Hip baby boomers shun `granny' names

Houston Chronicle ^ | 3/20/04 | ELLEN WARREN

[qam1]

Hearing, "You don't look old enough to be a grandparent," is a little like being a good-looking corpse. Not the greatest compliment.

Baby boomers entering the grandparent years are launching a small semantic revolution to avoid the traditional label of senior citizen status. These youth cult boomers are demanding that their grandkids call them names with a younger sound than the traditional "grandma" and "grandpa."

"Baby boomers don't want to adhere to the blue-haired old granny stereotype. They are choosing young-sounding names for themselves because generally they don't think of themselves as grandparent age," says Norah Burch, 30, a self-described "name nerd" who has been tracking options for the new slew of first-time grandparents on her Web site, www.namenerds.com.

Burch's own mother decided that her grandchildren would call her "Moogie," the term for "mother" from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

"I don't have any problem, even for one second, being a grandmother. For me it's just the name," explained Laura Burch, who became a grandmother, at age 51, to Mikala, who is now 9 (followed by Jacob, 5, and Ari, 2).

Norah Burch says her mom, a potter who lives in Ithaca, N.Y., chose the unconventional name "because she associated `grandma' and `granny' et al with bingo playing and driving a giant Oldsmobile."

"My mom and her whole circle of friends, when they started having grandkids in their 50s, the thought of being called `grandma' was pretty awful to them. They weren't gray-haired old ladies sitting around in rocking chairs baking cookies."

One correspondent on namenerds.com writes, "My mom is your typical white middle-class suburban Southern Baptist Bible-thumpin' Dubya-suppportin' Texan. She has big, puffy, shellacked blond hair and wears T-shirts with three-dimensional objects hanging off them. She believes in Jesus Christ, the Republican Party, craft fairs and spiral perms. She has rebelled against Grandma because it sounds `old' and she's only 41."

She wants her grandkids to call her "Peaches." "She's even thinking of having a peach tattooed on her toe."

[.38sw]

I think you understand too that when us xers start ranting it is about a certain, seemingly large portion of boomers that fit this bill.

*sigh* True. I've seen how my husband's sister has raised her son, and I just shake my head. She was behaving like a boomer, and buying into so much of the popular culture garbage, and I could see how raising her son that way was causing a problem for him. She was acting more like she was his good friend, rather than his mother. He's 16 now, and having problems in school. My husband tries to have the "dutch uncle" talks with him, but he doesn't live close enough to him to spend any significant amount of time, not enough to influence him.

[Nea Wood]

Well said!

[cupcakes]

Oh it goes a lot deeper than the semantics with my parents friend. They have no interest at all in fulfilling the role as grandparents.

[BSunday]

Norah Burch says her mom, a potter pothead who lives in Ithaca, N.Y.

[cajungirl]

It was sad. I like my grands to call me by my last name with a y on the end. But I know my husband would love to be called Dude. My kids called their grandparents maw maw and paw paw for mine and Mamma Ann and Granddaddy for husbands. Seems to me this is a matter of choice. I sort of like Grannie, that is what I called mine. But Grandmother does have a nice forbidding stately ring {and might scare the kids so they don't dare mess up the house}

[lindsay]

l saw that program or at least a part of it.They were pathetic.They have almost youthful faces but old internal organs.lf l decide to get a new face l would like new body parts as well.l would want to be new on the inside as well as the outside.

[cupcakes]

I'm an xer and looking forward to being a grandparent. Heck, I'd skip parenthood and go right to being a grandparent if I could. I have no problem at all with being called grandma, grammy, grandmom, and the like. I'm greyer than my own boomer mother and I could care less that I am where she worries about every little grey hair and line she gets. Believe me there is quite a difference in our attitudes over getting older and the new delights and responsibilities that come with it.

[N8VTXNinWV]

Cute! my son calls my mom & dad, Nana & PawPaw, the in-laws, MawMaw & Grandaddy... I called mine Mamo, Papo, Grandma & Grandpa Livingston, (my great-grandparents were: Grandma Bessie & Grandpa Frank...)

[CathyRyan]

You were not in the lobby when the doctor came out (and had a few choice words) after my aunt ripped him a new one. He wanted to know who was with the old um...girl and I just hid behind a magazine and pretended to not know her.

[WASH]

Baby Boomers should just be put in mass graves.- Post 53

Qaml - I'll ask you this because you seem to be the one who starts most of this threads that just turn into a boomer bashing session, and you probably have more knowledge of your generation than I do. Is this kind of thinking widespread among Xers or is it just thread trolling?

[blu]

I'm a young grandmother. I've told my family for years (even before our kids were born) that my grandchildren would call me Mimi. I knew a very classy lady whose grandchildren called her Mimi, and the great-grandmother was "Big Mimi". Our first grandchild is working on it.

My dearest friend told me that if her kids make her a grandmother before she's 50, she'll make the grandkids call her "Mrs. X"!! Too funny.

Much to my dismay, I recently discovered that I, too, am a boomer. (Dismay cos when I hear "babyboomer" I see clinton's face!) HOwever, I had great grammas, they taught me well.

I provide the daycare for our grandchild. I bake the cookies, take the picts, teach him stuff (he comes to homeschool with us, and has his own scientifc calculator!) and in general think the world of him (as does his Grampa). I want to be the gramma my kids didn't have. Talk about spoiled boomers, how about those jet-setting grammas???

No tatoos, bikinis, halter tops or bleached blonde hair. No card games, extreme makeovers or that awful tanned leather look! Just jeans, "Little Bunny Foo-Foo" and classic rock and classical radio!

[Poohbah]

To have grey hairs is a thing of honor. To be a parent and a grandparent is one of the most wonderful things a person can experience.

Having gray hairs and being a parent are directly related; the latter is caused by the former. (I gave my parents gray hair; my daughter's now doing it to me :o)

[FourPeas]

Whoa, I've never met anyone with a mom like mine although she doesn't have a boyfriend (yet). She's "babysat" my boys (ages 4 & 5) a grand total of 4 times now. Two of those times were offers on her part. They've never stayed overnight with her. She misses birthday parties using excuses like "your father had to work". The last time I asked her to watch the boys so my husband and I could go to an appointment, she cancelled a week beforehand because she's remodeling a house and that day she was having workmen install new kitchen cabinets. it took me until this year to realize that this is the way she's always been.

My condolences on your mom.

[Nea Wood]

So, because you have a better attitude about aging than your mother does, (aren't you wonderful?) that means all Gen-Xers have a better attitude about aging than all boomers. Got it!

[mabelkitty]

I did - my hubby is a Baby Boomer, and I'm a Gen Xer.
I co-oped granny mode ASAP cuz their real granny would have no part of it (she of the vast amounts of plastic surgery and non-granny name, by the way).

We had tea parties, went to the zoo, we colored, we baked, we went to barbecues, I bought them toys, candy, made them eat home-cooked meals, etc.

Real granny got real jealous real quick.

[mabelkitty]

It's wide spread.
No need to ask him - you can ask anybody in that age group.

[johnb838]

Baby Boomers should just be put in mass graves.

What a horrible thing to say. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[wtc911]

On previous threads run by these kids there have been multiple postings calling for euthanasia of boomers. Many have esposed the idea that we deserve it for Roe v. Wade even though the SC was made up entirely of "greatest generation" and older folks, and there were zero boomers holding elected positions at any national level.

[cyborg]

I can't think of anything more honorable than being called granny OR gwahma OR gramma :-) Grandmother used to be synonymous with wisdom,motherwit and a storehouse of the ages. What is wrong with these people?

[BlazingArizona]

When the Gen-Xers start becoming grandparents, let's see if they want to be called "Granny" or "Pops" or "Old-Timer" or such.

Especially since all of them are named Justin and Brittany. We will know that Xers are getting old when they stop pgrading their Blackberrys.