Kids -- they grow up so fast. And while you treasure the ever-evolving relationship you now have with your children as they grow up, admit it: you mis...
SPECIAL FROM Grandparents.com Take a positive spin The shift from being the parent to becoming a grandparent takes a major adjustment most of us n...
At midnight, we said goodbye to 2012 (and to my 40s) and awoke the next day eager to tackle the new year (and my next decade). I actually made it through my milestone without much anxiety or depression (until my friend pointed out that I am now closer in age to 65 than to 35).
I discovered one of the great misconceptions about grandparenthood. It's not just about you and your grandchild. Your relationship with your grandchild is embedded in the relationship with your adult child and his or her spouse. They are the gatekeepers to a successful relationship with your grandchildren.
The single best thing about our first year blogging has been expanding our world with all of the amazing writers we have met. The second best thing is reading their work. In that spirit we have gathered some of the best reading we found in 2012.
Although many new books have been written about reinventing ourselves and taking 'me' time, we do not have the luxury to think about this. As mothers over 40, 50 and 60, I think we darn near 'reinvented' ourselves when we had, adopted, obtained or fostered our children!
With the holidays upon us, what other grandmas might do may be tested. Families will gather and children will act up. Some grandparents will spank or send kids into corners. Some parents will bristle. Or not. To each his own.
I'm sure there's a happy medium between yes and no (and I don't mean maybe)...a place where no excuses are needed, where there are just enough yeas and just enough nays, where one feels balanced and satisfied and content. I just haven't found it yet.
The first time I walked the earth as a senior, it was down a high school corridor. At that time a virus was something that only attacked our bodies. A mouse was an animal you didn't want sitting on your desk. And a tweet was that sweet sound the birds chirped in the morning.
If your kid is going to come out to you, it should happen in his or her own time, and in his or her own way. Then say what you would want to hear, 'I love you.' Not 'I love you anyway,' but 'I love you.'
In my opinion, there's always been an expectation that because of biological determination, women are naturally supposed to forgo some of their own dream and ambitions for the sake of childrearing because the ol' clock is ticking.
8. Accept help. This is no time to be a martyr, especially when kids are concerned. A couple of days of roughing it "Little House on the Prairie"-style are fine, but don't wait for the coughing to set in before taking refuge somewhere warm.
Women in Manhattan work on their careers and wait until the last fertile egg to have a baby. I have many friends in my age group with young children. Though I'm not sure how many actually go to the lengths I do to keep their age from their children.
The 18-year-old who suddenly finds himself between sets of friends, the 30-year-old stay-at-home parent who has lost work relationships, the 65-year-old who has not replaced lost connections due to illness, death, retirement and geographical moves, and the empty nesters, like me, can all experience the pain of loneliness.
I don't know what started it, this admittedly morbid habit of mine. I'm sure if one were to go back (please, dear God, don't) and read the many earnest and angst-ridden entries...there wouldn't be any hint that I would be doing this.
You're always going to be a mother. You're just not an intense full-time mother -- you're a part-time mother and that's a good thing.
The destruction of the parent-child bond was a persistent source of melancholy, a feeling of incompleteness that weighed down the soul.
I've spent the last few days trying to get my head around the fact that my 7-year-old daughter is getting married. Actually, she's 27....
