Grandparenthood
"Since I don’t have a mother, you don’t have a grandmother. You’re leaving me orphaned again, my child, out of pure love." Guest author: Cecilia Sorrentino writes about grandchildren and grandmothers.
Sometimes I wonder if I will have grandchildren, and if so, whether I will get to know them. But more often, I feel sadness, frustration, and helplessness knowing that León and Lorenzo will never meet my parents, their Argentine abuelos.
What Andrés Neuman wrote in his beautiful book Umbilical moved me: "Since I don’t have a mother, you don’t have a grandmother. You’re leaving me orphaned again, my child, out of pure love."
I have spent over ten years without my parents. It may seem paradoxical, but during my most important moments, I never felt the weight of orphanhood. It was as if, in some profound way, they were still with me — perhaps it's because a part of them continues to live on within me.
Since Lorenzo was a baby, I spoke to him about my parents in a way that felt completely natural, sharing stories about their lives and passions without any heaviness or sadness.
I told him they were architects and that they loved folklore. And that, when we went on vacation on the Argentine coast, we would hide a bill with a brick in a plastic bag and bury it in the sand to find it the following year.
When I wore a gray sweater that my mother knitted for me, Lorenzo, then two, would say: “Aela Etén.” During the pandemic, when I was drinking mate on the beach, Lorenzo shouted: “Auelo Egar, auela Etén.” Recently, during bedtime talks, Lorenzo cried because he wanted to see his grandparents Esther and Edgar. Suddenly, he calmed down and said: “I met your parents when I was a star, before coming here.”
In any case, my children do have grandparents — their Italian nonni, Irene’s parents. With them, they create memories that they will never have with my parents, whom I make present through selective, spontaneous, and whimsical stories.
It’s common to fall into the trap of family as a false representation of comfort. If each person is a world, each family would be a galaxy, right? And everything and anything fits there.
In my childhood, New Year’s celebrations were highly anticipated. I experienced them with excitement and joy. It was a time to be with my siblings and cousins in large gatherings where I had so much fun waiting anxiously for midnight on the 24th for the gifts to magically appear under the tree.
I think it wasn’t until I was 20 that I realized all that I took for granted wasn’t the same for everyone — that there are even people who hate Christmas celebrations. It was when I lived in Mallorca and spent the first holidays without my family.
The last time I was in Buenos Aires for the holidays was in 2019. Every December since then, five years later, I miss being there with an intensity that hardly appears at any other time of the year.
It would be easy to say that I wish my children could experience the holidays as I did in Buenos Aires — with excitement, and surrounded by the warmth of family and friends. But it’s more sincere to accept that this desire is my own. It’s me who wishes things could be as they once were — because my children are here now, and my parents are no longer with us.
I discussed some of these topics with Cecilia Sorrentino — a friend, writer, novelist, and beautiful person. Ceci had the brilliant idea to gift me a text for Recalculating: she wrote "Abuelidades" or Grandparenthood. Here, she reflects on the changes she experienced with her grandchildren over time. I hope you enjoy the text as much as I did.
Grandparenthood
Like so many times over the past five or six years, I find myself arriving at the kindergarten gate a few minutes before pick-up time. As usual, I’m greeted with smiles and hellos from young parents who make room for me among them.
This afternoon, they’re chatting, incredulous and excited, about the end of this chapter in their children’s lives. I tell them that I was thinking the same thing as I was walking here — or almost. Because for me, today marks the last day of kindergarten for my youngest grandchild. The last afternoon of kindergarten.
I can remember my own excitement at witnessing my son’s and daughter’s growth — a kind of bittersweet celebration overshadowed by the awareness of fleeting time.
As a grandmother, however, it’s not that there is a lack of celebration; it’s that the finitude of life sweeps it away. And I think of my three grandchildren: Helena (8), Nicolás (7), and Alfonso (6) in a state of perplexity. Eight years have passed from the joy of connecting through a gaze to the bewilderment of not knowing how to be with them — what to propose — and lately also what to do about my own fatigue.
In these eight years, I’ve shared their first discoveries; I’ve played wholeheartedly; I’ve sung lullabies from my grandmother; I’ve spun tales that they remember but I don’t. We made magical phone calls during those pandemic nights so we wouldn’t lose touch, and I revisited Greek myths that Nico still finds fascinating. With Alfonso, I experienced his first train ride — a memory he treasures more each time he recalls it. From Helena, I hold onto her amazed “ah”s when she was just seven or eight months old, captivated by my box full of ribbons.
From all three grandchildren, I cherish scenes, words, gestures, questions — metaphors that linger. As folk rock performer, composer and interpreter León Gieco says: “everything is stored in memory.” And, just in case, in my notebooks too.
But today, I realize that this phase of their childhood is marked by “still” and “no longer.” Like everything in life. But from my perspective as a grandmother, it feels faster and sometimes even more challenging.
I’m still walking with Nico along the sidewalk, trying not to step on the lines between tiles. I still point out flowers and manage to get Alfonso to stop with me and say: “It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?” I still play hide-and-seek with Helena, though now that she’s older, I’m unsure how to navigate her newfound shyness and silence. When she lets me, I hug her tight. I never know if it’s enough.
I have friends who also dedicate much of their time to being grandmothers while pursuing other passions, studies or careers that excite us. Some are still caring for very elderly parents. For us, grandparenthood is a constant question — a challenge we often discuss together. Sometimes it’s also a pain we only express in those conversations.
We arrive at this stage of grandparenting like we do with almost everything: without an instruction manual. We aren’t grandmothers like our mothers were — and some parenting guidelines are not the ones we followed: how could you lay a baby down on their stomach? The issue of credit (or lack thereof) that some pediatricians afford us deserves special mention — as does learning not to voice every thought we have.
Our help is essential, but we don’t always get it right — and sometimes we face comments or reprimands instead. Everything happens so quickly that if we do have an answer or two, they often come to us only after we’re back home sprawled out on the couch, overwhelmed by a new kind of exhaustion that sometimes starts at our waist but always reaches our heads.
L says that when her grandchildren leave, she feels her head filled with cotton and needs time to get back to her life. M discovered that it feels lighter if she manages to create some sort of program — songs, papers, cardboard boxes — game prompts. When they enjoy themselves, I get less tired, she explains.
And above all else — I think — we manage to shorten screen time — a true obsession for all of us grandmothers!
B remembers her mother at her current age: every afternoon she knitted while looking after her granddaughter; they watched soap operas together — their lives unfolding indoors. In contrast, as she observes herself as a grandmother, she speaks of perplexity: days filled with personal activities and work crammed into pressured weekly schedules. We carry too heavy a load — and can’t find our way through this phase of work and love. These feelings generate tension and make me feel off balance.
M shares that she can’t say no when she is asked for help: “I know they need me to do the pick-up and stay until my son is back.” And it fills me with happiness when my granddaughter wants to sleep over at my house. But do you know how long it takes me to rest, to recover from the fatigue of happiness?
I am left thinking about something else she says, because perhaps it touches on the deep roots of this perplexity of ours: when at this point in life we stop to look at the children we love, we also see our own vulnerabilities.
This is us for now. There are many things that I plan on changing in 2025, but for now, I would love to thank you once again for being there for me — two years in!
Thank you very much to those who keep sharing this newsletter, subscribing and writing to me (you can always do it by answering this mail, I answer everything!).
I love it when you send me suggestions or complete, criticize or correct some idea. I also love it when you share your own experiences. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.
You can find the archive of all the past editions of Recalculating here.
If you want to give me a hand, it helps me a lot if you “like” the publication (it's the little heart that appears there) or if you share it with someone (a thousand thanks to all of you who have been doing it! 😉).
You can also post it on social networks and follow me on Twitter (@pereyranacho), Instagram (@nachopereyra23) or Facebook (Nacho Pereyra).
With love,
Nacho
🙏 Many thanks to Worldcrunch for translating and editing this newsletter.
