Grandparents – relax and enjoy the ride
Mothering has got a whole lot more complicated since I became a mother in the mid-1980s. The ante seems to have been upped while I’ve been otherwise occupied and wondering vaguely if my daughter would have children, and wondering, though even more vaguely, and far less often, about what it would be like to be a grandmother.
Through the haze I had noticed the rise of the Yummy Mummy, and been thankful that I got my mothering in before she appeared smiling coyly, like a pin-up girl, from the centrefolds of women’s magazines, baking cupcakes from quaint retro recipes, and then serving herself up like a cupcake – sweet, highly decorated and very edible.
So delectable did the Yummy Mummy seem that laddish social media soon featured references to MILFs. Google MILF. It’s not nice.
When I was a young mother you were still allowed stretch marks, exhaustion and rumpled, dribble-stained clothing. If you whipped up a batch of Anzac biscuits, this was not understood to be a culinary triumph, or a piece of vintage whimsy. You weren’t expected to look fabulous while cooking or spooning mashed vegetables into a reluctant tot.
It was accepted that most young mothers don’t feel glamorous or sexy – they mostly feel tired and emotionally preoccupied with their baby.
I remember being too scared to look ‘‘down there’’ for weeks after giving birth, fearful that I’d be wearing my insides on the outside for the rest of my life. Sexy this was not.
Mercifully for my daughter, who is now the mother of an 18-month-old, the popularity of the Yummy Mummy model of motherhood has waned. But motherhood still ain’t easy.
This means that grandmothering, which I suspect has always required great tact and adaptability, is also a lot more challenging, especially for the long-distance grandmother.
I learned this by spending two weeks getting to know my granddaughter and learning how to be a grandmother, when my daughter, her partner and their daughter returned from Ireland last month.
I was oddly nervous about meeting my granddaughter, although she was not a complete stranger to me: I’d been present when my daughter was in labour, I held my granddaughter very soon after her birth and spent time with her in Ireland when she was 9 months old. Nonetheless, I was a little afraid that we would fail to bond, or that my parenting skills might have rusted through disuse.
My granddaughter was understandably wary of me at first, and subjected me to a lengthy and inscrutable process of assessment before accepting me as a member of the family. I suspect that the hobby horse I produced from my suitcase may have swung the vote in my favour.
This success did not make my first sole-charge grandparenting experience any easier. It just made me realise how little I knew about current childcare practice. Is Incy Wincy Spider still on the nursery hit parade? What’s the proper ratio of milk formula to water? Will this child die if it eats peanut butter? And, most crucially, how does one change the modern nappy?
My first attempt went something like this. Place child on bed the right way up. Remove old nappy. Do not use scissors. Try to distinguish front of nappy from back. Decide that portrait of Hairy MacLary on his way to dairy should be rear-facing. Place squirming infant on nappy. Try to unpeel sticky tabs. Completely detach tabs from nappy. Call for backup. Mollify outraged infant while friend hunts out a roll of sticky tape. Tape baby securely into nappy. Return child to upright position.
Mistake. Lie baby down again. Locate snap fasteners at crotch of stretch’n’grow or whatever the heck those damn things are called. Snap the snaps. Return infant to upright position. Decide long walk with child in pushchair might soothe both sets of jangled nerves. Pushchair – a baffling heap of Meccano-like struts and hinges – refuses to transform into a vehicle of locomotion.
Abort mission. Child’s mother and father return just in time to prevent a tantrum – mine.
By the end of the fortnight, things were looking up. I had the technical stuff sorted. My granddaughter had enough faith in me to place me in sole charge of her blankie.
I’d squelched the idea that I be called Granny-Ro, Nana or Grandma – except in the unlikely event that GILFs or Yummy Grannies come into vogue. I’m simply going to be Ro or RoRo.
And the icing on the cupcake? Our brilliant prime minister had the good sense to name her newborn daughter after my granddaughter – with just a slight variation in the spelling.
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When I was a young mother you were still allowed stretch marks, exhaustion and rumpled, dribblestained clothing.