Bridging the Gap - Summer2010

grandparents_computer

BY NADYNE LEE
SUMMER 2010

Bridge the Gap

How to stay connected to your grandchildren from afar.

When you were kids, did you ever sing, “Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother’s House We Go”? We did.

Every Thanksgiving, when we drove the 10 minutes from our house through the park on our way to our grandmother’s home, we sang. Nowadays, grandparents are just as likely to live 500 miles away from their grandkids. Certainly the horse doesn’t know the way to carry the sleigh from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Louisville, Kentucky.

But, if you’re a long-distance grandparent, you can still be close to your grandchild.

What’s the secret? The secret, says Allan Zullo author of The Nanas and the Papas, is to promote yourself with Cassius Clay vigor! Long before he became Muhammad Ali, he made his impact on the world by brashly hyping himself. (Okay, so he had a wicked right upper cut too.) But the point is he wouldn’t let the world ignore him. Don’t let far away grandchildren ignore you either — and don’t ignore them! One of the best ways to stay close is through the miracle of technology.

Broaden your Liberal Education

With today’s technology, there’s absolutely no reason to be out of sight or out of mind. Not saying that it doesn’t take effort. It does. It takes time, effort, energy, imagination, and creativity.

If you’re not computer savvy, take a class. It’ll be good for your liberal education and great for your relationship with your grandkids. Dr. Arthur Kornhaber (the guru of grandparenting advice) said, “Your ability to be computer literate will exponentially augment your grandparent power.”

On the Internet you can:

• Send and receive email messages or letters

• Send electronic greeting cards

With a digital camera plus Internet you can:

• Forward pictures to your grandchild

• Use a fax and scanner to send pictures, riddles, stories, newspaper articles, comic strips, drawings (you can receive your grandchild’s drawings too)

For the electronically challenged:

• Use snail mail. For a mere 44 cents you can send a card, letter, or story. Keep a stock-pile and send one every week or two. Buy cards with a surprise inside. Some cards have a musical or three-dimensional component. Buy joke books and send jokes, riddles, or cartoons. Purchase books with short stories or interesting fast facts and send quotes to your grandkids.

• Phone calls. Telephone contact is second only to letters in popularity among children.

• Photos. When it comes to sending photos to your grandchildren: Be Shameless!

• Get your mug on mugs, mouse pads, and magnets.

• Put your picture in picture frames, on T-shirts, and buttons.

• Keep a steady stream of pictures coming…of anything you do: hiking Yosemite, bird watching at Cape May, or blowing out 63 candles on your birthday cake. (You might not want to include the picture of the time Grandpa won the hairy chest contest on your last Carnival cruise.)

Were you involved in any historical events?

Our generation changed the course of history. We waged war against AIDS, poverty, drunk driving, and drugs. We fought for equality among races, religions, and genders. We shattered glass ceilings. We even shattered stained glass windows. We went to outer space, created cyber space, and cured the human race of plagues like polio and small pox. We sent our kids into a better world, and we made a better place for future generations. We’re the baby boomers and we made history! And history has made us into elders — elders who have shaped the values, beliefs, and attitudes of our families and our world. Were you part of those changes?

Did you march with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Did you protest for equal rights? Or campaign for a presidential candidate? Were you the child of a Holocaust survivor? Did you fight in Vietnam? Rustle up some pictures from the past and mail them along with a story.

You are the guardian of family history

Do you have photos from the distant past? When did your family immigrate? How did they survive the journey? What motivated them to come to this country? Do you have any pictures of your ancestors? What did they do for a living? Can you tell a story to make them come to life? Sketch a family tree and add photos if you have them.

Take an interest in your granchild’s hobbies

If your grandchild loves to cook, send simple recipes — especially “secret” family favorites. Ask your grandchild to send drawings for your grandchild “Hall of Fame.” Add to baseball card or Pokemon card collections. Send Thomas the Train or Barbie accessories.

A spiritual legacy is a precious gift

Send baskets at Easter or hamentashen at Purim, gifts at Christmas or Hanukkah, invite the family to visit for Passover. Make audio recordings of your favorite Bible stories and nighttime prayers. Sing lullabies. A grandmother never knows when she may be an influence in the life of her grandchild.

My grandmother was raised by a freed slave named Aunt Pauline. She sang lullabies to my grandmother, who in turn sang them to me. Those songs became part of my heritage. Although I have blonde hair and blue eyes, I still remember the words to “Mammy, Are there Angels in Heaven Who Are Black Like Me?” My identification with these types of songs may have been the spark that led me to march with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Travel Together

While photos, phone calls, Internet connections, and gifts are great, there are no substitutions for face time. Visit the kids. Invite the children to come to visit you. Travel together. If you can afford it, splurge on a once-in-a-lifetime multi-generational family vacation.

Dr. Kornhaber started a grandparent-grandchild summer camp at the Sagamore Conference Center (the former Vanderbilt estate) near Raquette, New York in the Adirondack Mountains. It’s rustic — no TV’s, no telephones, but no parents either.

Grandparent Day

Time, energy, and the distractions of daily life interfere with our best intentions. We may want to record lullabies, create pictorial histories, and write down secret recipes. We may resolve to send funny stories, make digital movies, and get our photos on cocoa mugs, but life creeps in and steals our best intentions.

Soon, good intentions are just a memory. But if we dedicate one day a month as “Grandparent Day,” the effort becomes very manageable. If, let’s say, on the first of every month, we set aside a few hours to address and stamp cards, compose a story, record a song or prayer, arrange photos, make an iron-on T-shirt, research jokes, copy a cartoon, or write a snippet of family history, the “special deliveries” will be ready to send out every week for the rest of the month. The task will be doable.

Our grandparenting responsibilities will not be lost in the shuffle of our hectic active lives. Out of sight will not become out of mind — our mind, or worse yet, the minds of our grandchildren. We may reside “Over the River and Through the Woods,” but we can live in the hearts our beloved grandchildren — if we make the effort.