If there is a doyenne of the parenting memoir, it would be Anne Lamott. Long before “parenting” was an actual word, an activity, a philosophy, Lamott chronicled what it was like to raise her son, Sam, in the book Operating Instructions. A journal of Sam’s first year, it has become required reading for any new or expectant mom who wants to know the real deal on motherhood. Lamott loves kids — she’s the kind of person who can calm a cantankerous toddler she doesn’t even know — but she wasn’t anticipating having another in her life quite yet. Her grandson, Jax, was born when Sam was just 19. Sam called to tell her the news the night before Thanksgiving 2008. “I’m going to be a father, “ he said. Lamott was stunned, nowhere near ready to assume a grandmotherly persona. “I was a young fifty-five,” she writes. “Maybe a medium fifty-five. Let’s say a ripe fifty-five, with a child just one year past his majority.” But, she notes, “Who asked me?” Lamott has had lots of practice holding her tongue in the nearly three years since Jax was born, particularly as it relates to Jax’s mom, Amy. As I’ve written before, the relationship between parents and grandparents can get pretty dicey; that’s where grandparenting classes come in. Lamott didn’t take one, but she tackles many of the same issues of navigating boundaries in Some Assembly Required, the generational sequel to Operating Instructions. The concept for Some Assembly Required — a grandparenting memoir instead of a parenting memoir — was suggested by Lamott’s editor. “I thought it would be exploitative,” says Lamott. “and he said it wouldn’t be if I didn’t exploit anyone.” For his part, Sam was all for it; he co-wrote the book with his mother and in the introduction, he describes Operating Instructions as “the greatest gift anyone has given me.” (MORE: Grandparenting 101: Teaching Grandma and Grandpa About Modern Parenting) Here is a portion of my conversation with Lamott about grandparenting, in which she shares her favorite acronym![]()
