Mother’s — Grandmother’s — Day every day: Islander counts her blessings with toddler
Plans were still in flux for Mother’s Day, Lisa Shaw said last week, but a couple of things are certain. “I’ll get plants or a tree to plant,” said the mother of two and grandmother of four. “Everyone knows I love to garden.”
The other guaranteed fact is that after Sunday she’ll be back, as always, to her twice weekly portions of pure joy — caring for her 2 and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, Laila, the daughter of her son Adam Hashagen and daughter-in-law Lisa.
Ms. Shaw travels to Greenport where the family lives to spend the day with the little one, or Lisa Hashagen — the manager of the Shelter Island Heights Pharmacy — brings Laila across on the ferry to “Mimi,” as Ms. Shaw has been dubbed by Laila.
Part of the pleasure of being with Laila is, she said, “to truly appreciate what’s going on with her development as a person. It’s wonderful. As a parent you’re so ‘in’ it, it’s this continuum, so sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what’s going on with the child. Parents are so busy doing everything 24/7.”
The grandparent has a wider view, with time to witness and appreciate the child growing, learning and beginning to understand the world.
ACTIVE ALL THE WAY
Asked if they’re a stay-at-home couple, Ms. Shaw answered with a resounding, “No. We go out. We’re out all the time. Laila is a very active little girl.”
No slouch either when it comes to being active, Ms. Shaw is a community activist, a singer, songwriter and playwright. Her enchanting hit last year, “The Prospect of Summer,” will be followed this summer by a new play slated for July 20-23, on the Shelter Island History Center stage.
A favorite place for Mimi and Laila is the Tot Lot, the playground for toddlers (and those a bit older) on School Street. “It’s a wonderful place for the community, and she loves it,” Ms. Shaw said, quickly adding, “Well, we love it.”
A Shelter Island day will often include a breakfast at Star’s Café “for muffins,” and the two travel farther afield sometimes, recently going to Bridgehampton’s Children’s Museum, which Ms. Shaw described as an important resource for East End kids, parents and grandparents.
GRANDPARENT DATA
According to data from Pew Research Center, about one in five grandparents, like Ms. Shaw, care for a child on a part-time basis. The nonprofit Independent Women’s Forum has reported that one big demographic trend for American grandparents is that their numbers are increasing. This is due to people living longer, with life expectancy rising globally from 51 to 72 since 1960. The Independent Women’s Forum notes that more grandparents (usually grandmothers) helping to raise children is a sign of stability for the family, since kids “are often looking for adult role models and trusted friends outside of their parents. Grandparents are ideal candidates because they are usually still connected with mom and dad and can help build and maintain bridges between parents and children rather than destroying them.”
And the benefit goes both ways, as Pew’s research found. When people were asked to “rank what they valued most about growing older, 31% of the women and 19% of the men, ages 65–74, ranked spending time with their grandchildren first.”
NEW TIMES, OLD VALUES
Times change, and those actively involved with their grandchildren have a unique window on what remains the same in raising children and what is new territory. “It’s a very different world from when I raised my children,” Ms. Shaw said. “But human nature doesn’t change, and developmental steps don’t change.”
The information age has its upside of gaining knowledge on childhood, but it has its downsides, as well, Ms. Shaw said. “If a child gets a little rash, you can Google it and come up with 14 different versions of what you’re looking at, and immediately head for the pediatrician’s office.”
It used to be, she added, that sometimes if you waited just a day, that angry looking rash would not amount to much of anything.
One difference that mothers now face in our area is, as Ms. Shaw said, “the economic burdens, the financial pressures, the cost of living here that we have now. Added to the other pressures of mothers who have to work, clean the house, cook, all those things that contribute to the pressure mothers, and fathers, face every day. And the kids feel it.”
Ms. Shaw knows what an older woman can contribute to a mother raising young children. “As a grandparent, I look back and appreciate those who gave me good advice during our parenting years,” she said. “Raising a child as a new parent, valiantly hoping you’re doing it right, is very different from being, so to speak, in the audience, as a grandparent who’s experienced the highs and lows of child-rearing. And, dare I say, the grandparent is somewhat chill about the whole thing. The lack of stress creates a space where joy can run in.”
More of that emotion is on its way for Ms. Shaw and her husband Tom Hashagen.
Their daughter, Sara Verwymeren, along with their son-in-law Nick, and grandchildren Lucy, Sam and Max, will be moving from Canada and soon will be in residence on Shelter Island.
The future looks bright for many more Happy Mother’s — and Grandmother’s — Days.
