By Kimberly Yavorski 
When people learn you will be a new mom, you get congratulations, lots of unsolicited advice, and scary birth stories. When people learned I was to be a new grandma, I got congratulations, comments about how much better it would be than being a parent (After all, you can give them back when they cry. Haha.), and what seemed to me to be a rather strange question: What will the baby call you?
While my answer was honest, “Whatever he or she decides to call me,” (after all, my grandfather had no say when toddler-me called him Dumpa), I was caught off guard by the question. The idea had not even occurred to me. Then I started to see articles on how to choose your grandparent name. While it seems this really is a thing, it feels to me like choosing your own nickname—it might be a name you like, but rather forced and inauthentic, not like a name you’ve earned.
Growing up, we referred to our grandparents as Grandma and Grandpa. When it was necessary to differentiate between the pairs, we added their last name. (We did have one notable exception when a new man came into Grandma’s life and acted as a grandfather for what turned out to be decades before they eventually married, we called him Grandpa Joe.)
When my oldest, the first grandchild, began to make sense of the world through language, she created her own ways to differentiate between her seven grandparents (she had three living great-grandparents). My grandmother always referred to my daughter as “her little pickle,” so my daughter dubbed her Grandma Pickle, a name later grandchildren would also adopt. (Side note, this makes me super conscious of not using “pet names” with my new grandchild. While I am open to being given a name, I really don’t want to be called Peanut or Stinker.) She labeled my mom and mother-in-law according to who lived with them—one after the family dog and the other after the youngest child still living at home. Curiously, with the exception of Grandpa Joe, the grandfathers remained simply Grandpa. I guess it’s just a Grandma thing.
While of course I hope for something more dignified than Dumpa (though my dear grandpa wore that name as a badge of honor), whatever name I do end up with is unimportant. What is important to me is that I am called—often and for any number of reasons.
I want my children to call me for things grandchild-related, as I did my parents and in-laws: To share news–of first teeth, first steps, and other accomplishments. To share worries–of injuries and illnesses, developmental concerns, and troubles at school. To invite me to school functions, sports events, and performances or to the zoo/museum/park. To hold down the fort when they get an opportunity for a night out or to take an adults-only trip.
I want to be called to spend time with my grandkids, like my children did with their grandparents and my grandma did with me: To have planned or impromptu weekend sleepovers. To plan and execute elaborate tea parties and kitchen experiments. To see the latest kids’ movies or play mini golf. To take vacations to fun places with or without parents.
I want my grandchildren to call me, as I did my grandmother as a teenager and later as an adult: To say hello and catch me up on their everyday lives. To share their hard days and seek comfort. To invite themselves to come visit for a weekend. To ask for help–for everything from school projects to settling into a new home, to helping wrangle great-grandchildren.
I want to be called with the expectation I’ll say yes, like mine and my kids’ grandparents did: To staying up late watching movies with popcorn and ice cream. To building blanket forts in the living room and reading books by flashlight. To making trips to the library to learn about the bird that chose to build a nest in the backyard. To learning new things without worrying about the mess that will eventually need to be cleaned up. To traveling hours to watch them do something they love even if it lasts only 15 minutes. To letting them teach me about something they are passionate about. To trying new things with them that neither of us has experienced before.
So to the people who worry about what I will be called: It makes no difference to me. My grandchildren may choose Grandma, Oma, Nonna, Baba, or something completely different. What they call me doesn’t matter. I just want to get the call.
by Renee Emerson 
