Your First Grandchild: Useful, touching and hilarious guide for first-time grandparents

Your First Grandchild

The survival guide for every

new grandparent

Claire Nielson,

Paul Greenwood

and Peggy Vance

I’ve made up a new name for you, Gran! I’m going to call you ‘Old Bones’.

Harry:

 When I grow up I’m going to marry Grandpa.

Mum:

 I’m afraid you can’t do that, Harry.

Harry:

 Why not?

Mum:

 Because he’s my father.

Harry:

 Well, you married my father! 

Joe:

 You’re never going to die, are you Grandma?

Gran:

 (

Gently breaking the bad news.

) Well, I might have to some day, you know, Joe.

Joe:

 Oh well, could you do it when I’m at school? 

Gran:

 (

Showing granddaughter photo of herself at twenty

)

Who do you think that is, Anna?

Anna:

 Don’t know.

Gran:

 (

Disappointed

) It’s me when I was young.

Anna:

 You’re still young, Gran. 

I love my Gran and Grandpa because they are nice and soft to cuddle, and Gran has holes in her ears, and Grandpa has hairs in his nose and they sleep a lot.

My bed is beside my Grandad’s and he holds my hand while I go to sleep.

When we arrive at my Nan’s house, she always says, ‘Mercy, it’s the invasion!’

Park there, Grandpa. Look, no bloody yellow lines.

Nan, I dreamt that you were flying about in the air, holding a cup of tea.

Grandpa:

 Why are you crying, Tom?

Tom:

 I’m sad for my baby sister.

Grandpa:

 Why?

Tom:

 ‘Cos she’s bald like you, Grandpa, and she’s a girl!

It was said of the novelist, Sir Hugh Walpole, that he did not speak at all until he was three and a half years old, by which time his family had almost given up hope and feared for his mental capabilities. One day, his grandmother accidentally scalded him on the hand whilst pouring tea. The boy was brave about it but was obviously in some pain. After a time his grandmother asked him if he was feeling any better. Out came little Hugh’s first words ever … ‘Thank you, Grandmama, the agony has somewhat abated.’

Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Excerpt

Introduction

1 I Can’t Be a Grandparent: The Announcement

2 Only 230 Knitting Days: The Pregnancy and Birth

3 Rather You Than Me: The Immediate Postnatal Period

4 Here We Go Again: Baby Takes Over

5 The Techno Babe: Gizmos, Gadgets and What Not To Do with Them

6 They’re Wonderful Parents, But … What Grandparents Really Think

7 They’re Wonderful Grandparents, But … What Parents Really Think

8 Discipline: Showing Who’s Boss

9 Eating: Crisps, Chips and Chocolate!

10 The Night Shift: But I’m Not Tired …

11 I’ve Never Seen Her in It: Children’s Clothes

12 Bottom Bits: ‘Darling, She’s Done a Poo …’

13 Developing Potential: Bringing Out the Best

Practical Matters: Safety in the Home

Index

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

How did this book come to be written? I suppose it was the result of a rare lunch I enjoyed with my daughter about a year ago. I say rare because, since she became a mother, the number of times we have been able to lunch alone together can be counted on one finger. Anyway, during our meal we were discussing (and laughing about) our unusual family, when it dawned on us that it might not be all that unusual – that, in fact, it is fairly representative of late 20th-century trends.

We seem to cover all possible modern scenarios. I am a grandmother, divorced from my first husband (now deceased) and remarried to a second husband, Paul, who is therefore a stepgrandfather. Paul is also divorced, with one daughter from an early relationship, one adopted daughter from his first marriage, and one stepdaughter, Peggy, from his second marriage to me. Complicated, isn’t it?

I shall never forget the devastating moment when I told Peggy that I had fallen in love with Paul and that he was coming to live with us. She looked at me with all the world-weariness of 12 years spent with a mad actress mother and said, ‘You know, Mum, sometimes I wonder if I can take much more of you.’ Luckily for me and for Paul, she could and did!

Peggy is married to a British-born Sikh, Dharminder, so we have mixed-race grandchildren. Our grandson, Sky, is four years old, and our granddaughter, Biba, is two. Peggy and Dharminder both work, so although Peggy is based at home, she has help with the children. Paul and I are actors – writing, directing and teaching as well – so we also work full-time and, typically for modern grandparents, don’t live around the corner from our grandchildren, but a two-hour drive away: Peggy and Dharminder are in London while we are near Stratford-on-Avon. The children’s paternal grandmother, a widow, also lives two hours away from them, in Leicester.

So there you have it. As people who might be described as ‘modern’ grandparents, we decided to try to write an up-to-the-minute account of how our new role has changed and enriched our lives and, indeed, how we manage to juggle our various commitments.

That was how the idea began. After that, as word spread about the book, so many people made contact and expressed an interest that we realized that the book might become more than just a personal account. Potentially, it could also reflect the views and experiences of many other families – both nuclear and fragmented as our own. When my husband and I travelled to the United States on tour with

Henry VIII

 (now there’s a complicated family man for you!) all kinds of American family experiences were recounted to us too. 

I have been constantly delighted by people’s enthusiastic reaction to our subject. Far from having to coax information and opinions out of them, grandparents, parents and grandchildren alike have been delighted to share experiences and pour out confidences. So much so that, in the end, I found I had amassed enough material for several novels!

There seems to be a widespread resurgence of interest in the whole question of grandparenting. After a partial eclipse, the importance of the relationship is assuming its rightful place in the general consciousness. Recently, the novelist and grandparent Alice Thomas Ellis wrote (in The

Times

, 26th September 1998):

Social engineering has interfered with natural processes and often grandma lives far from the family and cannot assist on a daily basis. A surprising number of young women seem to regret this. Having grown out of the rebellious teenage stage they find they want their mothers … New man has not quite lived up to expectations …

This article was written in response to a new theory of evolution, hot from Dr Kristen Hawks of the University of Utah, which asserts that man’s biological success in becoming a larger-brained species was entirely thanks to grandparents:

Grannies were able to forage for roots and vegetables which they could give to their daughters when they were having babies, creating a well-nourished, thriving third generation … Grannies became so important that the menopause evolved to stop them having children of their own late in life.

Apparently, we are the only species in which the female has a menopause, which allows her to become a good, foraging granny! Well, we may no longer be in charge of grubbing for roots and vegetables, but there are still many other ways in which grannies, and grandfathers too, can help – as we have tried to suggest in this book – to create a thriving third generation.

We hope you get as much fun and pleasure from being grandparents as we do.

Chapter 1

I Can’t Be a Grandparent

The Announcement

‘Mum? Listen! I’m pregnant. You’re going to be grandparents!’

No matter how often you may have anticipated this news and even longed for it to come, no one can be prepared for the wave of emotion that hits you upon actually hearing it. I remember clearly the moment of my daughter’s phone call – the joy, excitement, relief and slight apprehension; the feeling of being about to step into a new role, and the awareness that my genes were being carried on into the future. I remember shouting to my husband, ‘You’re going to be a Grandpa,’ and his rather startled expression.

Dozens of thoughts raced around my mind at once, because nothing can prepare you for the peculiar mixture of emotions you feel when you hear the big news. Of course, some of you will already know what I’m talking about. Questions come tumbling out: ‘When is it due? How do you feel? When did you find out? How does X feel about it? (The partner, if involved.) Have you got morning sickness? Have you told anyone else yet?’

And the unspoken questions: ‘Have you any idea of just how much your lives are about to change? How on earth are you going to manage in that little flat? What’ll happen when you’ve only got one lot of money coming in?’ There is sometimes even a little selfish demon muttering things like, ‘But I’m too young!’ ‘I’m not ready to be a grandparent yet!’ ‘What about my busy schedule?’

Peggy Writes

Telling Mum and Paul was probably the most exciting moment of the pregnancy. After my husband, they were the first to know. It was only in telling them that I really believed it myself. Before that, it was as if I had made it up – it just

didn’t seem possible. I had done four tests, as the first was very faint, and although they were all positive I wondered whether they were wrong. When I told them this, they laughed and reassured me – which, in a way, has been their role ever since.

Reactions

Reactions to the big news vary in the extreme. Rather like the parents themselves, the grandparents-to-be may shuttle backwards and forwards between excitement and apprehension. One young woman’s mother and father arrived on her doorstep the day after they’d heard, bearing armfuls of flowers and champagne: ‘I couldn’t drink the champagne, of course, but I needn’t have worried, they had the lot! But I just couldn’t believe how thrilled they were. They’d taken a plane from Scotland especially. Their happiness took away any slight misgivings we may have had and convinced us we’d done the right thing.’

Another was not so lucky: ‘The first thing my mother said to me on hearing the news was, “Well, I hope you don’t expect me to look after it for you.” I was shattered. I had phoned her full of excitement and so happy and she burst my balloon. I felt as if she had slapped me over the face. I cried my eyes out when I got off the phone.’

One grandmother (in the book

Grandmothers Talking to Nell Dunn

) said, ’I think the real function of grandparents is to support the parents – above all.’ A wise remark – and this support cannot start too soon, right from the moment you hear the news. If, by any chance, you have any misgivings, now is not the time to express them. Just keep right in there behind the parent, or parents as the case may be. After all, they’ve usually got enough anxieties without our adding to them.

‘My first reaction was very mixed because my son wasn’t married to his girlfriend at the time. I told him they should tie the knot right away, but he said he didn’t want anyone to think it was a shotgun wedding. Also, I suppose, because they weren’t married, I had never thought of myself as a grandmother before. It was a bit of a shock.’

It’s a good idea to vocalize your support, be it practical or financial, or both. There’s nothing more reassuring to a young couple starting out on that biggest rite of passage than to know that they have some help to fall back on. And, of course, this is all the more so in the case of a single mother. No pregnant woman bravely facing bringing up a child alone needs to hear anything negative.

‘For 11 years my daughter had told me that I would never be a grandmother because the doctors had pronounced her infertile. So of course I was utterly delighted, really over the moon, be