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."

[BohDaThone]

I heard the aging folk singer, Judy Collins, refer to "the daughter of my daughter -- we don't use the 'G-word' in our house"!

[.38sw]

Well, thanks again. I feel so privileged.

[GraniteStateConservative]

How special. You found time to put down your "Bush Lied" sign or your pathetic "Will work for food" piece of cardboard to stagger into a public library and use a taxpayer-furnished computer to post this garbage. Did you stop to think that your generation might be one component of the "plague of social ills" you claim we're responsible for? Comments such as yours could make me reconsider my position on Roe v. Wade.

I have my own computer, don't hold "Bush Lied" signs, and don't hold pieces of cardboard. My generation was the result of the horrid parenting of boomers. At least the Greatest Generation themselves were redeemable even if they produced irredeemable offspring. Boomers aren't themselves redeemable. Oh, and of course, Roe v. Wade was brought about by a petition from a boomer.

[.38sw]

Bitter, aren't you? That's no way to go through life.

[TontoKowalski]

What makes you think these grandmothers don't make cookies for their grandchildren, or rock them to sleep? And how are they turning up their noses at women like your grandmother? By wanting to be called something besides "Grandma"?

Because she's a potter from Ithica whose daughter says of her, "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."

You think she's being complimentary towards the gray-haired old ladies sitting around in rocking chairs? I'm reading a distinctly snotty attitude in those remarks, and I don't think I'm in the minority.

I don't care if her grandchildren call her "Rosebud" or "Princess" or "Dog." I don't like the sneer at the more traditional Grandmothers. It reminds me of the disdain Hillary Clinton showed in her infamous Tammy Wynette remarks.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

We had a grandma at our church, who was in her eighties.

When her first grandchild was born, ages ago, she wanted to be called grandma.

Well, the toddler couldn't say grandma. He called her Honeymama... and soon EVERYONE called her that, friends and family.

A sweet name, IF the recipient agrees.

[LisaMalia]

I am 47, still try to keep up my appearance, and feel like I'm in my 20s most of the time. However, I can't WAIT to be blessed with my first grandchild, and to be called "Grandma"!

What is wrong with these people? More people should be proud of their age, and the experience and (hopefully) wisdom that comes with it.

[GraniteStateConservative]

No, not bitter at all, actually. I'm pretty happy with my life.

[tiki]

I'm a Baby Boomer and I became a grandmother at 40 and my grandchildren call me Grandma. I wanted them to call me Grandmommy because it sounded cute but Grandma it is and after 10 years, I wouldn't change it if I could.

[Darnright]

>If you had been able to experience what "The Greatest Generation" attitudes were when they were in their 20s,30s and 40s, you would have a different outlook on them being better than boomers.<

Did your mother have a bunch of friends (like mine, a Greatest Gen member) who died off one by one from alcoholism, who lived by the motto, "children should be seen and not heard", and who took tranquilizers by the handful? Ah, and let's not forget the affairs many of them had. Very few of those women ever held jobs, so they played bridge all day and drank martinis.

Yeah, but all Boomers are the same and they all suck.

[Ben Chad]

Same with us!

[netmilsmom]

>>A sweet name, IF the recipient agrees.<<

Honestly, anything is cute if the baby comes up with it. That one is great!

[WASH]

Dr. Condoleezza Rice - Born November 14, 1954 - a boomer.

But you like and admire her - at least you have her pictures posted all over your profile page - how very strange - given some of the blanket statements you have made concerning boomers.

[wtc911]

"Spoken like a true baby boomer"....your point being what?

[netmilsmom]

>>Ah, and let's not forget the affairs many of them had. Very few of those women ever held jobs, so they played bridge all day and drank martinis. <<

WHERE did you live??
My mother quit her job in 1952, when she got pregnant with my oldest sister. She slaved on a shell of a house miles from where her family lived. My dad played golf while she smiled and hand weeded the lawn encouraging him all the way. She drank because of her loneliness but worked her butt off.
Right now I slave to overcome stupid women who weren't "fulfilled" with the lives of their mothers and had to compete with men instead of working with them.

I was born in 1961 and have a right to say this. You stupid baby-boomers who burned your bras and think that the world is against you have really screwed it up! Some of us are trying to fix it.

[xm177e2]

"Baby Boomers shun being dead"

More like "Baby Boomers refuse to die: Fight Tooth & Nail for drug money from the federal government, bankrupting younger Americans. Die eventually anyway; won't be missed."

[PresbyRev]

Sad, but absolutely true. I've seen a number of instances where the perpetual immaturity of the boomers has come back to bite them in the a** with their adult children and grandchildren.

[Marie Antoinette]

That's interesting, and I never really considered it before. My grandparents (Greatest Gen) did have alcohol probs at one time, but they seem to have outgrown it :-)

My parents are boomers, they do live for the day, but I love them dearly and wouldn't trade them for anything. Family was always important to them, and they passed that value on to us.

My husband and I are trying very hard to teach our children things we weren't taught, common sense things that were lost somewhere along the way.

Sounds to me like EVERY generation has folks who grow up, and folks who refuse to. It saddens me to see every post like this devolve into an US vs. THEM thread. Most of us on this site share similar values, fercryinoutloud!

And I guess that's all I have to say about that! :-)

[LisaMalia]

Can someone post the year of birth span for each catagory, Boomers, Gen Xers, etc.? Seriously, I'm just wondering. Thanks!

[Howlin]

You will notice a core of boomer bashers.

This is the second thread I've noticed it on; thank God MINE aren't anything like this.