Hip baby boomers shun `granny' names

Houston Chronicle ^ | 3/20/04 | ELLEN WARREN

[qam1]

Hearing, "You don't look old enough to be a grandparent," is a little like being a good-looking corpse. Not the greatest compliment.

Baby boomers entering the grandparent years are launching a small semantic revolution to avoid the traditional label of senior citizen status. These youth cult boomers are demanding that their grandkids call them names with a younger sound than the traditional "grandma" and "grandpa."

"Baby boomers don't want to adhere to the blue-haired old granny stereotype. They are choosing young-sounding names for themselves because generally they don't think of themselves as grandparent age," says Norah Burch, 30, a self-described "name nerd" who has been tracking options for the new slew of first-time grandparents on her Web site, www.namenerds.com.

Burch's own mother decided that her grandchildren would call her "Moogie," the term for "mother" from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

"I don't have any problem, even for one second, being a grandmother. For me it's just the name," explained Laura Burch, who became a grandmother, at age 51, to Mikala, who is now 9 (followed by Jacob, 5, and Ari, 2).

Norah Burch says her mom, a potter who lives in Ithaca, N.Y., chose the unconventional name "because she associated `grandma' and `granny' et al with bingo playing and driving a giant Oldsmobile."

"My mom and her whole circle of friends, when they started having grandkids in their 50s, the thought of being called `grandma' was pretty awful to them. They weren't gray-haired old ladies sitting around in rocking chairs baking cookies."

One correspondent on namenerds.com writes, "My mom is your typical white middle-class suburban Southern Baptist Bible-thumpin' Dubya-suppportin' Texan. She has big, puffy, shellacked blond hair and wears T-shirts with three-dimensional objects hanging off them. She believes in Jesus Christ, the Republican Party, craft fairs and spiral perms. She has rebelled against Grandma because it sounds `old' and she's only 41."

She wants her grandkids to call her "Peaches." "She's even thinking of having a peach tattooed on her toe."

[GraceCoolidge]

My test is, "Can you imagine a topless dancer named that?" If so, do not name your child that.

That is one of the best naming philosophies I've ever heard... great test!

[AnAmericanMother]

I (b. 1955) called my grandparents Nana and Papa (mom's parents) and Gram (dad's mother - my paternal grandfather died when my dad was only 10, he never got to be a granddaddy. I'm sure he would have liked to be one . . . )

My children call their grandparents G'anny and Bubba (mine) and Grandma and Poppy (husband's).

[netmilsmom]

>>One more thing. I thank God every day for knowing my Grandmothers (rest their souls). Both were gray and spent many hours rocking grandchildren in their rockers, and I couldn't even begin to count the cookies they must have made for their families over the years.<<

Your post makes me tear up. I missed out on both of my Grannies. Mom's mom, after 12 children, passed on when I was two. Dad's mom moved to CA at the same time. I met her twice.
My own girls have missed my parents and his mom is a loon.
I try to be very good to my Great-Nieces and Nephews. Great-Aunts were all I had.

[GrandMoM]

Who cares what you're called?....a scornful poster who keeps posting these articles designed to belittle a whole generation. I sense ones excesive posting, to such an unresonable degree, comes from an underlying scorn for authority!

To bad much time is wasted in hatefullness, which is quite apparent, instead of confronting the source from which the ridicule is drawn.

....simply put, the poster needs to spend less time whining on FR and go back and talk with mommy and daddy.

[netmilsmom]

>>To have grey hairs is a thing of honor. To be a parent and a grandparent is one of the most wonderful things a person can experience. <<

Being a Granny is like being an Aunt. All the fun and none of the work!

[Not A Snowbird]

I have no problem being called grandma... in about ten years. My 14-going-on-21 daughter needs to grow up first.

[netmilsmom]

LOL!!!

[GraniteStateConservative]

The boomers brought slackers into the world through awful parenting, self-absorption, no-fault divorce, etc. Why don't boomers spend that cash they have on their own retirements and their own pills? I don't need an inheritance.

[netmilsmom]

CC
>> I sense an underlying jealousy that I am pregnant and in my most fertile years<<

This is the truth!!
My middle sister constantly told my, virgin until 21, niece that she was sleeping around. My poor niece could never understand it until I told her how much of a tart her mom was and that mom was just jealous that her daughter was young and cute!

[radiohead]

Any progeny I might have who call me anything containing "moo" will find themselves disinherited right speedily.

LOL! It was early (left coast time) when I wrote that. My brain hadn't warmed up to see the possibilities for hilarity at my expense w/that name.

Is it wrong to be picking names for nonexistent grandchildren? (who won't be calling me moogie)

[cupcakes]

Very endearing. I just don't understand why some folks want to reject the idea of being the grandma or grandpa. I think they are distinguished titles and roles to play and let's face it, it is a heck of a lot more fun to be the grandma;-) I'm not there yet(34), but my hubby could be a grandpa if he had kids earlier(he's 42) and his wish now is to raise his own children and be blessed to live long enough to see and enjoy his own grandchildren someday.

[R. Scott]

My late wife became a grandmother in her late 30’s. While she was a bit young to be a “real” baby boomer (born 1959) she never minded being called “Granny Sheryl”.
Of course, neither of us tried to run from that which is hard to avoid - age. As my daddy would often say, “It’s a real bitch getting old - but it beats the only alternative.”

[GraniteStateConservative]

You're just in the extreme minority.

[netmilsmom]

Geez, I'll be 55 at least when I get my first grandchild. Wow, I started late.

(I'll watch your boys - my girls would love new playmates!)

[netmilsmom]

I swear you are my niece! My sisters are so much like your mom and Aunts. All my friends ask if my sisters are changlings!

[netmilsmom]

>>And, btw...your parents owe you or your children absolutely nothing. Anything parents do for grown children or grand children is up to them. I raise my rather large family one way by my own choice, the guy around the corner does it his way, by his own choice<<

Spoken like a true boomer.
Most of the parents of baby boomers WANTED to be Grandparents. At least my parents did.

[beelzepug]

"Baby Boomers should just be put in mass graves."

How special. You found time to put down your "Bush Lied" sign or your pathetic "Will work for food" piece of cardboard to stagger into a public library and use a taxpayer-furnished computer to post this garbage. Did you stop to think that your generation might be one component of the "plague of social ills" you claim we're responsible for? Comments such as yours could make me reconsider my position on Roe v. Wade.

[Soaring Feather]

Well, now isn't this special? :-)

[dogbyte12]

I want to be a gramps, or a grandpa. However, my in laws freak me out a bit with their love of it. They only refer to themselves in the third person now.

Grandma is going to go do this. Grandpa wants a drink. They even do it when there are no grandkids in the room. That kinda freaks me out a little. But it is their pride and joy to be grandparents.

[Lost Highway]

Just about every problem with America is summed up in this little phrase "Hip baby boomers".