Ruminations on Senior Moments

A magazine article caught my eye: Mother Knows Best. The gist was to create an opportunity bring grandparents back from the from the 'good ol' days' to modern times where things are often done differently. It promoted an attempt to bridge the gap since “raising children today is a lot more complicated than it was” cites a medical grandfather. And who would argue with that? Maybe a lot of older people. If you think you had it tough, you should have been born fifty years ago. Or, You young whipper snappers think you have all the answers. And so on. Back to the article. Mothers Know Best suggests that grandparents need to be sent to obedience school. The idea of a school for bringing up grandparents in a grandparenting class no doubt was not intended for all mothers of mothers with little ones but rather those who are meddlesome, overbearing, out-of-touch, bossy, know-it-all grannies. That this is necessary is because of the “long, often passive-aggressive history of generational conflict over child rearing . . . .”

The rise of grandparenting classes represents a marked shift among younger parents from attempting to lecture to their forbears to hiring expects to do the lecturing for them. The article continued discussing one situation where a medical institution increased the frequency of its three-hour grandparenting classes from every other month to twice a month as part of its $275 Welcome Baby package among other topics.
I missed out on those classes since they were initiated long after my time. However, there apparently is a need for improving conversations between a couple of generations trying to raise children and grandchildren. I suppose classes might help to bridge that gap somewhat.

It is true that we old timers drove our vehicles without seat belts, specialized baby seats or air bags. We rarely experienced disposable diapers and learned to lubricate stubborn safety pins between our finger and thumb. We ate our meals together and never worried about competition from cell phones, Blackberries, iPods, iPads or TV.

But times change. We walked to grade school and there was no such thing as a student parking lot. We had little idea what Driver's Ed was and learned mostly with a stick shift in a vacant lot tutored by a rather impatient parent or worse, an older sibling. Yes, times change. So frankly, perhaps there is a need for grandparenting classes. But maybe, just a thought: if there isn't such a thing, should there also be a young parenting class to help bridge that gap of a “passive-aggressive history of generational conflict over child rearing . . . ?”