The ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent has a new book, ‘Becoming Grandma’
ENLARGE
My grandfather, a businessman, used to say that children were the investment and grandchildren the dividend. He meant that with your own children you have to do the heavy lifting, the drudgework, of child-rearing. There is a lot of saying no.
But with your grandchildren, it is all about saying yes. And if they start acting up, that’s not your problem. Just carefully hand them back to their parents with a smile and be on your way.
In her new book, “Becoming Grandma” (Blue Rider Press), Lesley Stahl, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, documents the pleasures of grandparenting. But also the ways the job has changed as baby boomers reaches their golden years.
What particularly resonated with me was some advice the journalist received from her friend, the syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman. “She said to me, ‘Keep your mouth shut and your wallet open.’”
I recall my own grandparents as a fount not only of nonjudgmental affection and occasional wisdom but also of really good birthday presents.
ENLARGEThat is all the more true these days, explained Ms. Stahl, who recently bought her granddaughters, Jordan and Chloe, an electric piano. She said that grandparents today spend multiples of what they did even a decade ago. “It’s the recession. Millennials are not earning that much.”
She went on, “The grandparents can give the gift of sending the children to school, fixing their teeth in addition to buying them gifts. We think of those children as ours.”
The journalist said her joy at becoming a grandparent—she’s married to the journalist and screenwriter Aaron Latham—took her by surprise. “I didn’t have any idea I’d fall off the cliff like this. My daughter rolls her eyes—‘You’re so different. Who are you?’”
Ms. Stahl recalled juggling the demands of motherhood and a high-powered career. “When you’re a mom every minute of the day is managed. You walk around with lists and lists.”
But as a grandparent your grandchild’s grade-point average is no longer a matter of life and death. “You’re a genius because you draw three little squiggles,” Ms. Stahl said of her grandchildren.
Of course, grandparents and their relationship toward their grandchildren are as varied as those between parents and children. I suspect my mother had trouble adjusting to the notion that she no longer called the shots.
It is only now that her grandchildren are grown—they visit, make themselves a drink, and hang out with her—that my mother is reaping the rewards of her relationship with them.
It also sounds as if there was a learning curve for Ms. Stahl, who discovered she no longer had the last word.
“We’re all walking on eggshells,” she explained. “There’s this shift in the balance of power.”
The fear is alienating your children and being denied a relationship with your grandchildren. “There’s this dark side when the grandparent is denied access. You’d be surprised how prevalent that is. When I started doing interviews women would say, ‘I’ve never told anybody. I’m so ashamed. I’ve never seen my grandchild.’ Tears coming down their eyes. ‘I don’t know what I did.’”
Their children’s explanation: “I didn’t want them doing to my children what they did to me.”
Ms. Stahl may be able to relate. Her relationship with her own mother wasn’t the most cuddly. “My mother was a real backstage mom. She was tough on me. She was determined I was going to succeed.”
She addresses their relationship in “Becoming Grandma,” acknowledging that she had her daughter, Taylor, after her mother told her, at age 35, that it was time.
She describes her mother, Dolly, as a more affectionate grandmother than mother. “She treated all three of her grandchildren with equal devotion,” Ms. Stahl writes. “And they loved her back.”
Speaking of herself and other grandparents, Ms. Stahl said: “We’re so different as grandparents. It’s night and day. As a parent you’re molding, grooming, teaching. And then as a grandparent, you find your only job is to love them.”
Wishing her grandchildren lived closer to New York—they’re on the West Coast—hasn’t prevented Ms. Stahl, who lives on the Upper West Side, from participating in their daily development.
“It’s a bummer,” she acknowledged. “However, we live in an age of technology. I can talk to my grandchildren and see them on Skype every single day.”