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."

[looney tune]

Oops! gramdmom = grandmom. Get your bifocals on you old bat!

[surrey]

My 2 1/2 year old grandson calls my husband "Dude". My sons and my husband are all die-hard surfers, so it fits.

[dakine]

right up your alley....

[Blood of Tyrants]

A woman at church (soon to be a rather young grandmother at about 45) has decided on "Your Highness" as her title. ;^)

[netmilsmom]

I see a big trend with the children of Boomers. Their kids don't even talk to them.
I have two sisters, both boomers (1953 & 1956) One chose a boyfriend over her children when the kids were 9 & 11. Both kids are grown with children. The boy does not see his mother at all, the girl rarely.
The other sister is a newly out of the closet lesbian, flaming liberal with Munchausen Syndrome. Two marriages, three kids. She has rarely seen her grandson and only found out about her granddaughter through the grapevine.

[Snickersnee]

World's First Baby Boomer (Me -- parents married on VJ Day -- I came along 9 mos later) has his grandchildren call him "G-Pops." They seem to like it!

[CathyRyan]

My aunt who is in her 80's and was told by her doctor that she needed to start using a cane... She told him in a very loud voice (I was in the lobby) in no uncertain terms that only "OLD PEOPLE" used canes and she was not old. LOL

[My2Cents]

ROFL....Correct. Frankly, the world will be a better place when this self-absorbed generation starts dying off. (Disclaimer: I, myself, am a baby boomer, born in the early 50s...But I have never had much respect for my peers.)

[ladtx]

When our first granddaughter was born my son informed us that she would call us Mammy and Pappy. I had my doubts until I heard her excitedly call me "Pappy" for the first time. Now I wouldn't want to be called anything else.

[My2Cents]

Maybe her grandkids can call her "Tooters." ;-)

[Blood of Tyrants]

"Honey" is Senator Lamar Alexander's wife's given name. She is deserving of the name, too.

[codyjacksmom]

I'm surprised that your eyes could even see this headline...after all, you are REALLY old...

[apackof2]

her mom, a potter who lives in Ithaca, N.Y.,

This explains a lot

[Wolfie]

Maybe the kids could start referring to them as "infinite drains on our income".

[Blood of Tyrants]

Tooters is what my 3 y.o. daughter calls flatulence ;^)

[dakine]

My seeing-eye dog is real smart..he READ it to me...

[OpusatFR]

Boomer here too.

Amazing though, during the sixties and seventies, I never knew any hippies, dippies, flakes, or protesters.

Everyone I knew worked like crazy.

[codyjacksmom]

And you could hear him???

[Fiddlstix]

I've been a grandpa for several years now. It doesn't bother me a bit.

(Well, I'm not a boomer either. LOL)

[dakine]

hahaha...touche!