I never miss the opportunity to remind parents of the value of an abuela

I’m to be a grandmother again. My baby boy is having a baby boy. It’s their first, and he and his wife are so excited, so over-the-moon happy, that they’ve already gone shopping for strollers.

I’ve done my own planning, of course. Calendar in hand, I cleared my schedule of work commitments for late summer and early fall. I postponed a potential trip to visit family in Spain. After all, the birth of a grandchild is the kind of event I refuse to miss or to complicate with outside demands. It deserves its own stage and footlights, its own salute and celebration.

This is my eighth grandchild, if you count my side of the equation, and 11th when you add The Hubby’s three. So, yes, I consider myself a grandparenting veteran. Experience, however, doesn’t diminish the joy of adding a family member. Each child is a blessing, a triumph, a confirmation that life continues in spite of hardship and loss and war and a stubborn pandemic.

Can anything be sweeter than a baby? Are there other life events that bring with it such a mix of eagerness and apprehension, pleasure and worry?

We found out about my newest daughter-in-law ‘s pregnancy in a very modern way. A phone call by the couple alerted The Hubby and me to an important text. It took me a couple of beats to shriek at the sonogram picture of… well, I’ll be honest here, the baby looked more tadpole than human.

But I wouldn’t care if he had the ears of an elephant or the horn of a unicorn. I love him beyond words already, and we haven’t even met.

Since the news — and the gender-reveal party, which is a thing these days — two other couples in our social circle have shared their own wondrous announcements. This fall, they’re set to become newly minted grandparents. One abuela, who has been yearning to join the club for years, discovered her new status on a mug. The inscription: Promoted from Dog Grandma to Human Grandma.

To announce these glad tidings, she sent our circle of friends a video of her sipping coffee. In it she slowly, slyly turns the cup until the words are fully visible. Looking straight into the camera, she smiles that well-deserved smile that puts any other kind of smugness to shame. I recognize it.

Fifteen years ago, the oldest of my boys was about to welcome identical twin daughters. Aside from the shock and the scramble that followed — he was in college, getting a second degree — I remember those months of jubilant expectation, even as I well knew how much the parents’ lives would change. Forever and ever. And ever. And always.

I now know that you never stop being a parent. Not when the kids move out of the house. Not when they’re drawing a paycheck. Not when they’re raising their own children. Quite simply, once your kids become adults, your role changes. You mutate. You learn.

“Show up and shut up,” I tell new grandparents, when they ask for advice. Not that I follow my counsel. I’m a world-class blurter, but I also back-pedal quite efficiently.

That said, most (if not all) grandparents I know will agree with that old saw that grandchildren are the reward you eventually get for not strangling your teenagers. They embody the benefits without the responsibilities. Which is why, given the slightest opening or the smallest hint, I rush in to babysit, to chauffer to practice, to escort to the orthodontist.

I also never miss the opportunity to remind the parents the value of an abuela. A while back, I sent them an article from The Atlantic about the evolutionary importance of grandmothers. For decades, two anthropologists have studied what they call the Grandmother Hypothesis, which posits that women live well past menopause so that they can help raise successive generations of children.

In other words, we are relevant. We matter. Soon another grandchild will find out how much.

Ana Veciana-Suarez writes about family and social issues. Email her at avecianasuarez@gmail.com or visit her website anavecianasuarez.com. Follow @AnaVeciana.