By Louise Rachlis
Many of us who have grandchildren groaned in January
to read in this paper of the 50-year-old record-setting balloonist
“grandmother”.
As if her children’s fertility had anything to do
with her accomplishment. Is it any wonder that whether we’re 50 or 80, calling
ourselves “grandma” or “grandpa” affects others’ perceptions of us.
Are you ready to call yourself “Grandpa” or
“Grandma”? I wasn’t, and decided to call myself BabaLou, a nice play I thought
on the Yiddish word for grandma, and my own name. I get a thrill every time my
granddaughter calls me BabaLou. My husband decided he would be called Zaida.
The other grandparents opted for Grandma and Grandpa.
Great-grandmother
Mary Dooher said that in her youth “grandma epitomized the stay-at-home older
lady who baked cookies and gave out sage advice.”
“I did
not want to be one of those grandmothers,” said Dooher, 82. “I wanted to bring
more than cookies and a warm house to visit. I wanted to introduce them
to the world of theatre and literature. It could have been done under the
label of grandmother, but not for me... Our grandkids are not allowed to call
us Grandma and Grandpa. We are simply Mare and Frank. However, the
great-grandchild calls us Mare-Mare and Frankie.”
Dooher, who became a grandparent in her late 40s, said “for some reason or other I did not want to become labelled ‘grandma’. I had a mother-in-law who was called Granny Dooher, and my mother who was called Granny Miz (short for Misericordia). Both grandmothers were exemplary women and they worked very hard at being the best grandmothers ever. Both grandfathers had passed before the grandkids were born.”
Her six
children started calling their parents by their first names when they became
teen agers and “we did not object in the least.” “Mom and Dad slip out
from time to time, but mostly it is just Mare and Frank. Our oldest grandson is
now 34 and the youngest is 15. Our great grandson is five and is about to
be joined by a baby brother soon.”
“I loved
being a grandmother, and love even more being a great grandmother,” said Mary
Dooher, but that doesn’t mean being called one. “Do I sound a bit odd? I
hope not. I think this is a great age when people over 80 are not
considered old at all. While we have dropped the traditional titles, we have
not given up on bringing lots of discipline, love and comfort to our little
darlings.”
Loreen O’Blenis’ grandsons called
her “Grammie” because that’s how her husband Dave’s family addressed their grandmother, she said. “Now that
the boys are teenagers - ages 15 and 13 - they call me ‘Gram,’ which seems to
fit.”
She said
“the little ones aged two and four call me ‘Grammie’. They call their other
grandparents who are French-speaking ‘Papa’ and “Mimi’. Dave is ‘Grand-dad’ to all four. When I was
growing up we used ‘Grandma’ and ‘Grampa’-
perhaps a different generation.”
George
Brimmell’s grandson and granddaughter call him “Granddad.” His great-grandson
calls him “Granddad George.”
“When my first grandchild, Jesse, was born I was asked how I wanted them to be called,” he said. “I chose Grandad, and it’s been Grandad, from my grandson Jesse and granddaughter Blair, and Great Grandad George from my Great-Grandson, Blair’s son Adrian, now six. It’s become a tradition. My son Clifford is Grandad to Adrian, his grandson.”
Anna
Quarrington’s Ottawa grandsons call her “Grandma” or
“Granmaman.” “The ones down in Hamilton call me ‘Big Mummy’.”
Ingrid and Paul Tuomy’s children called their
grandma “Nana” and so for the next generation, “we asked ours to call us Nana,
but it turned into “Nanoo”, said Ingrid, “which was great because they call
their grandfather ‘Popoo’ which is Greek. So we’re Popoo and Nanoo.”
When I searched the web thesaurus for grandma
synonyms for this article, I found the usual baba, gran, granny, nan, nanna
etcetera, but was shocked to find as well, “crone, dame, dowager, frump, and
worse - “old battle-ax”, war-horse, witch and hag!
Yikes! If we don’t define ourselves in a positive
way, others are unfortunately standing by.
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