Wendy Reid Crisp is the editor-in-chief of GRAND magazine, the magazine for grandparents. She has published three books including her most recent When I Grow Up I Want To Be 60.
Five years ago, when my friend Judy became a grandmother, the complaints began. “Six months old, and he’s so programmed already with music and gym and play dates! – what’s that about? – there’s never time for Nana. I want to be the kind of grandmother that I had – the children coming in and out, eating cookies, playing games, no ‘visiting hours,’ nothing formal, just all laughing and listening and loving.”
Ah, a perfect case of be careful what you wish for.
Now, in what seems like the blink of an eye, Judy has her grandchildren – there are three now: the five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-month-old – everyday from 7:00 a.m. to, often, 7 p.m.
What happened? The economy…uh, faltered? Is that euphemistic enough?...and all those fears that Judy and her husband, Jeff, lay awake at night and whispered (“How can those kids afford that big house? Do you think their jobs are protected?”) came true.
No more big house. No more big jobs. And no more full-time day care. The young parents now work more hours for less pay and live in a two-bedroom rental.
And the children spend their weekdays – and much of the weekends, so their parents can sleep in or spend some rare time alone together – with Nana and Papa.
Judy doesn’t belong to the gym anymore. She doesn’t have to. She runs 12 hours a day. She says she doesn’t have any problems with insomnia anymore, either. When the children leave, she barely has time to tear off her clothes before lapsing into a coma.
Jeff – Papa – is semi-retired. His half-day at work talking engineering talk about rebuilding the infrastructure goes through a quick translation and then, after making the kindergarten pick-up he talks engineering talk about Legos.
At first, we friends all responded – the casserole brigade – as we do to any crisis: show up with lasagna, offer to take the two older boys to the park. But after a few weeks, we realized : Judy’s situation isn’t a crisis – it’s a permanent life change.
I wondered why Judy and Jeff didn’t just cough up the cash and pay for the off-site day care. I wondered this aloud.
“That was Plan A,” Judy said. “The child care center was terrific. Seemed like a no-brainer. But that was exactly the point: a decision made with no brain. And maybe not much heart, either. Some days I think we’re as crazy as you must think we are. But those are only on the days when I can’t think!” She laughed. “Gotta go – we’ve got a play date. Don’t ask.”
