When Chelsea Clinton announced she was pregnant, the news media went right to whether Hillary Clinton could be president and a grandma too. Now the news media is concentrating on her health and mental ability. Does becoming a grandma make us lose brain cells?
Even the parents of our grandchildren seem to think we have forgotten how to care for a baby. I love the lists of instructions that come to us with the newborn we are caring for.
Chelsea Clinton is not being asked if she is going to give up her role running her families’ foundation or whether she is going to give up being a special correspondent for NBC News. Even our contemporaries ask if we are giving up our professional careers when we become a grandma. I read in the New York Times, April 18, 2014, in an article by Amy Chozick, “Chelsea Clinton Announces She is Expecting her First Baby,” that “[i]n September, CBS News asked Mr. Clinton whether his wife would rather be president or grandmother. ‘If you asked her, I think she’d say grandmother,’ he replied.”
Okay, yes, we mothers want the reward of grandchildren for the years we sacrificed and worked at mothering and careers. But, that does not mean our lives are now only allowed to be about grandmothering. After all, there is no working mother that I know who is not capable of multitasking and doing many things at the same time – and all mostly well. It seems that when we become grandmothers, we are thought to lose all of our senses, our brains, our abilities, and ourselves.
This Grandma remembers the pictures of the huge Romney clan. There were more grandchildren than one could count, it seemed. Yet, I do not remember any media hype about the responsibilities of grandfatherhood being a detriment to his run for presidency.
I just finished watching Masterpiece Theatre’s PBS production of “Mr Selfridge,” where young women were required to give up their careers when they married. It does not seem that we have come very far in a century in our collective thinking of women’s capabilities!
All Boomers are working longer and maintaining careers for longer periods in their lives. We Boomers are not our parents’ generation. Maybe if we Boomers speak loud enough and often enough, people will begin to believe us. But, as it always has been for women, we Boomer grandmas have to work harder to prove ourselves.
Any woman who becomes president is going to have many burdens and criticisms that similarly situated men would not have. We grandmas are strong. We can take the heat. As a matter of fact, in this decade of the rise of women, pundits watch out!
Women do not lose brain cells when we become grandmothers. We grandmas become more interested in the future of our country and what it means for our grandchildren, not less. We grandmas have more to say and the power of years and wealth and position we have gained and are gaining.
We grandmas just have to remember this and smile. We do not have to say anything to defend ourselves. We grandmas DO. We are successful multitasking grandmas with
Joy,
Mema
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