Pregnant Pauses

I'm getting accustomed to the idea that people my age are becoming grandparents. It's only natural, with our kids coupling up and getting married and launching themselves into lives that don't really require our input. Yes, input. It must be why grandchildren were invented.

My friend put it all into perspective for me yesterday when she introduced me to a prospective grandmother -- well into her third trimester. She didn't look old at all, until my friend reminded me that she is, now,  who our mothers and mothers-in-law were back in the day, waiting for the call so they could come and help out. Wise. Ancient. Never too busy with their own lives to drop everything and take care of us. I looked at my new acquaintance through a different lens. Wise. Ancient. A has-been. She is a year younger than I.

She seems unfazed by her sudden descent into old age -- excited even. I thought about my other friend, newly "grandmothered" and looking even more spectacular then ever. I could swear she glows, especially when she announces how many ounces the baby sucked down yesterday. I gasped with enthusiasm at the news, though I had no idea why it was news. It's been a while since I've measured (or cared) what any of my kids have eaten.

Come to think of it, it's been a while since any of my kids have required my input. If anything, I am the seeker, not so much of input but of approval and validation and reassurance that they still need me, even though they really don't. Suddenly, I realize all is not lost. I remember those disconcerting feelings of incompetence, those early days when, suddenly, somebody's very existence depended on me. I had lost my status, I was no longer the omniscient and capable adult who wondered how her own parents managed to get through the day without doing something really stupid. I needed my mother, I needed my mother-in-law, I needed anybody who might be able to tell me what to do.

It didn't last long, that desperate need for input from the very people I had long discounted as somewhat ignorant and incompetent. But for the grandmothers, the new found joy long outlasted my temporary desperation. They had gotten a taste of "input," and they weren't about to let it go. It would be a long time before the grandchildren would catch on, begin to roll their eyes, figure out just how little their elders know.

Kudos to the guy or the gal who invented grandchildren. I think I get it.