That’s literally what a new group in Hungary is doing – running a program called “Adopt a Countryside Granny” to link older women in the country who love kids with city families who would love another generation around to help guide their kids.

According to a report on Reuters, families barter help around the elderly women’s houses or money in exchange for childcare, and everyone comes out the better, especially the kids.

It’s a Hungarian project, but there’s no reason it can’t work here. With families increasingly more spread out, there are more kids living without that inter-generational presence, and more elderly folks stuck without help from the younger generations in their own families.

Connecting kids with older folks in your community is a lesson in community itself, presenting them with a more global worldview (it takes a village to raise a child but also a village to care for its elderly).

Want in? Check with your local senior centre to find out if there are any kid-loving seniors who would love to play granny.

Image: papertygre, flickr

Granny and Grampa might just be making your kids fat.

Published in the International Journal of Obesity, the study examined the weights of thousands of three-year-olds and looked at who was caring for them. They found “informal” daycare arrangements – typically with a grandparent – put kids at a higher risk for childhood obesity than a formal daycare setting or staying home with a parent.

The risk was heightened if the granny daycare arrangement was full-time.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this won’t surprise many parents. Because what is a grandparent’s prerogative? You got it – spoil the bejesus out of that baby.

I would estimate ninety seven percent of all junk food that enters my home came from my parents’ house. Just a few weeks ago, my father picked up my daughter for an overnight at their house and made a stop off at the grocery store – ostensibly to pick up more milk. One box of Barbie fruit snacks, one bag of sugar cookies, one Pez dispenser and that litre of milk later, they exited the store. Now imagine that on a full-time level.

Most parents I know with nearby grandparents say their kids eat the sort of thing at Grandma’s house that they weren’t allowed as kids. There’s that spoiling thing, but it also can’t be ignored that grandparents are traditionally better of financially now that their kids are out of the house. They feel like they have expendable income and who better to spend it on? Besides, when mum and Dad aren’t buying Barbie fruit snacks, there’s nothing like that illicit treat to guarantee a smile.

Also a likely factor? The older you get, the less active you typically can be – throwing much of the activity level out the window. Even a hands-on grandparent who engages kids in crafts and worksheets all day to stimulate their mind needs to be aware that they need to get them moving as well.

The researchers suggest laying down ground rules for Gran. But how many of you feel comfortable telling your parents how to parent?

Image: kai hendry, flickr

Her 10-year-old granddaughter recently tired of her “annoying” grandma’s moaning and requests to “make her a drink” and thought of a clever way to hand off the responsibility to someone else:  She put Grandma up for sale on eBay.

This could be one of those sad stories that make you wonder what’s wrong with people today, but it’s not.  The prank was all in good fun.

“I could hear Zoe asking mum lots of questions about her favourite drinks, food and height but I had no idea what she was doing,” Zoe’s dad Thomas Pemberton told the Daily Mail. ”She called me over, pressed the confirm button, and said, ‘I’ve put Nan on eBay’. I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea she knew how to do it. She had even got a picture of my mum….it certainly brought a smile to my mum’s face.”

In the ad—which was later taken down because it violates an eBay policy that doesn’t allow the sale of sweet and loving grandmothers—Zoe described her grandma as “annoying and moaning a lot”, but also that she’s “very cuddly and loves word searches”.

Bids went as high as $US3276, though Goodall joked she was “worth millions”.

A recent survey by AOL’s Parentdish celebrated Grandparents’ Day (if you don’t know when that is, you missed it) by voting for Hollywood’s Hottest Grandparents.

Who won?

Harrison Ford and Goldie Hawn are at the top of the list. Ford was followed by Tony Danza, Paul McCartney and Steven Tyler, while Hawn was ahead of Sarah Palin, Sally Field, Tina Turner and Jane Fonda, respectively.

What do you think? Would you suggest anyone else?

Photo | Photo | Photo | Photo

“I very much wanted to come but I have to go to a conference in Heidelberg,” she said in her accented English. “I won’t have any money afterwards so I’ll plan to come in a few months instead. And how is your baby?”

You mean your grandson, I think. “He’s doing great. He’s crawling everywhere now and yesterday he pulled a cookbook off the bookshelf. He… ”

“Oh, that reminds me of something that Tsetse did,” she breaks in excitedly. And she’s off on a story about one of her cats.

At this point she hasn’t met her grandson yet and he’s nine months old. Rafael’s got two tiny front teeth, which gleam when he grins. Before bed he crawls over to the desk chair in his footie pajamas and laughs with delight as he grips the rungs and stands. He tracks our cat Lola through the house, cackling as he follows her determined retreat only to be distracted by, oh… a New Yorker. Perfect for chewing and tearing.

What’s not for a grandparent to love?

Yet my mother is not interested. She wasn’t interested during the early days of the pregnancy, when I curled up in bed, elated by the precious life I was carrying and also awash in worry; longing for a mother of my own to reassure me. She wasn’t interested in the first ultrasound, the first kick, or the induction that led to thirty hours of labor and a C-section. After my husband and I called from the hospital, she did send flowers, which was very sweet. Then I didn’t hear from her again until I called her a few weeks later.

I thought I’d made some peace with my mother, by which I mean that I’ve learned to temper my expectations.Yet my mother is not interested. She wasn’t interested during the early days of the pregnancy, when I curled up in bed, elated by the precious life I was carrying and also awash in worry; longing for a mother of my own to reassure me. She wasn’t interested in the first ultrasound, the first kick, or the induction that led to thirty hours of labour and a C-section. After my husband and I called from the hospital, she did send flowers, which was very sweet. Then I didn’t hear from her again until I called her a few weeks later.

I thought I’d made some peace with my mother, by which I mean that I’ve learned to temper my expectations. But becoming a parent myself means having to ask for something: for her to be a grandparent. So far, she’s made it clear that she’s unable to do this. And I evidently have not reached the zen state that I hope to someday achieve. The truth is, I want more for my son.

My husband and I cope with the disappointment by laughing at the can-you-believe-it stories. Like the Christmas gift she sent her grandson — the only gift she’s ever given him — which was built up with major anticipation. “I’m waiting until Christmas to give Rafael something really special,” she stated on more than one occasion. When the gift turned out to be a cloth book about a cartoon tiger, she emphasized that she chose it for zoological accuracy. “The orange means that it’s a Bengali tiger, not a Siberian tiger.”

At first my father seemed like he would be the same as my mother. I didn’t hear much from him during the pregnancy, and he also was not interested in all the major milestones as the baby developed. In the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy, though, he began calling constantly to find out if I’d given birth. Each time I would patiently explain that I would call him and let him know. He visited us in the hospital, and although I could barely get out of bed, and looked like the Michelin Man after the prolonged labour and drugs, he didn’t ask how I was doing — instead saying, “I thought about getting you flowers, but you know, maybe next time.”

My father is a painfully awkward man who often dwells on the family he cut off in India and is no longer in contact with, and his own failed marriage. After Rafael’s birth, he became intensely interested in his grandson — perhaps seeing him as a new start. And yet, being my father, he was unable to relate to the baby as a brand-new life with his own needs.

My dad came to our place to visit a couple of days after we brought Rafael home. I was trying to breastfeed when he arrived a half-hour early. He rang the doorbell over and over for about five minutes straight until my husband had changed out of his pajamas and gone downstairs. When my father came upstairs, he wanted to hold his grandson, and then was disappointed that the little guy fell asleep. “He won’t play?” he asked.

“No, he’s just a week old,” I explained, thinking, Is this for real? I mean, he’s had children of his own!

My father then settled onto the sofa like a bronze statue and waited. And waited. And waited. Around him, my husband and I did dishes, cleaned up, tried to make chit-chat. My father? Not a chit-chatter. It was a beautiful summer’s day. Birds trilled by the windows, the sun slipped in through the skylights, outside we could hear the leaves rustle and then…

“Wahhhhhhaaaaahhhh” came the littlest, newest voice in the house. Before he left, my dad wanted to hold Rafael one more time.

“Why is he still crying?” my father asked.

“That’s how he communicates,” we explained.

“Don’t be a crybaby,” my father said to him.

“He’s not a crybaby!” I said fiercely. “He’s a baby who is crying.”

A short while later my father was gone and two weeks later we were gone too, moving 5,000 miles across the country. The sun: one hundred times hotter, the weather: infinitely warmer, the city: refreshingly grandparent-free.

I have to admit that I have considered cutting my parents off completely, which is perhaps a cowardly way out of dealing with their difficulties. But I could never do that to my son. I’ve never met any of my father’s large family — aunts, uncles, and cousins are unknown and his parents are now gone. I don’t want my son to think that it’s possible to walk away from family. What I’ve realised since assuming the amazing responsibility of being a parent is that Rafael should have the freedom to define his relationships with his grandparents, and not have me define them for him.

My husband and I know that we’ll provide a loving, nurturing family for our son to grow and thrive in. We know that we won’t criticise my parents in front of him — instead, we’ll try to focus on their strengths. Grandpa knows a lot about current events; Grandma is a talented artist. My son could have a very different relationship with them as a child, a teenager, and a young man than he does now. My responsibility in this case is not to limit him in an effort to protect him from being disappointed, but to give him the opportunity to experience what good they have to offer and to understand the many complex ways that people choose to live and love.

What about letting a perfect stranger stand in, just so your kids can have a grandparent?

A growing number of parents are doing just that. They’re setting up personal ads; only instead of “SBF seeks SM for long walks on the beach, non-smoking, non-freaks” they’re advertising for older folks who have been aching for a youngster to play with.

Matthew Gray, deputy director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, says it’s largely distance and family breakdowns are keeping kids and grandparents apart, but also playing a major role are the parents who have put off babymaking. The older first-time parents are, the older their own parents are – leaving grandchild-hungry parents waiting, and sometimes leaving first-time parents without their own Mum and Dad when they’re finally ready to start having children.

But parents are no less interested in exposing their kids to another generation, and those who live far away from their own parents still need the extra hand that a grandparent who is nearby is often willing to offer. Hence the advertising.

“I’ve got two small children now and my father lives away from us and
my partner’s mother is not very involved,” Debbie Fitzsimmons told Australia’s Daily Telegraph. “I grew up with two sets of grandparents which I benefited from big time.”

Other parents say the process is equally beneficial to the surrogate grandparents; after all, being with the young is said to keep you young. For older folks who don’t have family nearby, simply having a young family around to check up on them can go far in helping them maintain mental acuity and a connection with the outside world. In turn, the kids learn the importance of community and caring for our geriatric population – besides the stories of days gone by and the candies palmed when Mom isn’t looking.

Would you consider adopting a grandparent or letting one adopt you so your kids can have that experience?

Image: AwardPHP

David Ward of Pacific, Missouri, has been accused of hiring a hitman to beat up his daughter, providing him with the woman’s address and pictures so he could identify her in a crowd.

Ward told police he didn’t want his daughter dead. He just wanted to see his granddaughter. Police say Ward was charged four years ago for assaulting the daughter – likely the reason she severed ties between child and Grandpa.

The details out on this story make it pretty clear Ward’s daughter made the right move in cutting Dad out of the picture. But most of us have parents who drive us up the wall (and don’t hire hitmen) – have you ever considered cutting them out of your child’s life?

They’re flesh and blood, but they’re also not parents, so they don’t have the rights that we do. Still, I watch my daughter running around with her grandparents, and she is absolutely idolized. Grandparents usually offer a different kind of love – because they don’t have to do the discipline and clean-up later. Grandparents often do a better job with their grandkids than they did with their own kids too, either because they’re older and more experienced or simply have the luxury of not worrying about the parenting aspect of it all.

Then again, grandparents spoil kids and send them home. They let them eat lollipops at nine p.m., and three nights later, our kids are throwing a tantrum because we say “no lollipops.” They let our kids jump on the bed even though they would have tanned our (metaphorical) hides if we’d even glanced at the bed. They tell us how to parent, and they “tut, tut” when we don’t follow up.

Sometimes, our parents aren’t the best people for us to have around. Sometimes we just suck it up for our kids (so they can grow up, have kids, and we can be the pains in the ass later).

Image: DailyMail

Dear Crymommy,

It was a big thing in previous generations to talk about how normal crying is. It exercises the lungs! Strengthens the constitution! The whole idea of crying itself as beneficial to the baby is bogus. But though crying is not necessarily good for babies, it’s not really clear if it’s bad for them either. There have been some studies showing that crying releases stress hormones. The babies in those studies, however, were in very specific and unusual situations — i.e., being completely ignored in an unfamiliar place. So it’s hard to know what caused the stress, and we don’t know whether there is any real negative effect of cortisol, or crying. From the number of babies who seem to be doing relatively okay after innumerable crying jags, we’ll say it looks like the effect is minimal.

Fact is, there are situations where the downside of crying is trumped by the upside of whatever’s happening to cause the crying. An easy example is a baby crying in a car while strapped into a car seat. Your situation’s a little less simple, but the equation is essentially the same. There are those who disagree, but we are of the opinion that a night out with the partner is a valuable thing, and that crying is not a reason to forgo it.

Let’s be optimistic: Maybe once you’re out, your in-laws will feel more relaxed and actually bust out some creative moves to help soothe the little guy. Sometimes people feel self-conscious around the mother, and have a hard time dealing with a baby under her watchful eyes. By saying “Babies cry,” they may be trying to make you feel more relaxed, or help themselves calm down in the face of the tears. Maybe they’re no Baby Whisperers, but they did raise your husband to be a functional member of society. It’s likely they’ll be able to handle your child for an evening. They may sing to him when he’s hungry and try to feed him when he’s got a full nappy. But they’ll probably make some kind of effort, and maybe it’ll work. Less optimistically, your baby could cry. Maybe even a lot. But he’ll be okay.

You can give your in-laws some tips, maybe a list of things he usually needs (keep it simple). You can ask that they not leave him in his bed to cry alone, if that’s something you are particularly opposed to. But you can also give them your vote of confidence. Sometimes grandparents just want to be acknowledged for having actually raised a kid or two themselves. Just stating something along the lines of, “You know all about babies… ” can put out a lot of fires. You can always add, “…and here are a few things about this one in particular.”

There are plenty of mothers in your situation who decided the anxiety was not worth the escape. And that’s a totally valid choice, if you want to make it. Just realise that, eventually, you will have to leave your child with someone else, and when you do, you will probably have some concerns about whether he’ll be as happy with them as he is with you. And the separation may not get easier as time goes on.

So our advice, with loving, attentive, if somewhat retro Grandparents in hand, is to take a deep breath, put on your coat and LEAVE. It’s such a cliché, but making time for your marriage and your mental health has been PROVEN to help with the family in general. Your little baby may be waiting that extra half hour before Gramps smells the pooey nappy, but on some deep, possibly-hard-to-imagine level at this very early stage in your parenthood, he will be grateful for parents who date from time to time. And he’ll forgive you for a couple of rough nights pressed to Grandma’s itchy sweater.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com.au

Well, this is truly sad news, for many reasons. Barack Obama's ailing grandmother, Madelyn "Toot" Dunham, died today. She was 86.

With just one day to go in this huge, huge election, Obama's sister Maya Soetoro-Ng announced the news.

Condolences, of course, to the Obama family. We're also shaking our heads that she won't get to find out just how far her grandson could go. Though, maybe she knew something the rest of us won't quite yet.

Here's a statement from Soetoro-Ng:

"It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother,
Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer.  She
was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary
accomplishment, strength, and humility.  She was the person who
encouraged and allowed us to take chances.  She was proud of her
grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the
knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. 
Our debt to her is beyond measure. 

"Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards,
well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time.  It brought our
grandmother and us great comfort.  Our grandmother was a private woman,
and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at
a later date.   In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to
any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer."

Photo: 

A 54-year-old grandmother in the Florida
Keys was arrested and jailed after she was spotted driving her
Lexus around a parking lot with her three-year-old granddaughter on top of it.

According to deputies, Brenda Bouschet (pictured) said “she was just giving the child some air and letting her have fun.” She also said she had one hand out the window, holding the child’s leg, and that she was driving at “snail-speed.” Bouschet seemed genuinely surprised to learn of laws requiring children to be in car seats, and, uh, not on the roof of a moving vehicle.

Although Bouschet has been released from jail, she faces
child abuse charges. Her claims that she would never “let anything” hurt her granddaughter seem genuine, but her behaviour was frighteningly reckless.
What do you think? Should be Grandma be let off the hook?

Photo: CBS4