What’s a Glam-ma anyway?

According to the New York Times a glam-ma is a healthy, hip young senior. Hmmmm. Let’s see. I’m healthy (as far as I know) but hip? That depends on who you ask. My 22 year old son (the one who said Nanablogs was a good idea because old people need something to do) would never describe me as “hip.”

My seventeen year old twins think I’m slightly crazy, but “hip”?  Not unless you mean the part of my body that keeps expanding and making my jeans too tight. Speaking of which (I’m having a stream of consciousness moment) did you read about Demi Moore’s hip getting air brushed? She’s on the cover of some hotsy-totsy magazine and it seems one hip doesn’t match the other. When they air brushed them they took too much out and her two sides don’t match. Ask me if I feel sorry for the magazine or the person responsible who goofed? Go ahead, ask me? Okay, I’ll tell you anyway. NO! Demi is beautiful and it shouldn’t matter if her hips are hippier than they once were. Why do women have to fit into a 34-24-34 mold? Good grief. Give us a break and give young girls some evidence that you don’t have to be what society considers perfect to be on the cover of a magazine. End of rant.

Back to the definition of glam-ma. The last phrase in the New York Times definition was “young senior.”  Another hmmmmm. I get AARP in the mail and their newsletter by email. I color my hair and have enough wrinkles to qualify, so okay, I guess that word fits. I guess I had rather be a young senior than an old freshman.

Now that I have determined that I just might be a glam-ma (I just don’t like the sound of that word, do you?) read the following quote from the Times.

Susan Shapiro Barash, who teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College, said women with young children are looking for guidance from their mother or mother-in-law, but these days they are often looking in vain. (For whatever reason, they seem to have no such great expectation of their father or father-in-law.) Thoroughly modern grandmothers, so-called glam-mas, “feel they’ve put in their time,” Ms. Barash said. “They were devoted to children to the exclusion of their own freedom, and they’re not looking to repeat the mothering process with their grandchildren.”

Well that certainly kicks me out of the running.

Yes, I have raised five children, changed ten zillion diapers, fixed twenty zillion bottles, kissed boo-boos, read bedtime stories, etc. Did I enjoy every minute of it? Of course not. I’m not that crazy.There were days when I was tired and whiny and just putting one foot in front of the other took effort. There were times when finances were such a struggle that the weight of worry hung over me like a big, black cloud.

But then there were the good times. Bath time bubbles, baby powder and now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep prayers. Kisses, hugs, and “I love you, Mommy.”  First day of school, book bags, and friendships. Ballgames, boy/girl friends, and graduation. It goes by in a blur, so fast it makes you dizzy.  And then one day you find yourself at the hospital holding another baby, your grandchild and that love, that wonderful circle of love starts all over again.

So keep the glam-ma title. I didn’t like it anyway. I’d rather be a nana.

Definition: Number one helper, reader of books, hand holder, listener, adviser (when asked) and memory maker.