grandparenting
Then in 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock published Baby and Child Care , and the age of parenting as some- thing to learn and to practice started in earnest. Instead of something you did by instinct or by
to number one on the New York Times Bestseller list (the first parenting book since Dr. Spock to do so), this coun- try was hitting the heyday of popular parenting books,
GRAND magazine, as the only major national periodi- cal devoted totally to grandparenting, is on the cutting edge of this trend, and major conferences and courses like our Grandparenting101.com and Aaron Larsen’s GrandparentsAcademy.com and the Grandparents Week online seminars that it sponsored and we keynoted in September are starting to become more common. The interest in more deliberate, proactive, and differ- ence-making grandparenting has never been higher, and the perceived need to get better at it and work in effec- tive teamwork with parents in effective 3-generation fam- ilies is more evident every day. So may we say to you, as a reader of GRAND maga- zine, that you are on the crest of a very positive trend, and that the time you spend thinking about your grand- kids and about their needs, and about which of those needs you are uniquely positioned to help with, is time well spent. Hats off to Christine Crosby for being a catalyst of this with GRAND, to Aaron Larson and Grandparents Academy for pulling together the best experts in the field, and to all of you for being part of something that is becoming a movement —a move- ment toward better, stronger, grandparenting. Nothing could be more favorable for families, communities, and America.
magazines, and programs. Since then, the variety of sources for parenting wisdom has broadened out to social media, podcasts, and YouTube chan- nels. Every question yields plenty of alternative answers; if nothing else, parents don’t feel as alone or iso- lated as they once did. What fascinates us is that Grandparenting now seems to be on the cusp of a similar kind of evolution and development. Only a decade or so ago, “Grandparent” was just something you were when your child had a child, and most did it instinctively and often delightedly—exercising their “right” to spoil their grand- kids and thinking of it as their reward for getting through the challenges of parenting. But lately, with people living longer and being grandpar-
simply following the example of your own parent, it became a field of knowledge, or at least opinion, and it began to be defined as more than an academic discipline for people studying familial relationships and child development—it became a whole section in book- stores and libraries and something that most parents felt they needed to learn, and often felt guilty or inadequate if they didn’t. We were born about the time Spock’s book became a bestseller, so we have watched the develop- ment of parenting and the prolifera- tion of parenting approaches, opin- ions, methods, and plans for decades. Mostly, it has been a positive evolu- tion, with parents taking the job more seriously, thinking harder about how to
ents for decades, and in a time
Richard and Linda Eyre’s parenting and life-balance books have reached millions and been translated into a dozen languages. As fellow Baby Boomers, their passion and their writing focus has now shifted to the joy of Grandparenting. Linda’s latest book is Grandmothering , Richard’s is Being a Proactive grandfather , and their latest co- authored book is Life in Full.
when working parents and other demands on families suggest the absolute need for more proactive and supportive grand- parents, we are starting to use the word grandparent as an active verb, and grand- parenting as an essential skill that we need to learn.
do it best, and paying more attention to the growth and development of their children and the relation- ship dynamics within their families. In 1993, when our book Teaching Your Children Values was published, and with a bit of help from Oprah, it shot
14 GRANDP arenting
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