alone in the frail craft of her own body. That grandmothers fears vanished when she saw her moments-old grandchild, who, radiant and glowing, is the future.

Not my words, not my feelings. Somethings wrong. Not with Asa, Elissa, or Oscar. Something is wrong with me, or the hospital, or the century.

I went home, slept fitfully until noon, and woke up troubled.

Why was I kept ignorant and distant while waiting for my child to give birth? She was my little girl. I diapered her for years, sponged her when she threw up, bathed her after she played in mud, picked lice from her hair, hour after hour. Now wait until she is cleaned up? I am her mother, not some formal visitor. I am now a grandmother, a crucial part of her family.

I thought of Elissas birth, thirty-three years ago. Midwives were banned from my world-class hospital. Fathers were forbidden at deliveries as my husband, Martin, had been for our first two. Newly inspired by feminism, I convinced my board-certified obstetrician to let Martin witness Elissas arrival. He wept when he held her, wet and wide-eyed, moments old. I reached out; they did not let me touch her. Germs, they said. With gloved hands, they wiped, weighed, wrapped, and whisked her away.

The hospital kept us apart for twenty-four hours. They said that I had no milk, that I needed rest, that she was tired, too. Grandmothers were also shut out. That didnt bother my mother. She was heavily sedated when I was born; she was horrified that I planned a natural birth.

Dont let her do it, Mom had told Martin, about my birth plans. He smiled. He knew he couldnt stop me.

When she was one day old, Elissa was wheeled to me, asleep. I woke her, got her to suck.

The day after that, Martin brought our two older daughters, Bethany and Rachel. Children were not allowed on the maternity floor; my little girls could not view their new sister, even through the nursery glass. But I could hobble down to the elevator to a special room to see them. That was an innovation; formerly, no visitors under age twelve could set foot in the hospital.

On day three, I was breastfeeding and talking on the phone when an aide came to take Elissa back to the nursery. She scolded me: Hang up. When you nurse, you must give your baby undivided attention.

Wrong. Old-fashioned. I knew better. I had suckled Bethany and Rachel while setting the table, stirring a pot, turning pages, and, of course, holding a phone. I was a pioneer. I was riding the wave of liberation, with millions of my sisters, toward a brighter, fairer, future.

Hurrah for the past half century. Now men routinely witness their childrens births; midwives deliver babies; mothers feed life-sustaining colostrum to their minutes-old newborns. We rock the cradle and rock the world. We became doctors, lawyers, CEOs, prime ministers, presidents. Strong. Invincible. Women! Helen Reddy belted it out; we sang along, loud and victorious.

Decades passed. Victories improved our lives. But liberated boomers grew old. Age sneaked up on us. We did not anticipate reading glasses, gray hair, stiffness, grandchildren asking whether telephones were invented when we were girls, or teenagers sending us texts. Few of us burned bras, broke ceilings, or led nations, but we all crossed barriers. Now we must cross another one.

Some in our culture equate grandmotherhood with disability and death, but most of us are vital for decades after the first grandchild, who arrives, on average, when the woman is fifty years old. Most new grandmothers see, hear, and move well; they can be energetic playmates. A survey of 1,205 grandmothers found that only one in five felt that their health interfered with grandmothering.

As grandchildren grow older, grandmothers grow older, too. If a second, third, or fourth grandchild arrives when a grandmother is sixty, seventy, or eighty, she is less able chase, play ball, or swing a grandchild around. But she still can be a vital force.

We do not deny aging; we deny incapacity. Grandmothers might wish for the body of a twenty-year-old, but age need not stop us, even when the oldest grandchild reaches adulthood, and new grandchildren or great-grandchildren are born.