How to Be a Grandnanny

Today's post was written by award-winning educator, author, and speaker Shirley Showalter,  co-author of The Mindful Grandparent, The Art of Loving Our Children's Children.

If I had a magic Fairy Grandmother wand, I would make it possible for every child to start out life in a three-generation arrangement of some kind. And for every grandparent to spend at least a little time as a Grandnanny.
 
What is a grandnanny?

A grandparent who spends time living near or with a child’s family while a grandchild is young. Instead of hiring a nanny, the parents plan with the grandparents to provide part or all of the childcare.
 
Our story
 
My husband Stuart and I have been grandparents for nearly 12 years. We have three grandchildren and were able to be grandnannies to two of the three. Both times we spent ten months, arriving after the maternity/paternity leaves and saying good-bye just as the babies were starting to walk at about 14 months.

Our son the baby whisperer taught us all kinds of newfangled baby care tricks. But old-fashioned snuggles with Owen worked just fine also.

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​Six years after our time in Brooklyn with our son’s family, we traveled to Pittsburgh to be with our daughter’s family after the birth of their baby Lydia.

In Brooklyn we lived in a small apartment in a high rise within walking distance of our son’s apartment.
 
In Pittsburgh we moved around from location to location until the third floor of the family home was renovated. We loved our cozy little space with kitchenette, and small dining/living/bedroom area. As Lydia got older, she treated the space like a clubhouse during the day, but we had privacy at night and on weekends.
 
How did we do this? This is where the magic wand came in. We know we were lucky.

Work. Most people can’t take off a year if they are still working fulltime.
We were doing part-time work with flexible hours. I was retired. 

Expenses. We could rent our house in Virginia to students at the local university. This gave us some income to use on adventures in the new location.

Financially, we neither made money or lost money. We had enough to live, including enough for some treats – Broadway shows, museums, concerts, etc. 

Health. Even though we are older grandparents (I was 63 when Owen was born and 69 when Lydia was born), both of us were up to the rigors of strolling, rocking, feeding, diaper changing, cleaning, and cooking.

We fortunately had no illnesses during our stints.

The magical ratio: 2:1
 
Two is better than one when it comes to Grandnannying. We luckily had each other, and both of us wanted to do this. Babies can’t have too many people to love them, and one adult could make it possible for three other adults to work or have respite from childcare.

• In Brooklyn we traded mornings and afternoons, with an hour for both of us to share lunch and baby time together in the middle of the day.
• In Pittsburgh we were less structured, going with the flow. Stuart liked to do errands. I liked to take long strolls.

 
What were the benefits?
 

• The two years we spent as grandnannies are among the greatest joys of our lives. In my co-written book, The Mindful Grandparent: The Art of Loving Our Children’s Children, I describe how we worked with our children to draw up agreements of our goals and expectations, bringing us even closer to them than we were before.
• The “skin time” with the babies went deeper than we can comprehend or express in words. We know that they will feel more loved throughout their lives because of this special year. Even after we have died, they will feel our presences.

What if I can’t be a Grandnanny?
 
If the circumstances aren’t right for the experience of grandnannying, don’t worry. There are still many ways to give yourself deeply, intentionally, and mindfully to the role of grandparent. There is only one chapter in our book on being a grandnanny. There are 51 others on many other ways to be close, have fun, and leave a legacy.

Shirley with her grandchild brood: Owen, Lydia, and Julia. The timing wasn’t right to do grandnannying when Julia was born, but we managed to find lots of ways to give her one-on-one attention too.

​Shirley Hershey Showalter is an award-winning educator, author, and speaker. With a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, Showalter served as professor and then president of Goshen College in Indiana and as a foundation executive at the Fetzer Institute in Michigan. She and her husband live in Lititz, PA.
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Website: shirleyshowalter.com where many posts refer to the grandnanny, or grannynanny, experience.

For more: Shirley blogged about her year in Brooklyn on a platform called Posterous, which is no longer in business. Those posts were transferred to a Tumblr account. 

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