If It Weren’t For Grandmothers, We Might Still Be Apes.
Grandma on Campus
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on March 13, 2015
Take a bunch of teenagers with no families, and a bunch of grandparent-age people with extra energy and love. Add sunshine and a lovely campus. Blend. That is the successful recipe of San Pasqual Academy in southern California. A public-private partnership in operation since 2001, which bills itself as “the…Grandkids help keep Alzheimers at bay. Or not.
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on February 10, 2015
This just in from an Australian study reported in the journal Menopause: Since everyone knows that keeping mentally alert and socially engaged are plus factors in staving off dementia, a team of scientists decided to look at whether or not caring for grandchildren made a difference in the health of…Elephant Grandmothers, Giant Concern
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on January 12, 2015
You have probably heard about the threat to African elephants: 17,000 slaughtered in 2011. And grandmothers are at the center of this crisis. Elephants live in matriarchal tribes, headed by mature females. They are an extremely social species. The matriarchs know where the closest watering hole can be found, as well…Grandma Buddies
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on December 15, 2014
One thing I hadn’t anticipated about grandmotherhood was the continuation of the girl buddy system. We lend and borrow porta cribs when the kids come to visit. We commiserate about distance and closeness. We marvel at the mix of personalities, and track them through time. We trade tips about playgrounds, parks; easy ways…Barefoot Grandmothers Light Their World
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on November 17, 2014
Bunker Roy, the Indian social activist, has a well-deserved reputation for turning assumptions on their heads. One of his goals has been to introduce solar electricity to poor and rural villages. But when he brought village men to his Barefoot Colleges to learn solar engineering, he called the men untrainable. He said they were "...restless,…Grandmothers Saving Mother Earth
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on October 20, 2014
In 2004, 13 indigenous grandmothers heard the cry of Mother Earth. She was in agony, they said. She needed them "to help to heal her and all her inhabitants." Since then the women, who call themselves The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, come together from their homes in North…Impressively Bad Grandma Poetry
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on October 6, 2014
I would not be so naïve as to say that grandmothers are the only subjects of bad poetry. I would only point out some of the narrowness and shallowness of the genre. How about this classic opener: Everything my grandma does Is something special, made with love. There is even a…Grandma the Geek
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on September 22, 2014
Don’t you just hate that phrase: it’s so simple, even my grandmother can understand it? Rachel Levy hated it too; so she started a blog called Grandma Got STEM (which stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, for you liberal arts majors.) She called for people to write in about…The Grandmother Food Challenge
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on September 8, 2014
A 20-something Australian journalist decided to spend a week eating the way her grandmother did in 1964: eggs and bacon for breakfast, white bread and baked beans for lunch; and, for dinner, meat, three veg (one always potato) and dessert. At the end of the week, she was glad it…There really was a Granny Smith
Posted by Miriam Weinstein on August 26, 2014
In case you were worrying that this most popular of apple varieties was named as a marketing stunt, you can relax now. Granny Smith was real. And she was really cool. Maria Ann (Windsor) Smith, who was born in England in 1799, emigrated to Australia with her husband, Thomas, a…