By Wendy Reid Crisp, NABBW member, Editor-in-Chief of GRAND magazine, and author of “When I Grow Up I Want To Be 60” Our dog has died. Returning from a short trip, we drove up to the house, to be greeted only by our border collie, Frank. “Where\’s Viola?” I asked, and my husband said she\’d been around when he left for the airport. We searched the yard and found her quivering under a rhododendron on the berm by the creek. We helped her into the house and made her comfortable. During the night, I got up to give her more water. I talked to her, and she looked at me with eyes... Read More

By Wendy Reid Crisp Editor in chief, GRAND magazine Frank is the only member of our family with health insurance. A two-year-old McNab mix we acquired at the Humane Society, Frank is entering his second month of free medical insurance, part of the adoption package. After this month, we will pay $9 a month to, as the literature says, “protect Frank.” Free or not, Frank had to first be registered. Following instructions from the Humane Society, I called ShelterCare, the insurance company, and gave the young-voiced customer service representative Frank\’s adoption information. The rep... Read More

By Wendy Reid Crisp Editor in chief, GRAND magazine A remote branch of the maternal side of my family recently compiled a genealogy and forwarded the report to my mother and me. The first thing I noticed were the errors: sons with names similar to fathers\’ and grandfathers\’ were confused; multiple marriages were tossed into bizarre salads of names and lineages. The second thing I noticed was that my grandmother was born in 1872. Two of her children, one of whom is my 94-year-old mother, are still living, as are my sisters and I, my sons and my grandsons. The math on this is what drew... Read More

By Patty Friedmann, www.pattyfriedmann.com, for GRAND Magazine I was terrified of giving that speech for a full five months. I\’d have thought that, having spent four years at Smith College, I wouldn\’t have found the place intimidating anymore. But decades of reading alumnae news, full of Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and far too many wives and daughters of Republican presidents, gave the school a scary cachet. I was going to be the keynote speaker at the summer symposium, and I wanted to be worthy of my diploma. I wrote that speech in my head every morning for five months. ... Read More

By Susie Vanderlip for GRAND Magazine I remember when I was in eighth grade, spin the bottle was about as racy as life got. Most of my friends were having harmless flirtations and first boy­friends. No one I knew drank regularly on the weekend; no girls were providing gratuitous oral sex to the boys; no one was cutting on their arms with razorblades or smoking pot. Today, adolescence is very, very different, and far more difficult than in our day. Our grandchildren face significantly more dangerous options, and they have peers modeling such choices in their faces every day. Of all the options... Read More

by Mary Ann Cooper for GRAND Magazine You might feel as if you don\’t know where to start looking-if you\’re a single grand-to find someone to share all that life has to offer you in these wonderful years of exploration and new adventures. You\’ve done the bar scene and been “hooked up” by friends, but isn\’t there a better way? Yes, in fact, there are 10 different ways to meet the new special person in your life. 1. Bury your nose in a book. Your friends probably told you that you\’d never meet anyone by being a bookworm. “Put down those books... Read More

Acting and film-making schools can give your grandchild poise and confidencey By Mary Ann Cooper for GRAND Magazine You may be a proud grand who thinks your grandchild “oughta be in pictures,” because you see that same teen or preteen flourishing in the spotlight. If so, you might think about enrolling your grandchild in acting or film school. It would give the child real-world, hands-on experience as well as give both of you a souvenir DVD or just good old-fashioned memories to last a lifetime. Lots of grandparents enroll their grandkids and pay for the tuition. This has less to... Read More

Written by  Barbara Ifshin for GRAND Magazine Like most early Boomers, I have spent my entire life not wanting to be my mother.  It\’s not that my mother wasn\’t a nice person, she was. It\’s just that her life represented a dead end to me. It was everything I didn\’t want. So I ran as fast as I could out of a suburban wasteland of unhappy housewives and into the world of accomplished women who could take care of themselves. I am a child of the Fifties who came of age in the Sixties. It was so confusing. I grew up on Doris Day movies and Disney dreams. I honestly... Read More

Written by Roberta Sandler for GRAND Magazine Grandparents have unique opportunities to help kids develop lifelong learning skills. Reading well is at the heart of all learning, and according to the U.S. Department of Education, children who can\’t read well, can\’t learn. As a grandparent, you may think of yourself as a role model, mentor, nurturer, babysitter, and provider of love, hugs and kisses. But did you ever think of yourself as someone who can boost your grandchild\’s reading power? You can! You can encourage your grandchild\’s enjoyment of reading and help... Read More

The house is quiet now. All the children have left, and I am starting the therapeutic work of picking up from the chaos. I move slowly, bone-tired yet unable to relax. I\’m putting down on the coffee table the breakable items that were moved to higher, safer ground. I\’m fluffing the sofa pillows that were stacked to form a fort. I\’m straightening the throw rug that was skewed from sliding feet. I\’m wiping off sticky piano keys and putting the top down. Now I go to the bedroom where the grandchildren slept. I\’m changing the sheets that were pulled up in a wrinkly... Read More