A Good New Fangled Irish Wake

Well, we made it home in one piece from the funeral of our dear old friend Rick, but only because Grandma did the driving (everyone had been up all night at the wake, I was the only one in any shape to drive 8 hours home!). The funeral crowd overspilled the ample sanctuary of Rick’s Mom’s Catholic church, SRO inside (including the entire foyer) and others standing outside. The priest was a bit taken aback, and rightly suspected a lot of these people had probably never darkened a church door in their lives. But he did fine anyway, and all our hearts were broken - we were there for Mom, no one was going to cause any trouble.

In the immediate family circle are O’Sheas and Coins and O’Cains and O’Rourkes and other names so blatantly Irish nobody could confuse the issue by the number of Rastas and Buddhists and Presbyterians and atheists (and God-Knows-Whats) in the crowd. Even though we did outnumber them. After the mass there was a photo collage presented in the fellowship hall, probably 600 people stayed to see it.

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Filed under Family Gatherings, Musings, Dying, Customs, Relationships, Family Life, Feasts, Generational Learning | Comment (0)

15 Tips For New Grandmas - 2

Part 2: Tips 6 - 10

6. If You Live Close, Set Babysitting Rules

If your kids live in the same town or area, you may fall into the “convenient” babysitter role. I’ve known grandmothers to get hoodwinked into providing full-time day care for young grandchildren because their daughter decided she didn’t want to deal with real day care when she went back to work. There’s nothing that can sour a grandma-grandchild relationship faster than a grandma who feels abused by the presence of that grandchild.

If you don’t plan to be full time caregiver, don’t volunteer for the job and don’t accept it when offered. Remind the kids that you already paid your baby-raising dues, and don’t plan to start all over again. Also beware of being the “convenient” sitter on call for any time the kids want a night out. Sometimes this can translate to indulgence, while putting the kibosh on all your plans for what YOU want to do.

7. Avoid the Dueling Grandmas Game

Often a grandma can be snowed with tales about what the ‘other’ grandparents do. If you fall for it, you may find that you’ve been hoodwinked into donating way more time, money and/or “goodies” than is good for anybody!

Often these days there are 3 or 4 grannies per grandchild, what with the burgeoning divorce and remarriage rate. And that situation has often conspired to contribute serious spoilage to the new parents as well as the grandkids. Parents and grandparents who vie for affection with bribes and fancy gifts aren’t really buying love. If love is what you’ve got to offer, it will be valuable in its own right.

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Filed under Humor, Babysitting, Grandchild Visits, Relationships, Budgeting, Child-Parent Relationships, Family Life, Older Children, Generational Learning | Comment (1)

Looking at Life from the Long End

The Older Child Adoption and Permanency Movement logo - Adopt Older Kids and Youth: A-OKAY.

It’s really kind of strange. When our own children were babies - and at 14 months apart, they were babies at the same time - we were positively terrified by them. Or maybe by our own perceived responsibilities FOR them. We spent many a long night just watching them sleep, deciding what we would and wouldn’t do in relation to the way our parents raised us, sowing the seeds for all new mistakes we invented along the way.

We didn’t have much furniture, being in the Navy and having to move every few months. So when hubby was at nuke school (that came between A-school and sub-school) in Bainbridge and we were living in falling-down WW-II housing blocks in Aberdeen, we put a mattress in the middle of the living room floor, pillows against the walls against which we could sit.

Daughter, our eldest, was just new to walking and didn’t mind having to crawl on soft living room floor one bit. Son wasn’t yet a year old, crawling and rolling was his main means of locomotion. I recall days and weeks spent doing nothing (apart from the usual cooking, dishes and laundry) but rolling around on that mattress with them laughing as hard as they could. Or just watching them wrestle with each other. They were so beautiful! So new, so promising. So much our responsibility!

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Filed under Relationships, Adoption, Marriage, Older Children, Family Life, Child-Parent Relationships | Comment (0)

A Happy Family Holiday

…from the lake cabin!

One daughter, her annoying (and very loud) boyfriend, one niece and her not-annoying boyfriend, two semi-sons and their wives, one grandson and three old Navy buddies (plus 2 wives). It’s been a busy week here at the lake house for Mama and Papa Elf, who always stretch out Christmas over the entire length of the holidays. That’s a perk we give ourselves after a grueling season at the mall contributing to the Pagan trappings of the consumerist frenzy.

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Filed under Customs, Family Gatherings, Relationships, Division of Labor, Holidays, Feasts, Family Life | Comment (0)

The Strange History of Marriage

Taking a bit of a break from All Baby, All The Time, thought I’d do a little strolling through human history to see what there is to see about the institution of marriage. I’ve been wondering why some people want to cling to exclusive cultural frames at a time when about half of traditional marriages end in divorce and the benefits of marriage are being denied to whole segments of the population altogether. Maybe understanding something of the history and traditions associated with the institution could help our society to figure out what marriage is in the modern world and who may claim the right to *be* married.

I was inspired to go looking by an op-ed by Stephanie Coontz in the New York Times entitled Taking Marriage Private [Nov. 26]. She begins the article with a question, and a historical observation:

WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

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Filed under Customs, History, Relationships, Marriage, Family Life | Comments (2)