A Grandma by any other name…

“It should be noted, however, that veto power ultimately goes to the baby, who may eventually ignore even unanimous decisions and call you what he or she likes.” 

n  Miss Manners, Press Democrat, May 23, 2014 responding to a readers query about appropriate names for grandparents.

Was this even a conversation in the past?  Did the generation who were our grandparents ever question the elegance or appropriateness of a time honored title like Grandma and Grandpa?

Alice Catherine Sheehan Carey could only have been Grandma.  We kids knew her title before we knew her and there would be no fancying that.  This was a grandparent very different from Christine Telleson, our Danish and deaf maternal grandmother who lived with us and who we had known from birth. When we met this Irish force of nature, come to take care of us soon after our mother died, (I was seven, Tom and Ed, were five and a half and three, and little Sheila was two) we called her Grandma.   I cannot imagine the conversation in which Alice Catherine would suggest a cuter name.

My grandson, Ethan, has four grandmothers – only three grandfathers.  But, even though most of us live close to each other, the question never came up – how does the poor little guy differentiate?  And as the query to Miss Manners addresses, with multiples in the picture and step grandmas, what is the protocol?  Ethan worked it out by loving everyone of us, so who cared what we were called. 

Like so many aspects of today’s living, consciousness and new social circumstances demand that we consider so many things that we took for granted. 

Say, for instance, you’re in your 40’s and the title just doesn’t fit who you are and how you live. My friend Michele told me that “grandma” was too generic and just didn’t resonate.  She asked her friend, Juliana, who said her grandmother’s name was Precious.  “That’s it!” So, Michele became Precious and as Miss Manners points out, eventually shortened by the grandchildren to “Presh.” You don’t meet that every day.

My choice was Nana.  I liked it and figured it would be easy to say.  Like Dada & Mama, it would come out easily and early.  I wanted to hear my darling boy call me.  (The extent to which some will go to satisfy their grand egos is sometimes astonishing, isn’t it?)

I recently took a survey among friends and family regarding names for grandparents – Grandma/Grandpa are still winning.  But we have a beloved Pops in my son-in-law’s family.  Vivian and Jim are called Grammy and Papi.  Some dears whom I met recently were called Poppi and Granna.

Maggie and her granddaughter Hannah have turned their names into an age old call and response in thirds (like playground songs around the world). Hannah might be in another room, she might be waking from a nap and she calls Mi-mi -- Maggie answers, Han-nah  --  Mi-mi – Han-nah”  Repetition and comfort in that.  She is Grandma by any other name.