Interview with Older Women

Women in families are the people who do the work of maintaining bonds between generations. This is even truer as women become grandmothers. While stereotypes often depict grandmothers as older, white-haired women, many do not fit this traditional pattern. These women do a lot for lending economic, social, and emotional support for their children and, increasingly, their grandchildren. For this assignment, I interviewed both my maternal and paternal grandmothers. My maternal grandmother, Grandma Mary is 70 years old and lives in Church Point, Louisiana. She has lived there her whole life. My paternal grandmother, Grandma Patrice is 68 and is from New Orleans, Louisiana where she has lived her whole life.

The family dynamic my grandmothers have with their adult children is mixed. My maternal grandmother spends very little time with any of her children. She was very abusive toward her daughters and as a result of this, they have all moved to other states to be away from her. My mother was the only female family member who attempted to have an adult relationship with her, but after years of disparaging comments and denying the abuse that occurred, she finally decided (at 40 years old) to stop picking up the phone and distance herself from Grandma Mary. Grandma Mary does have a son who lives in Church Point, but he is mentally challenged. When asked about this, Grandma Mary said she “did the best she could at the time.” Either because of this or in spite of this, he does not visit her or she does not visit him. This could also be, as the textbook says, because men do not feel as deep a need to make a connection with their parents as they get older, but I feel it probably relates to the abuse. She still today doesn’t acknowledge that she engaged in abuse, instead, she says she was “strict” because she was raised that way by her parents. This situation is very different for my Grandma Patrice, my paternal grandmother. All of Grandma Patrice’s kids come to her house regularly to spend time with her. Her female children do spend more time interacting with her, discussing things, cooking together, more so than the male children who often watch football together or drink beer together with Grandpa. Grandma Patrica said, “I was always cooking and cleaning in those days. I’m glad they’re over” and I don’t blame her. I feel that both my grandmothers are closer to their female children because as females they can discuss similar things and engage in similar gendered activities.

Both of my grandparents engaged in child care activities with their children, but not in the same amount. Because of the abuse, I was rarely left alone with Grandma Mary. Grandma Mary did come to our house and spend time with us, or we went to their place and played while my parents hung out with them, but she did very little direct supervision. I wasn’t aware of this as a young person, and Grandma herself said she was “always very nice to us, cooked us food, gave us gifts and hugs.” But this attitude was very different when we were not around and it was just my parents and her. I was told once they got into an argument so heated she grabbed a gun and they had to wrestle it from her! I came inside one day and found the gun on top of the refrigerator, but didn’t ask any questions. When I asked her about any fights between my mom and her she said, “You know, I can get kinda crazy sometimes, but nothing serious.” In contrast to this, Grandma Patrice did regularly watch my brother and me unsupervised. She didn’t get involved too much, she would just let us run around and play games while she cooked, and maybe told us to keep it quiet every now and then. She said she cooked because we always asked her to make “her famous New Orleans gumbo and jambalaya” all the time. So this is very similar to the text in that grandmother’s do a lot of the work in taking care of their children’s children.

I also received very different answers from both grandparents when I asked them about their brothers and sisters. Grandma Mary had another sister that was also her age as well as an older brother. She said she and her sister were very close. They were “very pretty back then, nice hair, blue eyes” and they would hang out a lot and do each other’s hair and “play hopscotch and games like that.” She wasn’t as close to her brothers, they were older in age and were expected at an early age to help the family by working so she didn’t see them as often. In contrast, my Grandma Patrice was the only girl in a family of three brothers. She said she regularly had to “act like a boy” in order to get attention. This meant eating as much as them, fighting, and getting dirty. If she did girly things like what my Grandma Mary described, she would be made fun of and ignored. Grandma Patrice grew up without a mother, her mom died when she was very young (but she wouldn’t give me other details), and so she bonded hard with her closest brothers and emulated what they did. From this information, I would say again that gender plays a big role in who we choose to socialize with, and this was true for my grandparents. Had my Grandma Patrice had a mom or sister, things would have been very different.

The material in this chapter really made me see how important my grandparents are to defining and developing the family, for better or worse. Grandmothers do a lot of work to help both their children and their children’s children meet the needs of everyday life. Without my Grandma Patrice, I would feel like I was missing someone very special. However, I also hold a lot of anger against my Grandma Mary for what she did to my mother. Both of my grandmothers became grandmothers pretty early in life, around age 40. I think for my Grandma Patrice she was ready and willing to offer her support and love, but for my Grandma Mary, she wasn’t ready to be a mother, so grandchildren were sort of a way for her to make up for what she did to her children. Despite the differences, I am thankful to have both of my grandmothers in my life in some way.