Baking cakes, flying kites, knitting socks, doing cartwheels - what kind of grandma will you become?

I’m one of 6 children, the youngest of 4 girls, so I’ve always had 3 big sisters as role models - trailblazing their way through all the milestones in life. From the rebellious, feisty teenage tantrums and traumas, through power dressed, career driven 20 somethings , then baby brained, cosy new m...ummydom and recently empty nesters re-discovering their friends, their husbands, themselves and adult conversation, they’ve always been a great indicator of the thrills and spills I’ll have along the way.

But now with 2 of them already grandmas they are continuing to surprise and enlighten me – I spoke to one on the phone the other night and she told me how she’d spent a evening, sat on her sofa proudly stitching nametapes into tiny items of school clothing ready for her granddaughter’s first day at primary school. Then I bumped into the 2nd, breezing round Waitrose with her toddler grandson perched aloft her “skinny jean” clad hips, she was gathering together the ingredients to whizz him up some homemade hummus for his lunch. With these two proving to be pretty fab “Nanas” and the fact that grandmas nowadays are more likely to be climbing up Mount Kilimanjaro than climbing into a rocking chair to crochet it got me thinking about how the role has changed over the years and, though it’s a good few years away yet, what kind of grandma I’ll become!

Sadly I lost my grandparents over 20 years ago so all I have are photos and memories to remind myself of the 2 grandmas I did have. I do remember the one as being a strong, proud, matriarchal, slightly intimidating lady who instilled in us all the importance of good deportment and immaculate manners (and oddly a hatred of boiled cabbage!). My other grandmother was an altogether softer, quieter, cuddlier type with an seemingly endless supply of toffees, funny stories and knitted delights. Lovely as they both were they were what we think of as traditional grannies, as unlikely to roll around on the floor playing “rough and tumble” with their grandkids as they were unlikely to turn up to collect them from the school gates wearing a mini skirt and trendy boots!

So with these two opposite ends of the “grandma spectrum” what type will I, or indeed you, become. At the moment I’m rather fancying becoming the “Granny takes a trip” type – whizzing up to visit my grandkids in an open top sports car, bestowing perfumed hugs and “mwah” kisses, sweeties, and tales of what reprobates their parents were when they were young. Because I left it quite late to bear my children I might have to dismiss any ideas of getting down on my hands and knees to play with tiny train sets and teddy bear tea sets but only time will tell exactly how I’ll fulfil my role.

Of course I’m also massively aware that many women of my generation won’t ever become mothers, let alone grandmothers, through their choice or personal circumstance. But now, with so many fractured families and so few safe, celebrity role models, more than ever the role that aunts, Godmothers and female friends play is of huge importance in the lives of young girls.

So, whenever, if ever, however you get the chance to influence a youngster’s life enjoy it, surprise them and enjoy surprising yourself too! xx