Grandfamilies: Let’s Lose the Trophies

Cadence “Graduates” From Preschool. June 2011. If you have a child or grandchild who plays baseball, dances, or draws interesting shapes in Pre-Preschool, you may have noticed that every child receives a trophy at the season-end banquet/playdate/ice cream party. And isn’t it sweet that every single child is called forward to receive a special award at  year-end […]


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Grandfamilies: Handling the Contested Crisis

Ayden, Doubtful. September 2009. A few years ago, one of our grandlittles was expelled from school. The transgression occurred just before his birthday; his parents advised that he was not to receive birthday gifts that year. Canceling a birthday seemed oh, so harsh to my tender Lala’s heart. But his parents had dictated their disciplinary choices from […]


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Grandfamilies: For When You’re In a Worst Moment

Ayden Wearing His Daddy’s Helmet. January 2011. “My daddy’s coming back ALIVE!” Five-year-old grandlittle Ayden announced, determination glinting in his eyes. I panicked. Twenty-two people gathered in this house, I thought, and nobody else is in the living room when the child says this? “He is coming back!” Ayden repeated. I couldn’t ignore the boy–I had to engage with […]


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Grandfamilies: Seven Tips for Sharing Your Stories

Me. Notebook. Keds. Grandma and ‘Pa’s Patio. San Clemente, CA. Circa 1971. I never tired of hearing my grandmother’s story of her courtship and marriage to my grandfather. He really put the rush on me, she’d say. The clerk spelled a name wrong on our marriage license and we had to go back and get it fixed. I […]


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Grandfamilies: Sideways–Six Things You Can Do When Trouble Comes

Cadence and Lala. February 2014. If you know someone whom trouble has never visited, well, you don’t know that person as well as you think you do. Rotten stuff happens. It rolls right in along an astounding array of avenues, squats down in the middle of our routines, cracks itself open like an old egg, and raises […]


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