Not Every Older Woman is a Grandmother

Why must any story about an older woman refer to her as a grandmother, when that has nothing to do with what the story is about?

Have you noticed that stories about older women often include their reproductive histories, even when that has nothing to do with what the story is about? 

A 70-year-old grandmother ran the marathon.

A 65-year-old grandmother completes her PhD. 

Have you noticed that the same is not often true for articles about men? You may read about a 70-year-old man winning a race, but you won’t often read whether he is a grandfather or not. 

Don’t get me wrong. I loved my grandparents. I miss them, those that I was lucky enough to meet and get to know at all. I loved my great grandparents and how sweet their relationship was right up until the very end. I loved how they helped me feel loved and included.

I respect and appreciate women that have had children and now have grandchildren. (I chose not to have children). Many of my friends share their joys about their grandkids. I collect their photos and enjoy watching these tiny humans grow so quickly.

Women deserve to be described by all that they are and not immediately categorized so that readers may know which box to put them in, perhaps not hearing the rest of who they are and what they have accomplished. Might referring immediately to someone as a grandmother be another subtle form of ageism or a way of somehow changing the quality of what they accomplished?

I don’t need to be called granny, as I am not a granny. Yes, I am old enough to be a granny, but the truth is that I am not a granny. 

Yet I am still an elder of worth, even if I did not choose to reproduce for my own private reasons. 

Women are very blessed to be able to give birth, but this does not have to be an automatic first line descriptor of who we are. We are more than our capability to reproduce. We are more than any adjective that defines what choices we may have made in that arena. We are more. 

We are elder women who have survived and made it to this point in our lives, and that is an accomplishment. 

We are elder women who may have wisdom to share that may have nothing to do with parenting.

We are elder women who have stories to tell about our lives, our desires, our battles, our pain, our joy, our very selves. We have stories that may not have anything to do with being mothers or grandmothers.

There are some of us that did not have children. For some, sadly, the choice was not theirs to make. I do not mean to discount that pain at all. It can be heartbreaking, I know, as I have been with friends who have experienced this struggle and deep sadness.

But, as an elder who is single by choice, childless by choice, and very much alive and with stories to tell, I really don’t need to always see grandmother in front of every article about women my age. 

Perhaps we can look beyond the labels that then can categorize someone and inadvertently help blur out other parts of their lives. Maybe we can allow some time to hear about all that they may have done, or what happened to them, or what a written article may be sharing about them without having to define them as grandmothers? Does it change what they did, them being grandparents? Does it bring more or less value to what they did? Does it somehow become more surprising to know that this elder woman was also a grandmother and that she accomplished something wonderful? 

I like to give people a chance to learn a bit about me before I tell my exact age. I think that this allows room for more of me to be seen before I get quickly categorized, before my stories are more easily dismissed or perhaps put into the cute category. Of course, people know that I am an elder, as my appearance lets them know. Yet I think that the exact number of years, our age, can be used to categorize (and sometimes dismiss) us or what we may have to share. 

I may read that a 70-year-old grandmother was able to start painting and open her own gallery in her later years. Or I can read that an elder woman only started to paint later in her life and now has a gallery. Or I can read that there is a new gallery in town with paintings by a relatively new artist whose paintings are reflective of the bittersweetness of life. And oh, by the way, this woman is 70. And she is a grandmother. 

Can you feel the difference? Can you feel perhaps your interest and how it may differ depending on how this woman is presented? What if I had not included that it was a woman. Perhaps that may have changed your initial perception even more.

I believe that structure and categories are important, can help us organize our thoughts about things, and can help provide some order. But let’s not box things or people in too quickly, before we even have a chance to see who they are and all the richness and complexity within them. 

Now that I think about it, maybe we don’t have to box ourselves in this way either. Maybe I don’t have to automatically fit myself into what an elder should be or what someone old enough to be a grandmother should be. Maybe that has nothing to do with who I might be inside. 

And maybe others can begin to see all of who I am that has nothing to do with whether I reproduced or not.