Baby Boomer Grandparents

Wait. Your Parents Are Doing What Now?

It’s one of the most predictable commercials on television. A gorgeous, sexy white-haired couple is walking along a beach at sunset, everything serene and quiet but for the sound of the waves and the yapping of grandchildren. Sometimes the commercial is for a pension plan, sometimes for Viagra, but always it’s for grandparents: beautiful people who live for their grandkids. “Grandparents” has become one of those words, like “America” or “bipartisanship,” that's designed to jerk tears from the meanest banker.

But having done extensive research on the current generation of grandparents, I’m here to say: It’s true about the beach. It’s just not true that they're there with the grandchildren. Today’s grandparents are mostly off partying like crazy instead of doing anything to deserve their cuddly teddy-bear image.

The number of grandparents has been multiplying like rabbits lately. According to a MetLife analysis of census data, there are 65 million of them in the U.S. today, or 25 million more than in 1980. Rather than wizened stick-wielding figures slumped in armchairs, they are now more likely to be blonde cross-country skiers occasionally dispatching texts from some distant beach.

Baby boomers have always lived well (after the “greatest generation” came the luckiest generation) and now they are prolonging their charmed lives into old age, though that’s not a term they ever use. Indeed, many of them refuse even to be called “Grandma,” let alone “Granny,” preferring instead some teen-style, gang-like nickname. And most of them are way too cool to hang out with grandchildren.

With no help from grandparents, today’s parents are forced to spend their weekends cooped up in endless playdates with reasonably like-minded couples and their kids. At these events, moans about absent cavorting grandparents are the norm. Indeed, in my generation, grandparents are the only demographic category that prompts more complaints than children.

One reason is that grandparents, annoyingly, still talk a good game about their grandkids. Probably knowing that it’s an asset in the geriatric dating game, they tend to go around noisily proclaiming their devotion to the offspring’s offspring. One grandma I know announced her intention to move to her son’s city to look after her impending grandchild full-time. However, as the birth approached she began to rethink her plans and compromised on one long weekend full-time. Even that plan was abandoned when the actual birth coincided with an unmissable party-house vacation. In the end, I do believe she looked in to say hi.

The irritating thing is that the grandkids continue to adore the grandparents, even if they know each other chiefly from two-minute Skype calls during which the grandparents furtively check dating emails. In fact, the grandkids mostly prefer their grandparents to their actual parents.

My generation left it so late to have kids that many of us probably won’t have to deal with having grandchildren at all. However, if I am still scuttling around the world at that age, I’ve told my kids in advance: I won’t be changing a single grandchild’s diaper. They’re on their own.