Green is a good color for grandparents when it signifies environmental awareness. It’s not such a good color when it represents jealousy. I just read a plea for help from a young mother who is being driven to distraction by the demands of her baby’s grandparents. Each set resents the time that the young family spends visiting the other set. One solution suggested by the advice columnist was that the couple use a spreadsheet to allocate their time with different grandparents! It’s wrong for grandparents to be so petty, especially considering the countless grandparents who don’t get to see their grandchildren at all.
As I was thinking of time spent with family, I remembered the old adage, “A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life.” I can see how this would have been true in older times, when daughters in need of advice turned to their mothers instead of their doctors, friends or the Internet. I’m curious about whether it is still true today, in a more modern, fluid society. Have you observed this phenomenon in your families, that daughters stay closer to their parents than sons do? Vote in the poll, and leave a comment if you like.
Jealous Grandparents and Other Issues originally appeared on About.com Grandparents on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 18:17:41.
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In a book as provocative and newsworthy as Listening to Prozac and Driven to Distraction, a physician speaks out on America’s epidemic level of diagnoses for attention deficit disorder, and on the drug that has become almost a symbol of our times: Ritalin.
People think of ADD as a kid’s problem. But kids grow up. Many adults also struggle with ADD. There are book resources on the market for these folks. But they are often too long. Or too complicated. Or too dry and clinical. Adults with ADD need straightforward tools for coping with real experiences. This book offers exactly what they need.
