Spin Cycle: Parental Confessions

 

I wasn't going to take part in this week's Spin because (choose one of the following):

    a) I am such a perfect parent that I have nothing to confess.
    b) My parenting confessions are so deep and dark that they cannot be 
        released into the blogosphere.

Then I realized I did have one confession I might be willing to share. And that is: I have every intention of one day being my grandchildren's favorite grandparent. And I don't care what I have to do to achieve this goal.

No, I am not yet a grandmother, and if things go as planned, I shouldn't be for at least several years too come. But when I do become one, any other grandparents the kid may have, whether real, step, or adopted, better watch out.

When my son was in high school, for a time he had a very serious girlfriend. He seemed to spend every waking moment with her and often her family. They treated him as extravagantly as they did their own kids. Presents were ridiculously expensive and always carried a designer label. Clearly they were bent on making a certain impression.

"He better not marry her," I complained to The Ex. "We'll be the schmo grandparents. I'll be baking cookies with our grandchild and they'll sweep in with tickets to Disney World. Or I'll plan a trip to Disney World and they'll take the kid to Hawaii. I can't compete with that."

"Who's getting married?" He stared at me blankly. "What are you talking about?"

Of course they eventually broke up, but not before I'd carefully thought it through, and bestowed on my imaginary future grandchildren the uncanny ability to spot any and all phony displays of affection (imaginary grandchildren are convenient that way).

I'll be the Fun Grandma, I decided. The one they stay up late with watching movies. The one who takes them sledding and chases them around the playground. The one who lets them make messes in the kitchen and splash water out of the bathtub.

I'll take them on special Grandma Vacations and spend one-on-one time with each of them. Then, when they're in high school or college, they can get a job out here summers and stay with me. What kid, after all, doesn't want to spend their summer on the Vineyard?

Let those other grandparents just try to compete with that.

Whew, simply writing all those plans exhausted the hell out of me. I may need to reconsider. Maybe it's easier to be the grandma who visits and sits regally in her chair, passing out 20's.

What do you think? What kind of grandparent do you plan on being?

Either way, I bet we'll all rock.

 

Now slink on over to Sprite's Keeper to read some more Parenting Confessions.

Comments

[Erin]

Will you be my grandma? I could use some spoiling.
:-)
I have been dragging my feet about this spin. I'm a little burnt on parenting right now. Also, much of my parenting is unbloggable.
Great spin, Maureen.

[Jan]

I'm with Erin - will you be my grandma??

Beloved and I are already busy working towards becoming the favorite, "fun" grandparents. Fun for us, fun for the grandkids, frustrating for the parents. What more could you ask for?

[~The South Dakota Cowgirl~]

Oh hell.

Here I am, at 32. Husbandless. Childless and you're thinking about grandchildren? You sound like my mother!

In all honestly I'm only joshing, but I don't even know what kind of parent I'm going to be yet. Zach and I were raised completely different- he's a socially liberal and I'm from the conservative South, where kids aren't watching rated R moves at age 6,7,8 or even 13 most of the time. Where no one curses in front of kids. Where you don't have kids out of marriage. Where kids learn to eat what is served to them and there's no picky-britches allowed. All of those things happen here, in this little subculture of our country. However, he and I are very good at compromise, so we shall see. :-)

I am a lot more uptight than that. I guess I think we should protect our children's innocence as long as possible; that is the adult's job to set a good example for their kids etc.

Ok. I really went off on a tangent. You caught me when I was only on a 1/4 cup of coffee.

I think you'll rock as a grandparent, and frankly wish that I had had grandparents that had been young enough and well-off enough to do just those things!

[class factotum]

Cowgirl, I heart you. Adults are adults and kids are kids. I get so annoyed when people introduce me to their kids as "Class" instead of "Mrs Factotum." Heck, I'd settle for "Miss Class." If I stop by and the parent isn't at home, I tell the kid to tell his mom that "Mrs Factotum came over." And what's up with mothers being short order cooks?

My dad was in the Air Forcce and adults were always "Mr" and "Mrs" to us, unless they were close friends, in which case they could be "aunt" or "uncle." /off topic

Maureen, I had the extremes of grandparents. My Granma Johnson always wore dresses. No makeup. No jewelry. Had a garden. (retired farmer) Canned. Baked. Made fabulous strudel. Gave us a quarter to go to the swimming hole. Played a mean game of sheepshead (Wisconsin/German card game). Watched Lawrence Welk. Was in the Ladies' Circle at church and baked for weddings and funerals.

Granma Sylvia was never without red, red lipstick, painted nails, and a ring on every finger. Wore pants. Had plastic on her furniture. Never cooked, but always had a coffeecake from the grocery store. Took us out for ice cream and then to Shopko, where she would give us each a dollar to spend. Had a statue of St Christopher on the dashboard of her car, Vatican be darned. Smoked, played cards, drank beer.

Sylvia was more fun, but I loved them both.

[Lynn]

For me it's going to be payback. I'm going to get the kiddos all sugar-highed and bouncing off the walls with excitement and then, just before they peak, send them home to their parents. After the sleepness nights and irrational behavior they've laid on me since birth, I think it's my right and duty, don't you? :oD What's the saying? Something about grandkids are the reward for being a parent. True.

[Heather]

I'm fairly new to the step-grandma business...My name is Nana. I have 8 grandkids, but only get to see 3 on a regular basis. The 3 I see, have a set of grandparents that lives too far away. A grandmother that lives here but is a very busy woman. Then there is Pawpaw and Nana (me), I am always availible. So far this has worked out real good for me. I am the most popular grandparent, out of all of their grandparents. I get phone calls with invites to the zoo, lunches and the park at least once a week. They come over whenever they feel like it, which is usually on saturdays. I take it that because they call and come over as much as they do, I am a good grandparent.

[Picture Imperfect]

LOL! Great post...

Maureen, I'm sure you'll be a rockin' grandma!

I'm pretty sure I won't ever be a parent; thus knocking me out of the running for 'what kind of grandma will I be?' speculation. It's all good though!

I *have* grandparents, does that count? My favorite is my mom's dad. I call him Grumpy. And he calls me Crusty. hehe. He's funny and wise and sarcastic and I love spending time with him!

And he never handed out 20s, for the record. He took us camping once at Dinosaur Lake and he melted my brother's shoes when he tried to dry them out, and I punched him at night because he was snoring. He said he didn't blame me.

Good times. :oD

[Sprite's Keeper]

Oh, yeah, you'll rock!
I think my mom likes to compete a bit for the affections of Sprite with John's mom, or used to. We had a couple of tiffs over who was getting more time when we visited. But Sprite sees them as very different grandmothers. She likes to cuddle with her Baba and laugh, and go through all the quilting fabrics, and she likes to settle down with her Nana, for some reason, John's mom is made of magic when it comes to putting my child to sleep.
I understand where you're coming from and I think I'll be doing the same thing too. :-)
You're linked!

[Erin@TheLocalsLoveIt]

You sold me.

Grandparents play such an important role in children's lives. But for me I never really realized it until I was older. Yeah, I had my favorites growing up but I never really understood their role until recently.

You'll rock as a gma. I just know it.

[LPC]

c.) all of the above.

[Joan]

When I looked into my graddaughter's face for the first time over 20 years ago I vowed that we would have a wonderful relationship ... that I would do everything in my power to be a grammy she would love and enjoy being with. I vowed the same thing 4 years later when my grandson was born. That we would definitely have a special connection.
And we do. And part of it is the Vineyard. I've managed to pass my love and obsession of MV to them. When they were 3 and 7 years old they made their first trip to the Vineyard and for 10 years we'd go every August... them, their parents and me. Not their grandpa... nope, this was MY special connection with them. You can take your loved ones someplace you love but you can't make them love it unless they want to...and they DID and DO :)
My granddaughter is now a junior in college and my grandson a junior in high school and I am reaping the benefits of the vows I made to both little brand new baby faces.
And yes... I AM the fun, interesting and most loved grammy in the family. Which wasn't easy as on my son-in-law's side there were 4 generations of grandmothers alive to compete with. I say, yay for me :)
Joan

[Jane]

I wanna call dibs on your being a grandma to MY kids! We could use a grandma like you - in case you're looking to practice until the real grandkids come along!

[Twenty Four At Heart]

Wow! I have never once thought about being a grandparent! Not once. And I don't think I even want to think about it ... because that would mean being older than 24, right?

[Kristin]

Hi, Maureen, thanks for checking out my blog today. : )

As for what sort of grandparent I'll be... Well, probably a very young one, at least to start! We adopted a teenager who is now 19. He doesn't have any immediate plans in that direction but I know it's only a matter of time... Kind of surreal to think about, really! Our next oldest is only nine so I know for the next batch of grandkids, I'll be a more grandmotherly age, at least.

May I just say, though- the fact that you're even considering what sort of grandparent you'll be already means that your ahead in the running, at least if you compare to *my* grandparents. One grandparent was completely estranged from the time I was a toddler until just this year, a few months before he died. Two others lived too far away to see them with regularity and they just weren't interested anyway. And the last was my grandmother who lived with us for most of my childhood but was the sort of grandmother who would correct your grammar and take her dog with her to the store instead of one of her grandchildren. I always felt pretty gypped in the grandparent department. But, on the bright side, I guess I will pretty much automatically be able to consider myself a good grandparent, at least when I compare to what my example was!

http://excerpts-kristin.blogspot.com/

[kathryn]

Fabulous post, as always Maureen!

I'm totally with you...I'm going to be the coolest G'ma EVER. They'll talk about me all the time..."My FAVORITE Grandma does this...and then she does that....and you never know what she's gonna do next!"

I'll be the "young" grandma too...the one where ppl can't believe I AM one!
YEAH!

[Gloria Carrington-Ferrira]

Could you please consider adopting to me as your grandchild. I never had grandparents. My parents bad behaviour put paid to that and so this post was very interesting to me and made me ponder, again on the great value of grandparents. When I was a child I used to wish, fervently for a soft place to fall when my parents were warring, which was forever. That's the kind of grand-mother I would like to be. A forever safe and soft place for my grand-children to fall whenever and however they needed to.

Maureen, thanks for staying with me during my travels. It was amazing to see the number of comments my lovelies left for me during my absence:)

Maureen, a fun-filled Friday to You!!

[Stacy (the Random Cool Chick)]

I love your spin! I fully intend on being the fun grandma, too, when Princess Nagger grows up and has kids. My mom's mom was my favorite grandmother - because she was fun! My dad's mom was cool and aloof - one of those that sat regally on a chair and handed out 20's...so I'd stick with your original idea of being the fun one... ;)