What i didn’t know about being a grandmother… but i do now Fanny Blake on life as a modern granny
…but I do now! Fanny Blake on what it takes to be a modern grandmother
Last week, a friend and I found ourselves pushing our respective baby granddaughters round the park. We’d resisted the dubious lure of Tiny Tunes, a music class for babies, laughing at how, only a few years earlier, we would never have imagined we’d be doing this. What’s more, we were enjoying ourselves. We hadn’t expected that either.
For quite some time the idea of becoming a grandmother had been, for me and many of my friends, something associated with old age – in other words, to be resisted at all costs. Not of course that we had any say over the matter. However as my two sons married, the possibility became a reality and then, as other friends became grandparents and I saw their enjoyment in their new state, the concept became more appealing.
When my first granddaughter was born last year, I was unprepared for the way she immediately stole my heart. From the first moment I held that small bundle, only hours after her birth, I fell for her hook, line and sinker.
ZIP MY LIP
That bit was easy. But becoming a grandmother has also involved a steep learning curve. The first lesson was in the importance of zipping my lip. Not something I’ve ever been much good at. Once I offered what I thought was invaluable advice: “If it was me, I’d…” I began. “But, we’re not you, Mum,” my son quite reasonably pointed out, carrying on in their way with equally effective results. The past is a different country and they do things differently now. The amount of equipment that goes with a 21st-century baby seems often baffling, hideously expensive or, dare I say it, unnecessary. But the old child-rearing gurus and their methods have been ousted. And soon I was to discover how little I knew.
When my daughter-in-law was planning her return to work, I heard myself offering to look after Jasmine – who’d be six months by then – one day a week. But hadn’t I planned to be an uninvolved granny as my own had been? What had happened? Jasmine Rose. That’s what.
The first day I looked after Jasmine, she was bawling with exhaustion but refused to sleep. It all came rushing back – that standing rocking from foot to foot in the hope she might go to sleep, the burping, all that. The instinct was there… but I still felt like a total failure. Panicking, I bundled her into the buggy for a walk. The first person I met was my neighbour – four grandchildren down – who lifted her up and quieted her within seconds.
Bit by bit, my confidence grew and Jasmine and I began to muddle along together. What fascinates me is the speed with which she changes.
Each week she turns up with a new skill and looking like a different child – but always with that same heartmelting grin.
The old nursery rhymes have surfaced from somewhere in my brain, the books I read to my boys have been pulled off the shelf, and we spend hours building towers to be knocked down. Over and over again. But it’s fun and that grin is the very best reward.
GRANNIES A GO-GO
And I’m not alone. The park is full of women my age pushing buggies, looking faintly distracted, pulling out breadsticks, bits of fruit and water.
The delight in the discovery that a friend looks after his or her grandchild on the same day as I have Jasmine is not to be underestimated.
Something else I hadn’t foreseen was the pleasure of seeing my son with his daughter. It has brought out a new gentler side to him that I haven’t seen before. Having her has also brought us closer, as he at last gets an idea of what we might have put up with back in the day.
Long ago, I vowed I would never be one of those women who produces photos of their adored grandchildren and goes on to bore people over a drink, supper or on a train. I’ve seen them and the long-suffering faces of their victims. Guess what? I’ve become one of them too.
So far I’ve kept the line drawn at Tiny Tunes – but, as Jasmine gets older, I can see it getting closer and my resistance weakening!