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"grandma!"

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

As we ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant this morning (a mistake we don't intend to repeat), a woman of about five years older than me was admiring Kenny. I told her quietly, "Don't be offended if he calls you Grandma!"

I felt the warning necessary because Kenny said "Grandma" every time another women from a neighbouring table would pass by. My mother has only been a grandmother herself for 21 months and isn't at all 'aged'—three years ago a hotel clerk called her my 'partner', clearly not realizing the extent of the age difference between us! But this woman was probably only ten years older than me. Not exactly common "Grandma" material.

Then it dawned on me. The woman at the next table was possibly the only other middle-aged Causasian woman other than his Grandma that the boy has seen in the past year. He might have filed anyone who looks like her in the "Grandma" category.

There is a precedent. The little daughter of one of Mari's friends took to calling her mother "Daddy" when the woman went back to work. It seemed that the girl mentally associated "Daddy" with "goes away during the day".

But honestly, Kenny; you're asking for trouble when you go around addressing every Caucasian/Anglophone woman "Grandma".