Blended Families

Go Arden!” I shouted from the shore as Stan’s 7-year-old granddaughter boogie boarded a Florida wave. A bystander perked up. Arden is my daughter’s name, she proclaimed, pointing to her 12-year-old. Is that your granddaughter? Yes, I demurred, in a moment of grandmotherly pride, assuming the conversation would end there. Technically, I’m her step-grandmother. What’s a little half-truth chit-chat among strangers, I rationalized. But the woman pressed on. What’s her middle name?

I felt my face freeze, like a contestant on a quiz show as seconds ticked by. Helene, I guessed, as if I was trying to beat a buzzer. (What real grandmother doesn’t know her granddaughter’s middle name?) Oh, said the woman, I love unusual names. She then ticked off the names of her other three children. I don’t remember what she said. But they were different all right. Arden is the only name my mother likes, she added. From what I recall, I agree with her mother. Then came her next question. Where did your granddaughter’s name come from? Gulp. What is this? An FBI interrogation? 

The whole truth and nothing but the truth is that Arden’s great-grandmother, Jenny’s real mother’s real mother, was named Arden. But I wasn’t ready to sit down and draw her a diagram. So I just said, It was the name of a beloved grandmother who I never met, but hear was quite a character. 

About that time Jenny and Arden emerged from the surf to join our conversation. Now this woman was making the automatic assumption that I was Jenny’s mother. My own mother’s warning about a fib growing into more fibs was putting me into a mild panic. Jenny wasn’t in on my ruse. She may inadvertently out me. Thankfully the conversation morphed into other beaches in the area that were fun for kids. Whew. Crisis averted. 

Later, I asked Stan, What is Arden’s middle name? He got that same game show contestant look on his face. He didn’t recall. Is it Helene? I asked. No, that’s Jenny’s middle name. At least I was in the right family. Finally, I had to ask Jenny. It’s Saylor, she said. What an interesting, unique name! Now I wanted to find that nosy tourist who liked unusual names and tell her, Saylor. Take that for a cool, unusual name.

Saylor did ring a bell. I remember seeing it once on Arden’s birth announcement, liking it, then never hearing it again. Jenny was pregnant with Arden when Stan and I met. I was out of town on a business trip when Arden was born. Stan and I weren’t yet married. That’s my excuse.

I’m not even sure if I have earned the title stepmother to Stan’s children. By the time I met them, they had finished college and were supporting themselves. All I had to do was meet them for dinner, buy a few birthday cards, and enjoy an occasional family vacation. I even like their spouses. Daughter-in-law Katie was the first to introduce the term “bonus mom” in reference to me and her real mother-in-law Cathie (daughter of the original Arden) on Mother’s Day. 

Between Boomer parents, who are divorcing and remarrying, along with their children having fewer children, this latest crop of kids must be wondering why there are so many old people staring at them. Stan and I had four grandparents each. Plus, they had other grandkids, our cousins, to keep them busy. My two grandsons have seven grandparents of some version in their lives and no cousins. I see no downside for the kids. You can’t have too many people pulling for you.

But it can get a little crowded over here in grandparentland. Stan chose the name Pappy as his grandparent name when Arden was born. Then, four months later when Eli was born, my former husband, John, thought Eli was such a happy kid, they would be a team, Happy and Pappy. 

It crossed my mind to mention that Pappy was taken. But it felt petty. So to my grandkids he’s Pappy-Stan. One way to avoid this is to pick a grandparent name absolutely nobody wants. In my case it’s Woo-Woo. 

Yes, it has been used to make fun of people like me who don’t see life as limited to this world of space and time. But here in grandparentland it has its political advantages. 

What grandparent name do you think every grandchild says first? Recently, Jenny was trying to get her toddler nephew, Henry, to say Aunt Jenny. Then, suddenly, I walked in the room, and he looked up and said Hi Woo-Woo!

This summer in Florida, Henry said it every day with total confidence. There is nothing fake about a toddler. I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice: He was glad to see me, whoever I am. That’s the bonus part. The fact is, I don’t like calling myself a step-anything. It sounds like I am stepping away from someone. Next time I’m asked my relationship to Arden or Henry, I will simply say they are my bonus grandchildren.