Chic modern grandmas are a far cry from the fusty stereotype

Atribunal has ruled that calling an employee a grandmother can amount to age discrimination, even if they are a grandparent. Anne Dopson, 62, launched a challenge when, as the sales director of a publishing company, a car she had driven was referred to in a magazine review as “comfy wheels for a grandmother”.

It certainly sounds trivial for a tribunal, but it does matter. I can see why she’s mad. If the car was being reviewed by a 62-year-old man, would it be described as “comfy wheels for a grandfather”? Never.

I’m proud to be a grandmother of four and happy to be described as one when it is relevant to the situation, i.e. telling a child’s school “his grandmother will pick him up”. But being a grandmother had nothing to do with Anne’s job.

I remember Beryl Vertue – founder of Hartswood films, makers of Sherlock and Men Behaving Badly

– going ballistic when she was once introduced as a “grandmother” instead of as a multi-award winning producer. To place the familial status of a woman ahead of her other achievements is dismissive and outdated. But it’s not the word so much as what it brings to mind that is so misleading.

To those who are still stuck in the early 20th century, “grandmother” seems to imply cosiness, slippers, slowness, an unfamiliarity with technology, a neediness when it comes to the family’s attention, and the view that life is winding down and faculties are failing. Like all stereotypes, this is wrong but still perpetuated – even by some advertisers and broadcasters who seem unable to grasp that grandmothers have moved on. Why are they so out of date?

There’s now a very accomplished – and, often, still working – modern generation of grandmothers, who are likely to be glamorous, full of life, swimming in the North Sea every day (that’s not just me!) and not only quite capable of using an iphone but also aware that Stormzy isn’t a weather forecast.

Some grandmothers are running major companies. Others are creatives: writing, painting, making music, volunteering, training for sports events. But whatever they’re doing, most are still hungry, ambitious, competitive, strong and funny – with big plans for the future.

I would never introduce them as “My friend, the grandmother”, so why do we allow it to remain as the go-to appendage for those who refuse to move with the times? My friend, Jo, and I were shopping together once when, as we took our purchases to the checkout, the 12-year-old sales-child piped up: “Off for a cup of tea and a nice sit down?” “It’s our lunch hour,” I said. “My friend is heading back to finish her painting for the RA Summer Exhibition and I have to meet a deadline for my newspaper column.”

Society needs to reboot its ageist and inaccurate perception of grandmothers, and recognise that modern ones are less likely to need “looking after”; rather, they should be “looked up to” as the matriarch of the family, with so much to offer, create and instigate.

Goals, ambitions, passion don’t disappear when you get a Senior Railcard … in fact, the desire to achieve often increases – and we need encouragement. When I swam the Sydney Harbour Race, my granddaughter greeted me at the end with the words: “You didn’t win, Nana, but you didn’t come last either.”

Today’s grandmothers are still in the race, in every sense, and we don’t need a comfy ride.