Grandparents

A Facebook post I liked tonight was a meme that has apparently gone viral: a photo of an old lady's hand, liver-spotted, bedecked in rings and sporting a beautiful manicure. A friend commented that her granny who's in a care home gets her hair and nails done every few weeks and she loves it. Another friend wrote cheerily that she has a 'client' who's a granny and loves painting her nails purple.

The first granny is 95 and the second is 71. My first thought was: you young people are going to have to change your ideas about old age.

Grannies are not what they were. The difference between 95 and 71 is a whole generation. Some of the grannies at the 71 end of the spectrum are still working and are likely to be working in the future as the age when women can access their state pension gets pushed further and further back. The youngest granny I've met was 34 and she could easily be a great-granny now, since she's still only about 52. She is very glamorous and vibrant - or, as I see it, a woman in her prime making the most of her looks and opportunities.

And yet the newspaper cartoonists go on producing pictures of grannies in slippers and aprons looking for all the world like Maw Broon.

I don't think Maw Broon has ever got to be a granny. Too busy cooking for all these weans, not to mention Paw Broon and Faither. Not for her the joy of getting up at 7am to take in the grandkids as their parents head off to work, or pushing the buggy from one end of the town to the other in the hope of getting the grandchild to go for a sleep or trying to stop the grandchild from sleeping as the clock heads past 6pm. 

I doubt if there's a granny  - or grandad - in the world who would complain. This is how it is: the adults have to work, the cost of childcare is prohibitive and the grandparents have to step up to help out. It's always been like that. 

It's pretty annoying if you're a volunteer to be constantly thanked for your efforts, when you know you wouldn't do it if you didn't like it and can stop at the cost of a phone call. Being a grandparent is not the same. Yes, you're a volunteer but volunteers in the community know that nothing much will happen if they stop helping out: someone else will step up or the service (usually for the poor and needy or the elderly or the disabled) will disappear and its passing will never be noticed. If grandparents don't or can't step up, the family - and the family income - fall apart. 

But it's worth remembering that most grannies - and grandads - have done a life's work before they take on their new duties are carers: brought up their own kids, held down a job. In other words, they're knackered. 

The least we can do is not patronise them. 

And we might consider giving them their pension ahead of time.