“GRANDPAWPAWpawpawpaw!” my daughter screamed into the phone.
“GRAMPY! Where are you?”
“GRANDPA! Pick up the phone!!”
“Gramps, it’s your favorite granddaughter…”
She’s also my parents’ only granddaughter, which is why we make a point to call them at least once a day. The aforementioned screaming is a taste of what my mom and dad hear on their answering machine when they (gasp!) miss my daughter’s daily call.
As you can see, my creative first grader has a litany of nicknames for her beloved maternal grandparents… and she is certainly not shy about creating more on the fly and employing each and every one to her advantage.
No mundane monikers for my parents. Thanks to my silly six-year-old, grandma and grandpa have new names on a daily basis.
Interestingly, she is not alone. “Grandma” and “Grandpa” seem passe these days. Go to a local playground and you’ll hear kids addressing their grandparents by all sorts of other names: Pop-Pop, Grams, Meemaw, Nana, Glamma, Babka, Abuela, Bamma, G-ma, Gannie, Opa, Bube, the list goes on indefinitely.
What’s more, grandparents are living longer these days. Consequently, many children are blessed to have two sets of grandparents in their lives.
My daughter is no exception.
She has two sets of healthy grandparents who live 5,000 miles away from each other, yet she interacts with both on a regular basis. Of course, this creates somewhat of a dilemma when it comes to calling each by name.
My daughter calls her paternal grandparents “Grandma and Grandpa” when she is with them, but when she isn’t, she adds their last name. For example, she’ll tell my mom that she went to “Grandma Scott’s*” house to fish.
My brothers and I did the same. We grew up in Hawaii with my maternal grandparents whom we called “Grandma” and “Grandpa.” My paternal grandparents lived in New Jersey, so we always referred to them as “Grandma and Grandpa in New Jersey,” or more accurately, “grandmaandgrandpainNewJersey.”
Of course, there are some grandparents, who despise cutesy pseudonyms, and demand that their children’s offspring refer to them by their first names or something cooler, like “Chief” or “Mad Dog.”
Is being called “Grandpa Bill,” really so bad?
What do your kids call your parents?
(* not her real name)