Parents ‘miss’ their daughter now that she’s a parent too
Dear Carolyn: My husband and I miss the daughter, now a parent, we knew and loved before the baby came. Every conversation is wholly about the child, no adult conversation can be had without our daughter or, more often, her husband interrupting with, “[Child’s name]! Count to five! Let’s show them how you can sing this song! Do you want another snack? Want to play a game? Show Poppop how you can X or Y!!!”
We are devoted and attentive grandparents, but it’s gotten ridiculous, and feels way out of balance. Any advice?
— L.
I can think of a few advicelets, which maybe will cover this once you’ve stitched them together.
1. Be patient. It might get worse before it gets better, but counting to five is not the Mona Lisa. Its dazzle moment will pass. Worst possible case, this child as a tween will shut down any lingering “show Poppops” faster than ... well, everything. Nothing shuts anything down as ruthlessly as a middle-schooler.
2. Be patient on a slightly more optimistic schedule. If a new sibling is forthcoming, then that typically halves, not doubles, such stage-parenthood.
3. Frame your forbearance as a gift only grands can give, or close to it. Rational new parents (not an oxymoron) understand it is a big, cold world full of utter indifference to their baby’s first digits. But grandparents! They have to care! Right?! So you get all of it, every micro-brag. The more ways you can muster to enjoy it while it lasts (see No. 1), the better.
4. When you can’t change the conversational rut — “Is this baby freaking Sea World?” is best left unsaid — change the conditions that formed the rut. So, if you’re all just draped around the family room with no agenda except to watch the baby do baby things, then try something else: Bundle up the nugget, grab the stroller and go strolling. Split the adults off into pairs, to do ... whatever pretext you can think of to get out of the family room. Go to the kitchen to cook ahead for the coming week (edible mercy for parents). Etc.
5. Make projection your co-pilot: “New moms can feel like they’re losing themselves. If you ever want to talk about something else, just say so.” Not to manipulate her, but to allow for her being as desperate as you are.
6. You were presumably much mellower parents to your daughter? Since, on average, parents Now are markedly less chill than parents Then — which every person with an opinion has taken every available opportunity to point out on their public platform of choice. So, please don’t forget your parenting attitude was as much a product of your times as theirs is a product of theirs — and give them breaks accordingly.
7. Simultaneously work the bestand worst-case conversational scenarios. By that I mean, have some topics ready for when you see a glimmer of an opening — and abandon all hope you will ever get to use them. Because nothing stops time like hoping for something better to happen.
Kids grow too slowly and then too fast, as you know — so, congrats, deep breaths and enjoy the show.
NEW YORK – When we last saw Franklin Saint, he had problems, not least of which was three fresh bullet wounds. As season three of “Snowfall” ended, rivals were circling his mini-drug empire and violence levels were up.
“After being shot three times, he’s completely broken, not only physically but spiritually and in his mind, too,” says Damson Idris, who portrays the canny Saint. “So season four is him rebuilding himself.”
The new season kicked off Wednesday and opens on New Year’s Eve in 1985 with crack ravaging the streets of South Central Los Angeles and the CIA using drug money to fuel its influence in Latin America.
Idris hopes the new episodes can both enchant current fans and attract new ones. “I think the work we’re doing on this show is going to be spoken of alongside the likes of ‘The Wire’ and ‘The Sopranos,’ which would be a huge privilege in my opinion,” he said by phone from London.
The FX series was co-created by the late John Singleton and keeps the Oscarnominated director’s authenticity and ability to tell a large story from a small one. “Snowfall” is ambitious in its attempt to talk about both crack and the Contras.
“His legacy lives on,” said Idris. “I remember that he would talk to me about Nina Simone and how Nina Simone said that the artist’s job is to reflect the times. In my opinion, Singleton reflected the times. And that’s the legacy and footsteps I hope to follow in.”
“Snowfall” touches on police brutality, media influence, real estate, U.S. politics, secret wars, corruption and how crack in three years turned South Central from a working class neighborhood to a war zone with bars on windows.
“The show is so much bigger than Franklin Saint in South Central. I think it’s a show for a global audience,” said Idris. “It’s educational alongside of being entertaining.”
Dave Andron, co-creator, showrunner and an executive producer, said season four will up the violence levels as the war on drugs takes hold, prompting scare tactics and the militarization of police.
“It is obviously very tragic and yet really rich, fertile ground,” he said. “There’s a real scope and spine to this thing. It’s incredible that it hasn’t been told in this way before.”
The new season opens with Saint struggling after being shot. He uses a cane and prescription pain pills, wincing at simple tasks like putting on clothes. But when a rival calls him soft and weak, another warns: “Boy’s brain still work.”
On the streets, demand for crack is soaring and competition is fierce. Saint is tempted to get out of the game but knows that’s not an option. “What I know for sure is, if we bail, there’ll be chaos,” he says. “I have to stay and fight.”
“He’s proven to everyone that he isn’t the strongest. He isn’t impenetrable. He isn’t James Bond,” said Idris. “Everyone is seeing Franklin in a weak state and for that reason, he’s being questioned.”
The show may seem very grounded in the mid-’80s with its use of pagers and Lacoste shirts, but viewers will instantly see a modern comparison between the way crack was criminalized then and the way opioids are seen as a health issue today.