My kids are nearly six years apart in age. My daughter is the oldest and is now a mom herself. She owns a home with her partner. She hasn’t lived at home with us since 2018. She’s all the way grown.
My son graduated college in 2024 and has been gainfully employed for ten months, but since his job is nearby, he’s been living at home to save money. Now that’s about to change—as it should. He and his buddies found an apartment in the city and he’s moving out Tuesday.
I will miss him, but at least he’s not moving to New York. I know I’ll get to see him. Heck, he could even come over for dinner after work (our house is that close to his job). Still, it is the end of an era. If all goes well, he won’t move back in with us, probably ever. No more seeing what he wears to work each morning. No more casual chats with my husband after work about the Patriots’ latest roster moves.
I didn’t intend to space out my kids by six years. It was more like I was very happy with one child, but then when the biological window started closing, I had second thoughts.
But maybe it worked out in my favor? By spacing my kids out so far, I became a grandma before my nest was truly, permanently empty. Having an adorable baby granddaughter in my life takes the sting out of my own little birdie flying the coop.
Before I became a grandmother, I asked a couple of people to describe how it felt to have a grandchild. I wanted to know exactly how it felt, as compared to becoming a parent. Do you love the grandchild just as much as your own children? Or is it a little bit less…like a “once removed” sort of feeling? How did you feel during labor & delivery? Do you worry about the baby’s health and safety constantly, like you did with your own children, or are you able to leave the worrying to the parents? Would you throw yourself in front of a moving train (or jump into the shark tank at the aquarium) to save a grandchild? Did you love the grandchild immediately (like a parent does) or do they need to grow on you over time?
Inquiring minds wanted to know!
To be honest, I never got a good, straightforward, detailed answer. Everyone just said things like “it’s amazing.” Some said, “it’s even better than being a parent.” My own mother said it was “exciting.” (Gee mom, that’s all you got? Not much of a description!) My sister-in-law said she “just wanted to cry.”
So, I’m going to go ahead and answer my own questions for other inquiring minds:
Do you love your grandchild just as much as your own children?
Yes. And I felt love the minute I saw the detailed ultrasound pics, with a clear little head and hands. It was primal. I wanted to cry. And the feeling of holding my child’s child for the first time was like…experiencing the greatest gift the universe has to offer. There’s no emoji for it!
Or is it a little bit less…like a “once removed” sort of feeling?
No, it’s not a once removed feeling. It’s actually doubled, because you love their parent so much too. It’s like you love each of them individually and you also love & celebrate the parent/child “couple.” I like happy pictures of my daughter and granddaughter together almost as much as cute pics of the baby alone.
How did you feel during labor & delivery?
Extremely anxious! Not going to lie—it was not fun! It may be worse when it’s your own daughter in labor.
Do you worry about the baby’s health and safety constantly, like you did with your own children, or are you able to leave the worrying to the parents?
Fortunately my granddaughter was born healthy to two responsible parents, so I do not worry about her healthy and safety constantly. But I do worry. I worry about infectious diseases and environmental toxins. I also worry about car accidents.
Would you throw yourself in front of a moving train to save a grandchild, if you had to?
Yes
Do you love the grandchild immediately (like a parent does) or do they need to grow on you over time?
For me, it was immediate.
My granddaughter is just under six months old, so that’s my report for now!
Here’s a throwback photo that my parents included in a slideshow they made me for my 50th birthday. I’m assuming my mother felt something like I do now.
Today my baby girl turns 30 and I am verklempt 🥺. When I turned thirty, I had the cutest little 4-month old baby girl. And now history is repeating itself and my daughter has the sweetest little 4-month old baby girl. It’s a joy and a blessing almost too poignant for words. It’s like once you have a child of your own, you finally understand how much your mother loves you.
Joni Mitchell’s song The Circle Game keeps playing in my head and bringing a tear.
Yesterday a child came out to wonder Caught a dragonfly inside a jar Fearful when the sky was full of thunder And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons Skated over ten clear frozen streams Words like when you’re older must appease him And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look Behind from where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town And they tell him take your time it won’t be long now Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look Behind from where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true There’ll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look Behind from where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game
I have a couple of updates for you on the college class of 1987 (high school class of 1983). Most of us were born in 1965, so we are turning 60 thisyear. One of my best friends from college turned 60 yesterday. She broke the ice. Now the rest of us will follow…if we’re lucky. Making it to 60 is not a given. We’ve lost people—mostly to cancer, but sudden massive heart attacks have taken down a few of the men.
I appear to be the only grandparent in my college class of about 500, which is wild. A few people still have kids in high school, so I guess we tended to have kids late, but still…it’s a vivid illustration that the birthrate actually has cratered in this country.
Another observation is that people truly do age differently. Some people look 40 at 60, and some look 80. Money seems to be a factor, but not the only one. Most people are still working, but they’re either talking about retirement or saying they will never be able to retire. “Work ‘til I die” is some people’s retirement plan.
There is both a lot of concern—and a fair bit of bragging—about adult children in their 20s. “You’re only as happy as your least happy child” seems to be true. (But if you’re posting an effusive happy birthday message, with multiple pictures, for a 27-year old who doesn’t even use Facebook, you may need to let go a bit.)
Our parents, if we still have them, are very old now. I know of only one other classmate with two living parents like me. More of our mothers are still alive than our fathers.
For the first and oldest official GenXers, the Eighties was our decade. Nobody has quite so many formative memories of those years as we do. Do not challenge us to an 80s trivia quiz, because we will win. And we will also look back on it all with slightly rose-colored glasses. We’ll forget the bad stuff and laugh about that time we ate pot brownies at school and Mr. Ullman’s physics class finally made sense.
I’ve been digitizing old photos over the past few weeks. I have a ton of them. There’s no way I could save all of them in the event of a fire. I wouldn’t even want to. There are too many.
Walt Whitman’s lines “I am large, I contain multitudes” keep popping into my head. I’ve gone through so many phases in my nearly 60 years. I contain multitudes. We all do.
One theme I’m finding is that we (like everyone) mostly took photos on vacations and holidays. And there’s one vacation destination in Massachusetts that everyone knows: Cape Cod. It’s known simply as “the Cape.” (There’s another popular cape in Massachusetts, but that one gets referred to by its full name: Cape Ann.)
Cape Cod is where the Kennedys summered and it’s just one of those places that everyone in Massachusetts has memories of. If you didn’t have a friend with a house “down the Cape,” then you probably rented one or stayed in a Cape hotel at least a few times in your life.
My earliest memories of the Cape include barfing after eating scallops at Thompson’s Clam Bar, having my grandmother tell me that they thought I’d drowned when I went missing at the beach one day, and waiting for the sun to come out.
I’ve been lucky to visits “The Islands” many times too. (If you’re from Massachusetts, you know that The Islands are Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.) But the Cape is where my earliest vacation memories happened.
I’m realizing that the places where our memories were made—where our lives have played out—are quite meaningful. They’re the settings for our stories.
The Cape, August 1970At the beach on Cape Cod, 1970, with my Italian grandmother in a bathing suit (a rare occurrence). I don’t remember how I hurt my knee, but I do remember wearing that huge bandage.
The Republican vice presidential candidate said that having a grandparent around the house made his son “a much better human being.” He continued, “And the evidence on this, by the way, is, like, super clear.“
“That’s the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female in theory,” Weinstein interjects, as Vance says, “Yes.”
As a post-menopausal female, I can tell you that seeing my granddaughter once a week (and providing my daughter a bit of support by way of groceries, baked goods, diaper changing, etc) IS the greatest joy in my life right now.
Have I told you how absolutely adorable my granddaughter is??? I miss her the minute I get home. She is just the cutest little snuggle bunny ever! And her mommy is doing such a great job taking care of her, that I can truly just do the fun stuff like look at board books with her, stage monthly thematic photo shoots, and dance with her in the kitchen.
I know that I have been given a great gift in that I had the financial ability to retire “early” at about the same time I became a grandma. And also, that my daughter and her family live nearby.
So back to JD. I don’t like him. He’s an arrogant little shit who reminds me of the worst millennial coworkers I ever had. (They think they know everything.) But, unlike some of my friends, I’m just gonna let that particular comment go. We have much bigger problems now.
Today’s realization from The Great Photo Digitization Project of 2025 (inspired by the tragic California wildfires) is that I was an extremely well-dressed child. (My own kids were nowhere near as well-dressed as my sister and I were.)
And this was before the era of “fast fashion,” so my mother made many of our dresses and outfits.
We always had matching accessories too. Note the headband in this shot:
With my baby cousin Steven and Aunt Betsy, 1971
In my old photo albums, one accessory is featured more than all the others and that is color-coordinated kneesocks. I remember having a drawer full of them. Thinking back, they were pretty cool because they came in so many different colors and were way more comfortable than tights.
Knee socks and a matching purse for the first day of first gradeNovember 1972Note the “milk box” near the front door (I am old)Heading off to Town Day 1973
Facilitated by my mother and a Marshall’s opening up in my town in the late 70s (“Brand Names for Less”), I ended up being a major clothes horse right through high school. I embraced the Reagan era “preppy look” and had dozens of sweaters in every color of the rainbow. My closet looked like a Benetton store.
My high school preppy look
It wasn’t until I tried to fit all my clothes into a tiny freshman dorm closet that I realized how ridiculously many I had.
I’m continuing to selectively digitize my old photos and I bring you a comparison of the two methods: iPhone photo vs PhotoScan by Google.
iPhone photo of an old print PhotoScan by Google of the same pictureiPhone photo PhotoScan by Google
Let me know if you have thoughts about which method is better quality, because it’s too much work to do both.
Because most of these photos are stuck in the old adhesive style photo albums, I’m having to pry them out if I want to see what (if anything) is written on the back. Then I’m stuck with a loose photo that I’ve been taping back into place with painter’s tape.
The photos above were taken on my “First Communion” day in April 1973. Despite my previously described love of veils, I remember I did not like that one. It was attached to a very uncomfortable headband that squeezed my head painfully. Perhaps this was a sign of the rocky road ahead for me and the Catholic Church.
Other than the painful headband, I remember getting some religious-themed presents (a Bible locket, an angel) and being made to feel quite special with a family party after the main event at the church.
I think we look like a real mid-century Italian-American family in these photos, but my dad is no Tony Soprano. He loved his mother (my long-widowed “Grammy”) dearly and she worshipped him. He was far and away her favorite child. As the only boy in an Italian family, he was extra special and he took great care of her until her death in 1992, just a month short of her 90th birthday.
Born in the summer of 1965, I am part of the oldest GenX cohort (1965-80) and I’m discovering through my photo digitizing project, that I’m quite well documented.
My parents took a lot of pictures. Many of them were bad (“delete” was not an option back then) but there’s at least a few photos from every single year of my life through college graduation. (Whereas, we probably have five pictures in all of my father as a kid.)
It looks like the summer of 1974 was the peak of my gymnastics prowess. I remember that I worked very hard and mastered a “front walkover” as a kid and here’s the proof:
This appears to be a class performance
I don’t think I ever progressed to handsprings (too hard). And I certainly never did a walkover on a balance beam (too scary).
Two years prior, in 1972, a tiny Soviet gymnast named Olga Korbut did a backflip off the uneven bars in the Munich Summer Olympics, won three gold medals, and inspired a lot of little American girls to try some new tricks. I was one of them.
And so, for my 60th birthday this summer, I pledge to work hard to reenact this photo and perform a front walkover in front of an audience.
KIDDING!! Can you even imagine? I’ll stick to Downward Dogs.
My 9th birthday party on my parents’ porch in the summer of ‘74. My sister and I and my neighborhood friends Candy, Kim, Carolyn and Bethanne had a good time.
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