just about all our Christmas cards and accompanying letters have filtered in.
and i have noticed a phenomenon.
once people become grandparents, their Christmas picture alters from the ones of years past. no more pictures of them climbing ruins, in the congo line, walking in the run for the cure marathon. those slice of life photos have been replaced with their grandchildren.
have you noticed this?
and i can say, the grandparents (four this year) that sent pictures of their grandchildren IN NO WAY fall into the category of people you don’t want to be reading about. these are corporate, working-out, travelling types. they have great lives.
sending out pictures of their grandchildren instead of their activities over the past year, does not suggest a loss of identity. i think they believe: look at what we have to love. these children are not only the future, but a focus for love the grandparents have not had the opportunity to offer, or haven’t offered in years. and they want to share what they love.
i can understand grandparents wanting to share their grandchildren to all and sundry. my parents live is a very small CANADIAN (YEAH!) town, and a population of 18,000 does not provide enough admirers of the wee three and kindergarten boy. this means, when frugal blake travels, he always shows pictures of sebastian, carys, sela and jasper to the weary airport security folk before finally showing his own passport photos. (to be fair, i think he skipped that stunt when travelling throughout vietnam, but i will ask.) you have to admire them.
this is no hardship for me. i like seeing the offspring of friends i may no longer be in touch with, but have known since they were the size of the grandchildren now beaming down at me from my fridge. i like looking for resemblances and admiring sweet outfits.
but, to all you excellent, active grandparents out there, PLEASE REALISE YOU ARE STILL OUR ROLE MODELS. WE WANT TO SEE YOU, pictures of your hikes, trips, parties, lives….so an early request for next year….how about a picture of you with the baby? we’d love to see you teaching baby to salsa, read, laugh and bake…just like you taught us when we were lucky enough to be in your homes, worlds and arms.
Reader interactions
3 Replies to “GRANDPARENT ALERT~”
Hark, your comments are music to my ears!
I too have noticed the change as the years go by and how people lose their identity .
As for Blake in Vietnam, I think the first English words that some of the locals learned were” Sebastian, Jasper, Sela and Carys”..LOR
I agree!
I was so proud to begin seeing pictures of my parents being a couple doing wild and exciting things. They were finally back to being xx & xy, rather than Mom & Dad in all of the pictures.
They just climbed Machu Picchu a year ago, and I have crazy pictures of them at Iguazu Falls between Argentina & Brazil.
Wonderful to see what is waiting for me in the future. Because of them, I’ve stopped lamenting the fact that at my “young” age I haven’t been all the places in the world that as a teen I’d thought I’d have been by my now “ancient” (to a teen) age, and now look forward to where I’ll STILL be able to go in the years ahead.
What a puzzle to think about how much we like to see what they accomplished, and they like to brag about what we’ve accomplished. Guess we’ve all grown up!
PS – Pam, you are on about the 90’s music. That or we can compromise with 70’s classics. 🙂
Dear Tess,
Just to let you know…. these grandparents broke with your pattern and just included a picture of themselves looking very fine at my brother’s 40th wedding anniversary. (maybe I should send you our Christmas letter, what a concept, I intended to – it may yet happen) This does not mean that we are not as besotted with our grandchildren as others or that we are completely self – absorbed. Perhaps we felt that we really couldn’t claim such amazing, beautiful and all consumingly interesting children as our own and left the pictures to their parents, Jen and Mark. Cameron’s each “I peed in the toilet!” announcement and each new skill is greeted with astonishment and delight. Hannah is maturing in good and scarey ways and we hardly know what to expect from day to day as she approaches “cool” from time to time. Sad but true. Anyway, from a non-typical grandma – Happy New Year and all the best for 2005. Read your blogs often and enjoy them. Love, KP