The arrival of the first grandchild is a world-shaking event, and the announcement of same an impressive project. Announcements of later arrivals get ever-lessening emphasis and eventually become merely routine, just a matter of record.
We now have our eighth. (She says sedately, trying to appear calm and collected.) Our second son's second child, supposed to be a man-child, turned out to be a second girl. But with Gram and Grandpa that is quite all right; the girls are pulling up a little more even in the race. (I say, Gram, not very dignified, perhaps you think. There was a time, with our first, when we were called Grandmother and Grandfather, and there was also great-grandmother and great-grandfather. But when more grandchildren got to talking there seemed to be less and less time for the old formalities, and so, in line with a snappy age, the youngsters of their own volition abbreviated the terms they used oftenest. Hence, Gram. My husband says he can stand that, but he doesn't think he could put up with Granny.) Our first was a granddaughter, then there were five grandsons in a row before we had another girl in the collection, so now our score is five boys and three girls. The tentative name is Theresa Gail. (Where does the younger generation find all these names?)
The father of this newest one was called Sonny in his childhood and it might as well have been called Sunny, for he was always smiling. He was the lucky type -- scarcely any illnesses or accidents, and tasks were easy for him. The youngsters who rode to high school with him used to say enviously that all he had to do to get his lessons was to ride home with his books in the same car; a sort of airy osmosis seemed to transfer the information to his brain, they claimed. His tour of duty in the navy was not too tough, and the war ended before he got into combat. He got his first job for the asking, and the second came without even that, and promotions have followed in amiable succession. Only in this one matter has he met frustration: both of his boys have turned out to be girls. Maybe it is good discipline for him to meet this much rebuff.
That remark about the eighth grandchild being routine was just conventional. As a matter of fact, the more you have, the more fascinating they become. When we only had Caroline, it seemed to us that everything she did was unique -- no other child in the world could be as charming and as interesting. Then her little brothers, Rick and Mark, began to do the same things at the same stage of development; and what was more surprising, the cousins, too, followed the same pattern of development -- Mike and Tim and Karen often duplicate some sweet little habit that I remember from Caroline. If a person had enough granchildren, he would finally come to see, that in spite of individualities, all human beings are basically much alike. So we might sum it up that the proper study of mankind is grandchildren -- you get so much more loving kindness and generosity of judgment that way than if you just study man. -- Hope.