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conuly
The multiple grandparents thing.
Ask Them (All 8 of Them) About Their Grandson
By AMY HARMON
Two by two, they filed into the school gym in Louisiana: Pawpaw and Mimi, Honey and Uncle Rod, Gampaw and Meme, Meemaw and David - all eight of Blake Brunson's grandparents, there to cheer him on in the last basketball game of the season.
The couples, Blake knew, had not always lined up this way. Meemaw had shown him pictures of her wedding to Gampaw. Pawpaw had once been married to Honey. They did not live together anymore, his parents had explained, because they had not gotten along.
But Blake, who plainly relishes his outsize grandparent fan club, says he does not think much about their marriage history. "That was before I was born," he said, lending a 9-year-old's perspective to decades of love and heartache.
Children like Blake are the newest characters in a national family drama that began with the steep climb in divorce in the 1970's. By 1980, half of all new marriages were projected to end in divorce, a rate that has remained constant, even as concern over its negative effect on children has mounted.
Now, the children of that generation are having children of their own. Many of their parents have remarried. And for the first time, the impact of higher divorce rates is playing out across three generations.
"The upside of all of this is that children can have more grandparents who love them," said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist specializing in divorce at Johns Hopkins University and himself one of eight grandparents. "What message it will give them about marriage, I'm not quite sure."
For some new parents, the extra grandparent support is a boon, a kind of long-delayed silver lining emerging from the cloud of their parents' divorce. Stepparents who may have once been the objects of resentment are cast in a new light when they offer free baby-sitting and a shared fascination with the minute details of a child's development.
Some stepparents, too, are finding new pleasures as they age into a grandparent role free from the familiar conflicts that so often marked their relationships with stepchildren. Children tend to embrace the grandparents who love them, without heed to biology or court papers.
In other families, adult children estranged from a parent after a divorce find themselves reliving a sense of loss, this time on behalf of children who they fear may not receive the grandparent doting that is their due.
Nearly half of American families with children have at least one set of grandparents who have been divorced, compared with just one-fifth in the mid-1980's, said Merril Silverstein, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California.
In many families, the grown-up children of divorce are finding that grandchildren hold the power to bring their parents together in a way that they themselves were never able to achieve. Former spouses who share a grandchild may not fulfill their children's reunion fantasy, but they will sometimes consent to co-exist in the same room.
Jennifer Rhees, 32, said her parents were the kind of divorced couple that "blamed and badmouthed each other in front of their kids." Nor did they rise to the occasion at Ms. Rhees's wedding, which she said was strained by the enduring hostilities. But at the baptism of her 9-month-old son, James, they were on their best behavior, she said, and have been socializing civilly ever since.
"It's amazing what kids do to your parents," said Ms. Rhees, of Boise, Idaho. "Nothing else matters." Blake's paternal grandmother, Sandra Broussard (a k a Meemaw) remembers crying before the baby shower when her daughter-in-law was pregnant with Blake, because she knew she would have to face her former husband's new wife for the first time.
"I don't want this strange woman to share my grandchildren," she remembers thinking. But she went anyway, under strict orders from her son to find a way to be nice.
"They all understand that if they want to be a part of his life then they need to get along with everybody," said Tim Brunson, Blake's father.
Now, the two women chat amicably at family events, along with Blake's maternal grandparents and their respective second spouses. The four couples, who live within a few miles of one another near Baton Rouge, La., share Blake and his sister, Laura, 3, without quarrel.
Not all families are able to mend their postdivorce differences for the sake of a grandchild. Sometimes, a new child only seems to broaden the distances forged in earlier times.
When Jenny Osentoski's daughter, Olivia, 7, asked her recently if her stepmother was "like Cinderella's," after seeing the Disney version of the fairy tale, Ms. Osentoski did not exactly say no. Ms. Osentoski's father is so involved with his new family, she says, that he and Olivia are both missing out on the kind of relationship she had shared with her grandparents. She misses him, too, as a father in this phase of her life.
"I find it to be sadder once you have kids," said Ms. Osentoski, 35, of Wayland, Mich., whose parents were divorced when she was 6. "I tell her I don't think the stepmothers in her fairy tales mean to be evil, but it would be very hard for me if I were to marry someone with children to love their children as much as my own."
Children of divorce, accustomed to feeling torn between just two parents, are now having to juggle many more.
Many grandparents who find themselves in the larger-than-traditional crowd search for nicknames by which to differentiate themselves.
Jennifer Solomon of the Upper West Side of Manhattan says her mother-in-law wants Lucy, her 17-month-old granddaughter, to call her Mopsy. "My husband doesn't mind it so much," says Ms. Solomon, 37, who is still warming up to the concept.
Holidays are especially challenging for the Brunson family. They have Christmas Eve lunch with Blake's mother's father, Christmas Eve dinner with his father's mother and Christmas Day lunch with his father's father. They celebrate with his mother's mother before or after.
For some family events, Blake's mother, Yvette Brunson, added, she simply has to leave out some sets of parents. For that, she makes no apologies: "Like my sister says, 'That's what happens when people get a divorce.' "
Indeed, parents who divorced in the 1970's and 1980's are increasingly realizing that the repercussions are not over: if divorce has distanced them from their children, they are also less likely to enjoy close ties with their grandchildren.
Gretchen Harding of Palo Alto, Calif., has refused to let her 3-year-old daughter, Isabel, meet any of the women in Isabel's grandfather's life, at least until he is ready to marry again. Ms. Harding's father has remarried twice since her parents' divorce when she was 12.
"I couldn't protect myself, but I can protect my daughter, or at least try to control the situation," said Ms. Harding, 36, recalling how she grew attached to a series of women who then spun out of her life. "I would hate for her to have the experience of losing someone she was calling some variation of 'Grandma.' "
The decision has made it that much harder for John Biesecker, Ms. Harding's father, to see his granddaughter. Mr. Biesecker lives in Minnesota, and he admits to feeling some envy for his former wife Bonnie and her second husband, Wayne Vicker, who live near Isabel.
Mr. Vicker, 59, visits with Isabel at lunchtime every Tuesday and Thursday, and sometimes baby-sits for her himself. One of her favorite games is to "make PopPop look like a scarecrow" by messing up his hair. "She's a part of our life, you know," Mr. Vicker said. "She's just the sweetest little thing there is."
Mr. Biesecker has made several trips to see his granddaughter. Per his daughter's instructions, he has left his significant other behind.
"Let me tell you, when I first saw Isabel, it was ... " Mr. Biesecker's voice broke. "Just an emotional experience. It was one of those things you said, 'wow.' It was wonderful. So as often as I can, I go."
As for Isabel, she, like most other grandchildren, seems to have plenty of room in her heart for both her Boppa B (Mr. Biesecker) and PopPop (Mr. Vicker). For stepgrandparents, the lack of discrimination can be particularly gratifying.
"There's no such thing as a stepgrandparent," said Marya Levinson, 62, of Waltham, Mass., who attended family therapy sessions during the difficult periods of her life as a stepmother. "It's a very wonderful thing when you become a grandparent - your grandchildren don't care where you came from."
Marcelo Figueroa, 19 months old, knew his stepgrandparents by name before he did his biological grandparents, said his mother, Kat Figueroa, of suburban Los Angeles. His stepgrandfather is the one most willing to get down on the floor and play at toddler level. And his stepgrandmother goes out of her way to see and spoil him.
Susan Lambert, a freelance writer in Arlington, Va., said her son, Jake, 5, saw his eight grandparents as his "most important allies" outside of herself and her husband. When he broke his collarbone recently, his mother said, he asked her from his bed at the end of a long day at the hospital if she would "please send a message to all of his grandparents" to alert them to his misadventure.
"And then" he requested, "wake me up and tell me what they all say," she said.
Jake's current reasoning is that his Grandma Peach does not live with his Papa Dude anymore because his grandfather is allergic to cats, and his grandmother has two. But in what may become a new rite of passage for the grandchildren of divorce, his parents have been puzzling over how to explain the real reason.
"Right now he's only had a positive experience with the expansion of a family," Ms. Lambert said. "He doesn't know it went through a painful period of severance first."
And Japanese Primary Cram Schools
Making the Grade
By KUMIKO MAKIHARA
When I started inquiring about cram schools for my 5-year-old son's primary-school entrance exams, I knew I would be chastised for starting late. It was May, and most children in Tokyo had already been studying a year or two for the tests in November. ''You haven't done any preparation yet?'' one woman from a major chain of cram schools asked me. I confessed that I was a single parent working full time. ''Oh, you are on your own,'' she replied. ''A private school might be difficult.''
Single working mothers are increasingly common in Japan but remain a rarity in the exclusive world of primary-school entrance examinations, where the two-parent family with a stay-at-home mom is the norm. Most schools consider a single mother too harried to raise a well-adjusted child and too poor to afford the tuition. For eight years, my ex-husband and I lived in Berlin, Beijing and Moscow, where we had adopted our son from Kazakhstan. After our divorce three years ago, my ex, who is American, stayed abroad and I came home with Yataro.
Since our return, I still hadn't grown accustomed to being underestimated. I kept hoping for the best for Yataro with or without a father. I was not alone. One aspiring mother put it plainly on an exam-information Web site fittingly called Espoir: ''Can one not enter a private elementary school without a father?'' The reply from the site wasn't encouraging: ''The highly competitive schools or schools for boys and girls of good upbringing would be difficult,'' adding that for lower-ranked schools ''we don't rule out the possibility.''
Of course, Seikei Elementary, the school I was interested in, had five stars. My father is an alumnus, but that wasn't guaranteed to help. As luck would have it, Seikei is known for denying entrance to many children of graduates in the name of fairness.
During the next months, several afternoons a week, Yataro attended one cram school for his written exam and craft making and another for sports and more crafts. I relied on my mother and baby sitters to take him to the schools and often rushed in at the end when the teachers summarized the lesson and offered pointers to parents. ''Don't take such a big bag to the test,'' one teacher told me, gesturing toward my briefcase. A handbag and tote were preferred. We were also instructed to wear dark suits to the schools even if we were just picking up an application.
These were easy compromises; my divorce was going to be more of a stumbling block. At a lecture on parental interviews, a former private-school teacher advised, ''Just explain, before you take your seat, that you are divorced and therefore had to come to the interview alone.'' Translation: admit your guilt before being charged. Two of Yataro's cram-school teachers recommended toning down our application essay. There was no need to spell out that I was divorced and had adopted Yataro (another quirk considered suspect). I didn't want to hide facts I felt had shaped Yataro. But was I sacrificing my son's opportunities for some lofty principles? I caved in and took out the word ''divorced'' and just said that Yataro and I lived alone.
In the frenzied run-up to exams, a cram-school teacher asked students to name what they had eaten for breakfast. Yataro answered: yogurt, a kiwi and a prune, bread and cheese. ''That is an excellent breakfast, everyone,'' the teacher exalted. ''The school will think, There is a wonderful mother.'' Praised as a good mother before a room of full-time moms, I was beaming.
But later when I was coaching Yataro with another question -- ''When does your mother praise you?'' -- he replied, ''When I give the correct response about breakfast.'' I started to laugh then caught myself. Here I was twisting truths to come across as the best parent, and Yataro had called my bluff.
On interview day at Seikei, two days after Yataro took his written exam, mothers and fathers in nearly identical dark blue or black suits and children in navy shorts or skirts and white shirts filled the waiting room. I ran into a business acquaintance and her attractive husband. I wondered if Yataro had noticed that we were the only pair among threesomes.
First, the children were sent to classrooms where teachers observed them in group activities -- Seikei's alternative to individual child interviews. Once I was called, I entered a room with three young male teachers. I skipped the suggested apologetic divorce confession and sat down. One teacher asked, ''What considerations do you have in raising Yataro?''
''He needs to be strong to survive societal prejudices,'' I said. ''But I hope he can also, because of his background, understand the pain of others and be that much kinder.''
Two days later, Yataro's registration number was on the acceptance list posted at the school. I'll never know what got him in, but standing there next to other parents, all in the requisite dark suits, I had become part of the group.
Ask Them (All 8 of Them) About Their Grandson
By AMY HARMON
Two by two, they filed into the school gym in Louisiana: Pawpaw and Mimi, Honey and Uncle Rod, Gampaw and Meme, Meemaw and David - all eight of Blake Brunson's grandparents, there to cheer him on in the last basketball game of the season.
The couples, Blake knew, had not always lined up this way. Meemaw had shown him pictures of her wedding to Gampaw. Pawpaw had once been married to Honey. They did not live together anymore, his parents had explained, because they had not gotten along.
But Blake, who plainly relishes his outsize grandparent fan club, says he does not think much about their marriage history. "That was before I was born," he said, lending a 9-year-old's perspective to decades of love and heartache.
Children like Blake are the newest characters in a national family drama that began with the steep climb in divorce in the 1970's. By 1980, half of all new marriages were projected to end in divorce, a rate that has remained constant, even as concern over its negative effect on children has mounted.
Now, the children of that generation are having children of their own. Many of their parents have remarried. And for the first time, the impact of higher divorce rates is playing out across three generations.
"The upside of all of this is that children can have more grandparents who love them," said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist specializing in divorce at Johns Hopkins University and himself one of eight grandparents. "What message it will give them about marriage, I'm not quite sure."
For some new parents, the extra grandparent support is a boon, a kind of long-delayed silver lining emerging from the cloud of their parents' divorce. Stepparents who may have once been the objects of resentment are cast in a new light when they offer free baby-sitting and a shared fascination with the minute details of a child's development.
Some stepparents, too, are finding new pleasures as they age into a grandparent role free from the familiar conflicts that so often marked their relationships with stepchildren. Children tend to embrace the grandparents who love them, without heed to biology or court papers.
In other families, adult children estranged from a parent after a divorce find themselves reliving a sense of loss, this time on behalf of children who they fear may not receive the grandparent doting that is their due.
Nearly half of American families with children have at least one set of grandparents who have been divorced, compared with just one-fifth in the mid-1980's, said Merril Silverstein, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California.
In many families, the grown-up children of divorce are finding that grandchildren hold the power to bring their parents together in a way that they themselves were never able to achieve. Former spouses who share a grandchild may not fulfill their children's reunion fantasy, but they will sometimes consent to co-exist in the same room.
Jennifer Rhees, 32, said her parents were the kind of divorced couple that "blamed and badmouthed each other in front of their kids." Nor did they rise to the occasion at Ms. Rhees's wedding, which she said was strained by the enduring hostilities. But at the baptism of her 9-month-old son, James, they were on their best behavior, she said, and have been socializing civilly ever since.
"It's amazing what kids do to your parents," said Ms. Rhees, of Boise, Idaho. "Nothing else matters." Blake's paternal grandmother, Sandra Broussard (a k a Meemaw) remembers crying before the baby shower when her daughter-in-law was pregnant with Blake, because she knew she would have to face her former husband's new wife for the first time.
"I don't want this strange woman to share my grandchildren," she remembers thinking. But she went anyway, under strict orders from her son to find a way to be nice.
"They all understand that if they want to be a part of his life then they need to get along with everybody," said Tim Brunson, Blake's father.
Now, the two women chat amicably at family events, along with Blake's maternal grandparents and their respective second spouses. The four couples, who live within a few miles of one another near Baton Rouge, La., share Blake and his sister, Laura, 3, without quarrel.
Not all families are able to mend their postdivorce differences for the sake of a grandchild. Sometimes, a new child only seems to broaden the distances forged in earlier times.
When Jenny Osentoski's daughter, Olivia, 7, asked her recently if her stepmother was "like Cinderella's," after seeing the Disney version of the fairy tale, Ms. Osentoski did not exactly say no. Ms. Osentoski's father is so involved with his new family, she says, that he and Olivia are both missing out on the kind of relationship she had shared with her grandparents. She misses him, too, as a father in this phase of her life.
"I find it to be sadder once you have kids," said Ms. Osentoski, 35, of Wayland, Mich., whose parents were divorced when she was 6. "I tell her I don't think the stepmothers in her fairy tales mean to be evil, but it would be very hard for me if I were to marry someone with children to love their children as much as my own."
Children of divorce, accustomed to feeling torn between just two parents, are now having to juggle many more.
Many grandparents who find themselves in the larger-than-traditional crowd search for nicknames by which to differentiate themselves.
Jennifer Solomon of the Upper West Side of Manhattan says her mother-in-law wants Lucy, her 17-month-old granddaughter, to call her Mopsy. "My husband doesn't mind it so much," says Ms. Solomon, 37, who is still warming up to the concept.
Holidays are especially challenging for the Brunson family. They have Christmas Eve lunch with Blake's mother's father, Christmas Eve dinner with his father's mother and Christmas Day lunch with his father's father. They celebrate with his mother's mother before or after.
For some family events, Blake's mother, Yvette Brunson, added, she simply has to leave out some sets of parents. For that, she makes no apologies: "Like my sister says, 'That's what happens when people get a divorce.' "
Indeed, parents who divorced in the 1970's and 1980's are increasingly realizing that the repercussions are not over: if divorce has distanced them from their children, they are also less likely to enjoy close ties with their grandchildren.
Gretchen Harding of Palo Alto, Calif., has refused to let her 3-year-old daughter, Isabel, meet any of the women in Isabel's grandfather's life, at least until he is ready to marry again. Ms. Harding's father has remarried twice since her parents' divorce when she was 12.
"I couldn't protect myself, but I can protect my daughter, or at least try to control the situation," said Ms. Harding, 36, recalling how she grew attached to a series of women who then spun out of her life. "I would hate for her to have the experience of losing someone she was calling some variation of 'Grandma.' "
The decision has made it that much harder for John Biesecker, Ms. Harding's father, to see his granddaughter. Mr. Biesecker lives in Minnesota, and he admits to feeling some envy for his former wife Bonnie and her second husband, Wayne Vicker, who live near Isabel.
Mr. Vicker, 59, visits with Isabel at lunchtime every Tuesday and Thursday, and sometimes baby-sits for her himself. One of her favorite games is to "make PopPop look like a scarecrow" by messing up his hair. "She's a part of our life, you know," Mr. Vicker said. "She's just the sweetest little thing there is."
Mr. Biesecker has made several trips to see his granddaughter. Per his daughter's instructions, he has left his significant other behind.
"Let me tell you, when I first saw Isabel, it was ... " Mr. Biesecker's voice broke. "Just an emotional experience. It was one of those things you said, 'wow.' It was wonderful. So as often as I can, I go."
As for Isabel, she, like most other grandchildren, seems to have plenty of room in her heart for both her Boppa B (Mr. Biesecker) and PopPop (Mr. Vicker). For stepgrandparents, the lack of discrimination can be particularly gratifying.
"There's no such thing as a stepgrandparent," said Marya Levinson, 62, of Waltham, Mass., who attended family therapy sessions during the difficult periods of her life as a stepmother. "It's a very wonderful thing when you become a grandparent - your grandchildren don't care where you came from."
Marcelo Figueroa, 19 months old, knew his stepgrandparents by name before he did his biological grandparents, said his mother, Kat Figueroa, of suburban Los Angeles. His stepgrandfather is the one most willing to get down on the floor and play at toddler level. And his stepgrandmother goes out of her way to see and spoil him.
Susan Lambert, a freelance writer in Arlington, Va., said her son, Jake, 5, saw his eight grandparents as his "most important allies" outside of herself and her husband. When he broke his collarbone recently, his mother said, he asked her from his bed at the end of a long day at the hospital if she would "please send a message to all of his grandparents" to alert them to his misadventure.
"And then" he requested, "wake me up and tell me what they all say," she said.
Jake's current reasoning is that his Grandma Peach does not live with his Papa Dude anymore because his grandfather is allergic to cats, and his grandmother has two. But in what may become a new rite of passage for the grandchildren of divorce, his parents have been puzzling over how to explain the real reason.
"Right now he's only had a positive experience with the expansion of a family," Ms. Lambert said. "He doesn't know it went through a painful period of severance first."
And Japanese Primary Cram Schools
Making the Grade
By KUMIKO MAKIHARA
When I started inquiring about cram schools for my 5-year-old son's primary-school entrance exams, I knew I would be chastised for starting late. It was May, and most children in Tokyo had already been studying a year or two for the tests in November. ''You haven't done any preparation yet?'' one woman from a major chain of cram schools asked me. I confessed that I was a single parent working full time. ''Oh, you are on your own,'' she replied. ''A private school might be difficult.''
Single working mothers are increasingly common in Japan but remain a rarity in the exclusive world of primary-school entrance examinations, where the two-parent family with a stay-at-home mom is the norm. Most schools consider a single mother too harried to raise a well-adjusted child and too poor to afford the tuition. For eight years, my ex-husband and I lived in Berlin, Beijing and Moscow, where we had adopted our son from Kazakhstan. After our divorce three years ago, my ex, who is American, stayed abroad and I came home with Yataro.
Since our return, I still hadn't grown accustomed to being underestimated. I kept hoping for the best for Yataro with or without a father. I was not alone. One aspiring mother put it plainly on an exam-information Web site fittingly called Espoir: ''Can one not enter a private elementary school without a father?'' The reply from the site wasn't encouraging: ''The highly competitive schools or schools for boys and girls of good upbringing would be difficult,'' adding that for lower-ranked schools ''we don't rule out the possibility.''
Of course, Seikei Elementary, the school I was interested in, had five stars. My father is an alumnus, but that wasn't guaranteed to help. As luck would have it, Seikei is known for denying entrance to many children of graduates in the name of fairness.
During the next months, several afternoons a week, Yataro attended one cram school for his written exam and craft making and another for sports and more crafts. I relied on my mother and baby sitters to take him to the schools and often rushed in at the end when the teachers summarized the lesson and offered pointers to parents. ''Don't take such a big bag to the test,'' one teacher told me, gesturing toward my briefcase. A handbag and tote were preferred. We were also instructed to wear dark suits to the schools even if we were just picking up an application.
These were easy compromises; my divorce was going to be more of a stumbling block. At a lecture on parental interviews, a former private-school teacher advised, ''Just explain, before you take your seat, that you are divorced and therefore had to come to the interview alone.'' Translation: admit your guilt before being charged. Two of Yataro's cram-school teachers recommended toning down our application essay. There was no need to spell out that I was divorced and had adopted Yataro (another quirk considered suspect). I didn't want to hide facts I felt had shaped Yataro. But was I sacrificing my son's opportunities for some lofty principles? I caved in and took out the word ''divorced'' and just said that Yataro and I lived alone.
In the frenzied run-up to exams, a cram-school teacher asked students to name what they had eaten for breakfast. Yataro answered: yogurt, a kiwi and a prune, bread and cheese. ''That is an excellent breakfast, everyone,'' the teacher exalted. ''The school will think, There is a wonderful mother.'' Praised as a good mother before a room of full-time moms, I was beaming.
But later when I was coaching Yataro with another question -- ''When does your mother praise you?'' -- he replied, ''When I give the correct response about breakfast.'' I started to laugh then caught myself. Here I was twisting truths to come across as the best parent, and Yataro had called my bluff.
On interview day at Seikei, two days after Yataro took his written exam, mothers and fathers in nearly identical dark blue or black suits and children in navy shorts or skirts and white shirts filled the waiting room. I ran into a business acquaintance and her attractive husband. I wondered if Yataro had noticed that we were the only pair among threesomes.
First, the children were sent to classrooms where teachers observed them in group activities -- Seikei's alternative to individual child interviews. Once I was called, I entered a room with three young male teachers. I skipped the suggested apologetic divorce confession and sat down. One teacher asked, ''What considerations do you have in raising Yataro?''
''He needs to be strong to survive societal prejudices,'' I said. ''But I hope he can also, because of his background, understand the pain of others and be that much kinder.''
Two days later, Yataro's registration number was on the acceptance list posted at the school. I'll never know what got him in, but standing there next to other parents, all in the requisite dark suits, I had become part of the group.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-19 11:30 pm (UTC)