A Grandpa's Notebook.

Ideas, models, stories and memoirs to encourage intergenerational outreach and communication.

by Meyer Moldeven.

Introduction.

There are more than 60 million grandparents in the United States and their numbers are increasing as a portion of the general population. Enormous changes have taken place in longevity and lifestyles since today's older adults were, themselves, young grandchildren. Experts estimate that there are thirty to fifty thousand living centenarians, up from the 1980 estimate of fifteen thousand. Also, centenarians are not as feeble as they once were; disability rates among older people have been falling since the early 1980s.

Life expectancy at birth in the United States has increased nearly 30 years since the turn of the century, from 47 to about 76. On the other hand, families are more widely dispersed, successful interaction by grandparents with their distant grandchildren, whether for geographic reasons or barriers of circ.u.mstance, increasingly calls for innovation and improvisation.

A vast store of practical knowledge as well as a culture's lore languishes in almost every family, especially among its elders, more than ready to be pa.s.sed along to succeeding generations. An important source for ideas and models for grandparents to meet the needs-and the yearnings-of this era's grandchildren and children generally are in the observations and experiences of older adults. It is not up to our young grandchildren to say what in our life's experiences might be useful or enlightening to them? If it was up to them, how might they draw it out of us? A paradox indeed.

This is not a child's storybook, although some of the stories, vignettes and essays may interest youth from toddlers to young adults and, from other perspectives, parents, grandparents, and teachers. The book's intent is to demonstrate one older lay person's approach to fostering interaction between generations in the context of family, school and culture.

PART ONE

WE LEARN FROM EACH OTHER.

One of the ground rules in writing my 'grandpa' stories was to keep within the youngsters' range of comprehension and imagination, and about living things, objects, activities and places to which their imaginations could relate. In fantasy stories, when my grandchildren were very young, for instance, I animated toys familiar to them, or modified characters from their favorite books and sent them off on adventures that did not frighten or cause them apprehension for the toy's safety. At the story's conclusion, the toys and characters were back in a familiar and comfortable setting.

Deliberate destructive behavior in stories and anecdotes for the very young, I believe, serves no useful purpose. The young are already exposed to far more negative forces in the general run of storybooks, television shows, Internet games and the real world. Grandpas and grandmas don't need to pile them on. To the contrary, grandparents can influence a young mind toward reason and compa.s.sion. The tales they tell can be stabilizing forces in the day-to-day bustle and high excitement of the very young and, by the nature of a grandparent's role, suggest channels for positive values.

First Letter to a Distant Grandchild.

Don't let that blank sheet of paper intimidate you. Here's a model that you can rework to suit your situation: Grandma and Grandpa now live in a house that is very far from the town in which you live. We'll still see each other as often as we can, but sometimes the wait will be just a little bit longer.

One way for us to visit is by telephoning. Another is by our writing letters to you that Mom or Dad will read aloud to you. I'll start my writing to you by telling a little about Grandmas and Grandpas.

Grandmas and Grandpas are older than mothers and fathers. They usually have gray hair or white hair. Sometimes, Grandpas have no hair at all, but that's all right because Grandpas don't need to use a comb and hair brush every morning.

Grandmas and Grandpas like to take grandchildren to the zoo to see the elephants and the deer and the monkeys. They also like to take grandchildren to the park to ride on the merry-go-round, and to the lake to throw bread to the ducks and the geese and the swans.

On the way home from the zoo or the park, Grandmas and Grandpas take grandchildren to the bakery. There, they stand at the counter and smell the fresh bread, and buy cookies and cakes for desserts.

Grandmas and Grandpas like to play games with grandchildren, listen to grandchildren tell what happened in the park and at school, and answer questions. They especially like to read stories to grandchildren from big books with lots of pictures.

Grandmas and Grandpas like to hold grandchildren in their laps and hug them. Grandpas also like to shake hands, or pat grandchildren on their heads. That is a little bit about Grandmas and Grandpas and Grandchildren.

Too-Faraway Grandparent.

During a talk I gave to a senior citizens group a woman in the audience remarked, 'I'm a volunteer helper in a cla.s.s of first graders at (naming a nearby school.) I haven't given it much thought until now, but I've come to realize that some youngsters see their grandparents regularly, others rarely, and still others see their grandparents not at all. For a few, grandparents live too far away, and others don't know where their grandparents live or even if they have grandparents, but saddest of all are the kids who don't know what grandparents are.'

Grandparents and grandchildren are natural allies, but when their homes are too far apart, or other barriers intervene, their alliance weakens. Everybody loses, including the youngsters' parents-the generation in the middle.

How My Stories Began.

I live in one city, my grandchildren in another almost a thousand miles distant. During one of my visits I took my, then, three-year-old granddaughter for a stroll. We paused to examine a spider's web spanning a s.p.a.ce between two shrubs. A rain shower had pa.s.sed shortly before and droplets festooned the web's strands and rainbow-sparkled in the morning sunlight. Standing there, both of us bent forward peering into the web, I wove a story that transformed the sparkling strands into a carnival and the spider into an acrobat. Granddaughter's eyes widened with wonder.

We continued on and stopped at a house to observe a cat on the porch playing with a yellow ball. I wove another tale, this time of a cat and a strange ball that bounced too high. Again, my granddaughter's expression showed her pleasure in hearing grandpa's story. For the remainder of my visit, and during subsequent visits, I told her, and when he was old enough, my grandson, of the world around us and how we hoped to, some day, live together on Planet Earth.

Visits, in either direction were infrequent. Adult-oriented telephone calls usually left only brief moments for talking to grandchildren. Long distance calls just didn't generate the right ambiance and enough time for the relaxed talking and easy listening that goes naturally with a grandpa story. Then, too, at the close of an adult telephone conversation the youngsters are usually busy at other things, and sometimes grandpas just don't do well as talkers.

In my situation, I filled the gap with hand-scribed and, later on, typed stories. The letter-stories lengthened our telephone chats to plot the next story, flesh-out characters, the environments of settings and scenes. There are no better aids to a grandpa-grandchild telephone story conference than our faithful friends Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

One letter-story followed another, often ill.u.s.trated with pictures from discarded magazines. When I couldn't find the right ill.u.s.tration, I laboriously sketched an all-thumbs grandpa original. It was an enjoyable experience for me, and feedback from the family showed it was enjoyable for my grandchildren as well.

Family History Scroll.

The extended family's history scroll is shipped from one relative to another in a mailing tube. Each family adds a paragraph or so about what happened to them since the previous go-round that might be of interest to others. Generally, the messages are hand scribed, but may be typed and snapshots pasted on or attached with plastic adhesive tape.

When a scroll becomes too large for easy handling it may be retired and stored with one of the family members and a note added to the next scroll stating where the preceding scroll is stored.

What's In It for You?

Long-term studies of large communities offer evidence that individuals with strong family and social ties tend to be healthier than who live in isolation.

A conference of doctors and social scientists proposed a theory that altruism, particularly when the helper observes its benefits, can reduce feelings of helplessness and depression and thus enhance health. Also, persons who came in direct contact with those that they aided reported a strong and lasting sense of satisfaction, even exhilaration, an increased sense of self-worth, less depression, and fewer aches and pains.

Relating the theory to the theme of these notes, what a grandparent gets back often depends to the value he or she places on, and the efforts he or she makes toward building positive intergenerational relationships. If family has significance, then interacting with a grandchild, near or faraway, manifests that significance and the returns it generates.

'Returns' imply 'investments.' As grandparents age, their 'investment' is transformed into a 'return.' The 'return' contributes vitality, vibrancy and enrichment to a grandparent's latter years.

Picture Postcards.

During a discussion among older adults, one of them said he was having trouble coming up with what to write on a picture postcard that he wanted to mail to his faraway grandchild. He said he'd been a salesman but, in this situation, he was at a loss for words.

I asked him what he had done earlier that day. He mentioned several ordinary activities and added, as an afterthought, that he had strolled along a nearby beach.

'What did you see during your walk?'

'Seals and pelicans on the rocks offsh.o.r.e. Big waves rolling in. One of the seals slid off the rock and into the water. The tide was out, and I explored a tide pool. I saw a....'

He stared at me for a moment, grinned, took his pen from his shirt pocket and made notes on a slip of paper.

Grandparent's Role.

Grandparents generally accept and enjoy the many roles into which they have been cast. One of the many is that they are the grandparents of all their grandchildren, not just of one whom they chose to be their favorite. Favoritism invites disaster.

A young mother of two posed the following dilemma to an Internet discussion group devoted to family relations and child behavior. I altered the text slightly, primarily to protect the writer's privacy. She wrote: 'Since the birth of our second child our family has received lots of warm wishes. Yet, often, in offering congratulations, well wishers remarked along the lines 'You must be happy to have a boy now.' This confused our older child, a four-year-old girl.

'Of course, she is a much loved and cherished child and we could not love her any more if she were a boy. And we are very happy to have our new son, but would have loved a second daughter just as much. But the casual remarks about having a son are secondary to my concern about my parents' relationship with our children.

'My parents reside within easy driving distance and we are a close-knit family. Rarely a week pa.s.ses that we and my parents don't do something together. They are my daughter's primary baby-sitters and are very generous toward her.

'However, I am starting to see that there will be a difference, based solely on gender, in my parents' treatment of both children. When my son was barely a week old, my father said that he was looking forward to taking him fishing. When I remarked that my daughter had a fishing pole and, due to the age difference between her and her brother, would be a more appropriate companion, still no invitation was forthcoming.

'When my father invited my husband fishing the following week, my father grumbled at the suggestion that they take my daughter along.

'My son is now two and a half months old, and my father is looking forward to partic.i.p.ating with him in Little League, soccer, etc. Again, both my husband and I chimed in that the same activities are also available for girls. Silence.

'What really disturbs me is that after these rebuffs my daughter sometimes quietly says to me, 'Mama, I am proud we both are girls.' I don't know where she gets this from, but she'll often repeat it several times and in more of a forlorn tone than an enthusiastic one.'

Grandpa Too Far.

You telephone your son or daughter who lives in a distant city. He or she now has her own children. You chat with your son or daughter in the usual fashion. Closing, you ask to talk to your grandchild. The youngster comes on line: 'Hi,' Grandchild says.

'Hi, there! Know who this is?'

'Grandpa.'

'Right, Grandpa. How are you, dear?'

'Fine.'

'Good. What are you doing?'

'Playing with my toys.'

'What did you do yesterday?'

'Went to the park.'

'...have a good time there?'

'Yes.'

'That's nice. Well, I'm sure glad we had this little chat. Aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'Bye.'

'Bye.'

The following morning at day school the children talk about what happened over the weekend. It's Grandchild's turn.

'Oh, I played with my toys and went to the park and I talked to my grandpa on the telephone.'

'What did you and grandpa talk about?'

Long pause.

'Oh...nothin'.'

Think a Story.

If you can think a story, and if you can write a letter or express your thoughts orally or visually, then you can combine them into a message to a grandchild. The more often you do it, the easier it becomes. If the mechanics of writing or drawing is the problem, then audiotape. The point is to interact and communicate with a grandchild so that the youngster knows of your caring, and that caring is normal. Grandchild will readily grasp that Grandma or Grandpa wants to share, and that sharing is fine.

The type of communication most desired by my grandchildren until their fifth or sixth years, and under the circ.u.mstances of the distance between us, was the letter-story. The written stories evolved out of our infrequent family get-togethers. Occasionally, an idea for a story called for follow- up negotiations over the telephone to clarify plots, scenes, and characters. My grandchildren liked the stories, and both they and I enjoyed the discussions that preceded the writing. The give-and-take stimulated our imaginations and creativity, and often provided me with opportunities to pa.s.s along family history.

Today's youngsters know more about the world than children of previous generations, one of the many benefits of our expanding telecommunication capabilities and greater education and travel opportunities. Youngsters get their view of the world from what they see, hear, and learn from and about their families.

Letter stories, anecdotes and lore give grandchildren a better view of their grandparents, and about what older adults believe. The process, if positive oriented, contributes toward the grandchild's maturity, and offers them encouragement, values, models, and incentives.

There are tens of thousands of homes across the land where treasured possessions, tangible and otherwise, were created or acquired by the occupants or their forebears. You have them in your home as I do in mine. In time, those possessions: properties and artifacts, along with their histories, will move along to your children and grandchildren. In every culture, 'grandpa and grandma stories', along with 'mom and dad stories,' are part of that inheritance.

When youngsters know that Grandpa or Grandma wrote a story expressly for them, that more than qualifies the story for the special collection of treasures to be shared with close friends, presented at school as a show-and-tell, and eventually absorbed into the treasured memorabilia of childhood.

Story Openers.

Are you groping for words to open a story? Here are a few starters: - My future might have been prophesied from these events... - Let me tell you about. - Here, get under the shawl with me and listen to this hair-raising story. It was a wild and woolly. - During my early years. - Long ago and far away. (still an all-time favorite) - Once upon a time. (another treasure) - I am uncertain about what my memory truly recalls of these events but there I was. - I was about 8 years old when this happened. One morning. - My older brother/sister had a tendency to. and this once caused. -As children, we often. -I am reminded of the time. -There was a particular kind of. -If only I could have. -One day I was watching. -It was in the Fall of 19xx. -I particularly recall. -The toys I remember. -Sometimes, in the dark of night, when the wind howls through the eaves, I think back to the time when. --'Twas a dark and stormy night. (another Old Faithful) Grandchild and grandparent know they enjoy being together, and storytelling is part of the fun; also, grandchildren know that grandmas and grandpas usually have fascinating memories of their childhood and about what happened to the family over the years. Grandchildren want to enter this little bit of grandma and grandpa's world. Perceptive grandparents see the world through a grandchild's imagination. Using the antic.i.p.ation generated by a familiar opening phrase or sentence to set the stage works well for both storyteller and listener.

Grandparent-grandchild interaction is more than a custom; it is a deep and powerful bond. By its very nature, the alliance is biological and cultural, and molded by trial-and-error through the hazards of millennia. It is an alliance not to be treated casually; it demands nourishment, and storytelling by a family's elders is an essential ingredient.

Grandparent-Grandchild Interview.

A fun way to open lines of communications while visiting grandchildren, be they nearby or far away, is the audiotaped interview. Living nearby, the grandchild knows grandma and grandpa, they're part of everyday life. Far away is different, geography causes gaps. The one-on-one interview builds self-esteem and confidence in a youngster. It's an excellent learning experience, and creates a record of lasting memories for the family's archives.

An interview structures a conversation. Men are often as reticent as women are eloquent: women are much more socially oriented than men and communicate easier. However, the interview technique can be a starter to work through Grandpa's reserve. It quickly engages the partic.i.p.ants in a dialogue and is as much fun for one as for the other.

Vague questions by adults should be avoided; they're confusing.

Let's set up an interview.

Grandma and Grandpa plan to visit Son or Daughter and the Grandchildren. The visit will include Grandpa or Grandma being interviewed by Grandchild.

In arranging the visit, Grandma or Grandpa discusses with Son or Daughter what they have in mind. A tape recorder or camcorder, in good working order, is available or will be brought along. It's fine with Son/Daughter and they agree to prepare Grandchild, including a set of preliminary questions. It's a fun experience, but don't insist having an audience that will make anyone present self-conscious or uncomfortable.

When all concerned are ready (recorder checked and set up, the date, time, place, names, occasion, and whatever else considered prefatory has been recorded in advance) Grandchild opens with the first question. In this example, Grandpa is being interviewed.

In responding, Grandpa avoids the simple 'yes' or 'no' answer even when such might suffice. Sure, Grandpa could respond with 'Yes' or 'No' to 'Grandpa, is your first name 'Tom'.' But wouldn't it be more fun if Grandpa transformed his reply into family lore with 'Yes, it is, and let me tell you how I got that name. The Sunday after I was born, my Dad hooked ol' Dobbin to the sleigh to take us all to....' and he's away into another bit of Lore Americana.

Unless agreed to in advance, questions and answers are serious. Knowing what a young grandchild likes to talk about is important and can focus the interview.

Youngsters, though, have minds of their own and might well pop an unexpected question. Using 'we' or 'us' and encouraging inputs from Grandchild keeps the interview from becoming one-sided. Grandchildren pile up their experiences and feelings for an antic.i.p.ated interaction, and an interview will provide opportunities to talk about them and themselves.