"I hadn’t tracked this stuff. I hadn’t wanted to presume that it would be relevant to my daughters.... So what good is my wealth of knowledge to her? What can I give her now, when our experiences are so unshared?"
My colleague Nina Camic has a column in the NYT "Motherlode" section titled: "A Soon-to-Be Grandma, Ready to Learn."
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The Pope could teach you the technique of proclaiming proper behavior of pregnant women and gays, regardless of his lacking the relevant experience.
If it's a boy, cover his penis when you change his diaper. Other than that, there's little advice to offer.
I saw my son get my mother-in-law in the face when she took her time about covering his penis (she had only daughters), and family lore says I did the same to my mother's older sister (who also had only daughters) when I was a baby.
(Robert Cook will be along in a jiffy to explain why it's politically incorrect to spray your aunt in the face, even when you're only a couple days old.)
I am ready and willing to give my daughter all the advice she could ever need about child rearing. If only she would hurry up and produce a grand baby. She's been married for two years, its past time.
Is that a shoutout to Althouse in the column? Nice!
Henry - I thought the same!
Was that you, Althouse? And if so, what would you do differently?
Nina is a treasure.
I love asking people what they would have done the same and what they would have done differently. Data! Feel free to chime in.
(One of my reasons for deciding to be a stay at home parent was that everyone I talked to who had stayed home [or was married to someone who had stayed home] was glad that they had and many who hadn't said they wished they had.)
I admit it: the recounted conversation in the piece is one I had with Ann last week.
Here's my one piece of advice for grandparents: Do not sit the kids in front of the television every time you have them over. All parents complain about this.
"Was that you, Althouse? And if so, what would you do differently?"
Yes. I have my ideas, which I'll never have the chance to test, but:
1. A quiet, soothing environment. Much less in the way of music, TV, and stimulating and exciting the children. Keep it really simple and realize how things feel to a young person who's just beginning to understand and think and speak.
2. Realize that children will observe you and act like you. That is a far more effective way of getting good behavior than it seems. It's also a way of getting bad behavior. You don't have to plead or reason with the child. Just show what is to be done and have steady confidence that the child will follow along.
What a shame that she doesn't think that she has anything to offer her daughters. The new parenting guides are agenda driven. If she likes the way her kids turned out then she should share her experiences and her own agenda. Many of the medical tests of today are agenda driven too and OB/GYNs have taken control of some tests even though they don't have the same training as the specialists who used to perform them.
If I had to do it over, I'd establish clearer boundaries with some of the in-laws. I don't think Nina will be a source of problems that way however.
The only advice I give to new parents now is to recognize that they will get tons of unsolicited advice, and that the best thing to do in that situation is say something non-committal ("Really!? I hadn't thought of it that way") and then go on your merry way.
I have some extraordinarily cute grand-nieces.
Nina seems to be a very special person.
I'll add: You can't fix the mistakes you made by having other people alter their lives. Repeat that as necessary when the opportunity to meddle presents itself.
Don't ask a question such that it can be answered in a way you don't want it to be answered. Don't bargain with a two-year-old. Enforce consequences.
One must wonder how humanity survived and thrived for the last several hundred thousand years.
You know, a television is not a necessary adjunct to civilized existence. I killed mine in 1978, and I don't miss it. I believe that watching television damages the mind. The author of a book must make his case as best he can. If I find him unconvincing, I can pause and consider. But television rushes on to the next point, and the next, and uses arresting images to quell disbelief.
And then there is the fact, that whatever the quality of a television show, it will be frequently interrupted by ads which are at best inane and generally actively insulting, as well as false and pernicious. I gather that some technological progress has been made in that regard. But I still find that being around an active television feels like being around a really obnoxious, hectoring drunk.
I think the best thing Nina can give her daughter is just being there. Nothing means more to a frazzled new mother than knowing there's someone she can trust implicitly to help with her baby. And to give her a break now and then, even when the child is a lot older.
Two principles: individual dignity and intrinsic value.
Two orders (both motive and constraining): natural and conscious.
Normalize what should be normalized. Tolerate what can be tolerated. Reject everything else. The goal of parenthood or guardianship is two-fold: smooth the evolution of a naive human life and establish a mutually-beneficial relationship. The rest is optimization.
Skipper:
Humanity regularly self-destructs when the confusion reaches resonance in a society. Fortunately, the frequency varies across the human population. So, the consequences, while horrific, are not conclusive.
I believe that watching television damages the mind. The author of a book must make his case as best he can. If I find him unconvincing, I can pause and consider. But television rushes on to the next point, and the next, and uses arresting images to quell disbelief.
And then there is the fact, that whatever the quality of a television show, it will be frequently interrupted by ads which are at best inane and generally actively insulting, as well as false and pernicious. I gather that some technological progress has been made in that regard. But I still find that being around an active television feels like being around a really obnoxious, hectoring drunk.
Yes, this. All of this.
My advice is, if you think you smell it, you smell it.
jimbino: "The Pope could teach you the technique of proclaiming proper behavior of pregnant women and gays, regardless of his lacking the relevant experience."
If only the Pope could be more like Fidel Castro who simply ordered homosexuals lobotomized. Or the Communist Chinese, amongst other communist nations, who criminalized homosexuality.
Yes, the religious will forever be well behind the ideas of our non-religious betters.
"What a shame that she doesn't think that she has anything to offer her daughters"
Agreed. "New Parenting issues" are probably bogus.
What a shame that she doesn't think that she has anything to offer her daughters
You read too much into the article.
I think she has no current advice to offer. I rather doubt she will be unwilling to help with the drudgework.
I love my extended family. One thing my wife and I decided right off the bat was to give the grandparents lots of leeway. I think it's good for kids to interact with lots of different (trustworthy) adults beyond their parents. My kids are lucky (and we are lucky) that all their grandparents are reasonably active and close enough to see often (not to mention assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins -- cousins are the best).
Sure, there have been things that grate against the grain (candy bribery, for example), but disparities in nurturing and discipline techniques among the extended family don't really change expectations at home. Kids are really good at context.
I just became a grandfather, but I suppose that's different. I'm there for my son and his wife if they need me, and I have made that clear, but right now it's everyone wants to see the new baby time...including great grandparents. So I am treading lightly.
George IV sure is a cute little fellow!
Yes, birthing, parenting, and grandparenting -- none of these were possible before the internet era, and we old farts just tread carefully when purporting to comment about them.
Well, my sons are both teenagers now (one is in college). Here's the most recent thing I would do differently:
NEVER SAY ALOUD: "So far, we've been lucky. He's never given us any reason not to trust him!"
No matter how wonderful, intelligent, upstanding etc. the person you've raised is, often he or she will do something you told him not to do. They are teenagers, after all.
I actually found this rather an odd piece. If the author's daughter wanted the advice of experts, then she wouldn't come to her mother, and it's a silly endeavor to think that she needs to now start reading the What to Expect series cover to cover (spoiler alert: as a special treat, you can allow yourself to have white bread for a splurge occasionally) in order to become an expert.
What grandmothers can offer is their own experience, for good or bad, and their reflections on it as time went by.
I think the best thing Nina can give her daughter is just being there.
....and don't forget your checkbook!!
Trigger alert: Poop.
The new Grandma (or soon to be grandma) should go with flow--enjoy it more and worry less.
There's a lot of new stuff out there. As a first time, rather conservative grandfather, I could have and would have gladly avoided the ultrasound "shows" of my grandchild whilst in utero. Be that as it may my daughter scheduled three such shows at commercial facilities (who knew there was a cottage industry of sorts springing up) to view the developing fetus during the course of her pregnancy.
Hey! At least her kids waited until they were married. That's about half the battle. Single parents overwhelimingly mean poverty for children. Get married. Stay married.
If I had it to do all over again, I'd just make a different set of mistakes probably. Parenting is imperfect. Accept that and get over it.
I have seven grandkids now. Oldest is 13, youngest is about a month. The parents are not a mainstream group, and with one exception politically far more liberal than I am. But I see them quickly defaulting to "traditional" parenting techniques and values. This includes lots of reading and activities, and heavy restrictions on TV. Overall they seem to be doing very well as parents, and the kids are good kids, full of curiosity.
I try to give the parents very little advice. Let them make their own mistakes. On the other hand, with the older kids, I am perfectly willing to give them advice on how to deal with parents, and when the kids are in my world, they need to understand my rules, not their parents'
I will likely be dead before most of my grandkids get very far into adult life, and quite possibly before they are out of teen age. Mostly I want them to remember me as someone who did not bullshit them.
I agree that Nina seems like a special person and proved that to me in a short interaction a couple years ago.
The main thing is just to be supportive with time, space, money and especially love. There is plenty of advice and usually people figure it out better for the selves
"I will likely be dead before most of my grandkids get very far into adult life, and quite possibly before they are out of teen age. Mostly I want them to remember me as someone who did not bullshit them."
I am almost that much older than my children, who are 6 and 10. I am 60, and I worry about leaving them too soon. But I also worry far less about making them do this, or letting them do the other, than about trying to be honest with them. Everyone lies to you all the time when you are little, and it doesn't help at all.
The best advice I got from my parents and my mother in law was the advice I couldn't get from my contemporaries or current books.
Sometimes it was good to hear the advice not tainted by the thinking of the experts of the day. And I loved my childhood and love my parents, so I was happy to hear how they would have handled different situations. At least so I could consider it.
Everything old is new again, after all.
Intellectuals are people who go to study things other people do naturally." - Bill Cosby
I was astonished to see that the most popular article was on eating your placenta — or not.
Leave the placenta. Take the cannoli.
YLo Drago "If only the Pope could be more like Fidel Castro who simply ordered homosexuals lobotomized. Or the Communist Chinese, amongst other communist nations, who criminalized homosexuality."
I smile to imagine the Pope standing behind Fidel Castro at the pearly gates. It wasn't Fidel Castro who burned Giordano Bruno alive.
The advice I'd give parents is to use corporal punishment Don't listen to weenies who think any form of it is abusive.
I don't have children, so it's easy for me to give advice. My advice: ensure that the child starts learning a second language early.
Nina writes with a light touch and seems to have a light heart.
I've always believed that learning to play a musical instrument at an early age helps the brain develop in unique and desirable ways. My father had the trumpet forced on him and refused to do the same to me.
"I smile to imagine the Pope standing behind Fidel Castro at the pearly gates. It wasn't Fidel Castro who burned Giordano Bruno alive."
Do you mean Clement ViII (the reigning pope in 1600) or the papacy. If the former, why is that relevant? If the latter, you're stupid.
Congratulations to Nina.
I don't have children but my niece who lives near me here in the US has a baby girl who is now 18 months old (and I am a young, sexy grand-aunt). What a joy to have that little wonder amidst us! and their parents will take care of them and for us, it is all play and no work.
Yes — congratulations, Nina! And also to the other 3 grandparents.
My 30 year old son and daughter-in-law sat us down to explain how much birthing and newborn care has changed since the dark ages three decades ago. I came away thinking about the old wives' tales we heard from the old folks back then. We agreed that now the youngin' have new wives' tales, just as fabulous and faddish. Now they're propelled by the internet. Back in our day it was handed down by family. Progress.
If grandma and grandpa are willing to watch the grandkids while the kids' momma slips out to the Motel Six to bang her best friend's husband, well, whatever the grandparents do should be good enough. That's what I got out of all of this.
I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies.
She's going to be a grandmother. Which means she was, at one time, a mother.
Just do what you did with your own kid. Just leave out the shit that made your kid such an asshole.
The Pope could teach you the technique of proclaiming proper behavior of pregnant women and gays, regardless of his lacking the relevant experience.
Kinda like jimbino showing up in a thread about grandparenting.
I can't wait 'til I have grandchildren and can take them to the national parks.
My mother, the baby of a family of 14 children and the mother of 6 herself, with 12 grandkids at the time of my first child, offered me no advice when I asked how I should raise mine own kidling.
She did say, "You do what you think is right for your baby. I'm the grandma, my job is to spoil him rotten then hand him back to you when they cry."
My siblings with kids confirmed she had given them the same "advice."
My kids are grown now, and turned out quite well. They both love their grandmother. I think she had it exactly right.
I can't wait 'til I have grandchildren and can take them to the national parks.
Adventures! Filling up their blank little minds with adventures in which they learn so much.
Whenever we "lit out", even when it was just down the street to the park, we were going on an adventure.
My mother, the baby of a family of 14 children and the mother of 6 herself, with 12 grandkids at the time of my first child, offered me no advice when I asked how I should raise mine own kidling.
She did say, "You do what you think is right for your baby. I'm the grandma, my job is to spoil him rotten then hand him back to you when they cry."
This is my plan for grandparenthood. We homeschool. When they are launched, I am done instructing them (unless asked). "I've given you all I have. Godspeed!"
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