We are quite used to the “People’s House” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being temporary home to not just Presidents and First Ladies, but also to their children. From the toddler-hood of John Kennedy Jr. to the late teens and young adulthood of the Nixon and G.W. Bush daughters, the house has served as a true family home for many of the First Families privileged to live there. With the election of Barack Obama, we the people get something extra to include in our thinking about what it means to be a First Family. We’re getting a “First Grandma”.

Her name is Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama and grandmother to First Daughters Sasha and Malia. The 71-year old family anchor will be moving into the White House to extend the role she’s been playing for the past two years in the Obama campaign – holding down the family fort as only a grandma can. As Obama said in an article during the late stages of his election campaign,

“One of the best decisions we made when I was elected to the Senate was that we wouldn’t move from Chicago. A big reason for that was that Marian lived 10 minutes away. She loved nothing more than to spend time with her grandkids.”

In an article on MSNBC, More grandmothers raising another generation, Robinson was featured as the prominent face of a growing trend – grandmothers putting aside their own careers (Robinson was a bank secretary who left her job in 2007 to help out) or juggling work with the task of raising their children’s children.

In a sign of the times, the Census Bureau started tracking the phenomenon in 2004, and it’s becoming more pervasive.  Today 1.5 million working grandparents are caring for grandkids, up from 1.4 million in 2004.

“These grandparent caregivers have the same issues working parents have — balancing working with caring for children,” says Jaia Peterson Lent, deputy executive director of intergenerational advocacy group Generations United. She noted that more than two-thirds of grandparent caregivers are under the age of 60, and 71 percent are still in the work force.

I am lucky enough to have helped raise our eldest grandchild. He and his mother have lived with us since he was born, and we just paid the first installment on his college tuition for his first semester. Like many other grandmothers helping on that level, there are indeed “special needs” involved. Those, however, belong to his mother, who has struggled with late development of epilepsy for some years, and would have been very hard-pressed to provide a secure home and family life for her son – something we were happy to provide to them both, for as long as necessary.

Our other grandchildren don’t live with us, but we do get to see them fairly regularly and their parents don’t mind at all that I’m always willing to keep them so they can have a nice night out (or make that business trip or… whatever). Though at this point, in hoping to get live-in grandson through college so he has a decent chance at life, we are definitely NOT looking to raise any great-grandchildren. While grandparents are really the only truly “professional parents” around, great-grandparents should be truly and respectably retired from the tasks.

Because Barack Obama is taking charge of this nation at a time of unprecedented economic insecurity and a future full of unknowns, perhaps Marian Robinson will herself provide a necessary role model for how modern Americans can learn again how important extended families can be to survival in tough times, as our grandparents did during the Great Depression of the 1930s. And perhaps some of my readers will appreciate a helpful resource guide in the form of a gook by Sylvie De Toledo and Debora Elder Brown:

Grandparents as Parents: A Survival Guide for Raising a Second Family.

If you’re like me and spend a good deal of time on the internet instead of in front of the television, you’re probably familiar with the many cool projects and activities available on line for you and the grandkids to do, or just things to print out by the ream to keep them busy when they’re visiting. At my house we’ve been doing Christmas Card projects, and that means that once again, my poor printer is officially out of the expensive color ink that costs more than $35 for a replacement cartridge. Paper for an ink jet printer is certainly cheap enough, but since the ink is not, some good tips on how to save on that will go far through the course of a year in saving money.

One of my favorite sites for cool projects and print-outs is Printables4Kids. It offers coloring pages, math worksheets, mazes, word puzzles and a long list of other fun things that will keep your printer plenty busy when the grandchildren are around. So it was with some appreciation that I found a recent post, 10 Ways to Save Money and Use Less Ink to be just what the money-doctor ordered.

Since I had to purchase a color cartridge just before Thanksgiving that is now telling me it’s empty again, I think I’ll go for the ink refill kit idea. Of course, I’ll probably make a total mess of it (and end up with some tie-dyes I hadn’t planned on), but this option does get Granny’s Seal of Approval for at least being a recycling project. Between that and figuring out where my printer is hiding it’s “draft” option, I should be able to print the amount of stuff I already do print every year, at about half the cost.

While you’re over at Printables4Kids, go ahead and look around at the list of great activities offered for things like birthdays, holidays, general craft projects, etc., and pay particular attention to the section entitled “Coupons and Deals.” Here there is the promise of saving even greater amounts of money on art and craft supplies, paper and ink, and other necessities that will help keep your younger generation brood safely occupied with fun projects as well as always excited to visit Grandma’s house (in addition to the usual cookies and stuff, of course).

In addition to the idea of giving of one’s self and time by volunteering through the coming year, and making use of the creative possibilities of do it yourself craft gifts and cards, and even enlisting the entire family in such projects, as the Big Day gets closer there always seem to be a few people on the list that just must have a gift you haven’t purchased yet. So I’ve been surfing around in search of good ideas and advice.

First, there are the young granddaughters. What’s a better gift than a doll? I found a blog called Doll Diaries with a list of the Best Dolls for Girls Ages 3-6. I especially like the fact that these recommendations don’t include Barbie or any of her oddly-shaped fashion-hound friends. It’s never seemed a good idea to me to push boobs, high heels and prostitute wardrobes on girls so young. The My Twinn and Bitty Baby dolls are quite adorable, I’ll be looking at those next Christmas for my little Miss Sunshine.

The Casual Keystrokes blog has a useful post, Clutter Free and Last Minute Gift Ideas that grannies will like a lot. Things like movie tickets for the underagers are easy, as are tickets to other activities and events kids love. Coupons for a nice meal out or night of bowling are good for grownups, especially the parents of your grandchildren who could always use some time off. How about including yourself as babysitter too?

Concert tickets, a spa gift certificate, there are a lot of good ideas here that work for any age group, can be obtained quickly and late in the Christmas shopping game. Check it out and see what you can come up with for those friends and relatives – and yes, grandchildren – that will be a welcome addition to the pile of gifts and won’t clutter up anybody’s living space.

Links:

A Holiday Gift of Self
A Fun Family Do-It-Yourself Christmas
Best Dolls for Girls Ages 3-6
Clutter Free and Last Minute Gift Ideas
CBS: Last-Minute Holiday Shopping Guide