Stepping Out

On becoming a grandparent

Legendary journalist Lesley Stahl pens best-seller

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Living and working longer, today’s baby boomer-aged women are embracing and transforming the experience of grandmothering in ways never before seen. One of those revolutionary “grans” is “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl, who applies her award-winning skills to understanding the challenges, rewards and emotions that come with this jolting and life-changing new identity of “Becoming Grandma.”
Hosted by Turn of the Corkscrew Books & Wine, Stahl will make a appearance at Madison Theatre, on the Molloy College campus, on April 5, to talk about the joys, pitfalls, and the ups and downs of grandparenting in the 21st century.
“Becoming Grandma” was a New York Times bestseller for eight weeks, also reaching No. 1 in the Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle. It’s a deeply personal memoir and practical guide within an investigation of the biochemistry, history, psychology, and economics of being a grandparent. Stahl has interwoven the stories and wisdom of active grandmothers throughout (including some well-known celebrities and Stahl friends, among them Whoopi Goldberg, Diane Sawyer and Ellen Goodman), along with lesser-known remarkable women who bring their insights as scientists, and psychiatrists — and grandmothers.
“Lesley Stahl brings her keen reporting from “60 Minutes” to the story of grandparenting,” says her colleague Cokie Roberts. “[She] provides useful information not only for grandparents and the children they cherish, but also for the wider society. This is a wonderfully fun read ...” 
Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called “Becoming Grandma” an “energetic, informative and often touching book...no matter where readers fall in age or experience, this book should top their 2016 reading list of parenting titles.” 

One of America’s most recognized and experienced broadcast journalists, Stahl’s career has been marked by political scoops, surprising features and award-winning foreign reporting. She has been a “60 Minutes” correspondent since 1991; the 2015-2016 season marked her 25th on the broadcast.  
Before joining “60 Minutes,” Stahl served as CBS News White House correspondent during the Carter, Reagan, and part of the George H.W. Bush presidencies. She also hosted “Face the Nation” from 1983 to 1991, and co-anchored “America Tonight” from 1989 to 1990. She is married to author and screenwriter Aaron Latham. They have one daughter and two granddaughters.
Stahl has said that the most vivid and transformative experience of her life was not covering the White House, interviewing heads of state, or researching stories at 60 Minutes. It was becoming a grandmother. She was hit with a jolt of joy so intense and unexpected, she wanted to “investigate” it — as though it were a news flash.
“That’s because a grandmother’s love is wholesome and consummate,” Stahl writes in her book, while she chronicles the ups and downs of this right of passage. “What I experienced with the births of Jordan and Chloe — that staggering thunderbolt of joy — is pretty universal.” Stahl jokes that one day, we may be clever enough to do autopsies of emotions. “There’ll be love coroners!” she writes. “And we’ll be able to dissect this grandparent tingling, give it a solid definition. Right now it’s so mysteriously pure it’s as impossible to define.”
And yet, she writes, it is open and easy for our grandchildren to read. “They sense its unconditionality and gravitate to it. And the great reward, the extra bonus points in these last thirty years, is they love us back.”

Stahl on grandparent evolution
“As we humans evolved,” Stahl writes, “grandmothers became the mainmast of the family. They improved the chances that offspring would be fit and helped them survive. But in the last hundred years, people the world over have been moving from farms into nuclear-family apartments in cities. As we, particularly in the U.S., became a mobile society and women went to work in droves, that tight grandmother link was loosened. But today we baby boomer grans are retightening. I have friends who move in to help their daughters for three or four months at a time. I know people who have picked up and moved across the country to live full-time near their grandchildren. In fact, almost three million grandmothers in the U.S. see their “job” as taking care of their grandkids.”

A place called Hope Meadows
Near and dear to her heart, Stahl will surely talk about Hope Meadows during her appearance next week. She calls it an “extraordinary place.” 
“It’s a planned community in Rantoul, Illinois, created for the sole purpose of rescuing children who were abused, neglected or abandoned,” she writes. “This amazing community plucks these kids out of the foster care system, where they have often been discarded by one family after the next. At Hope Meadows they are adopted into stable homes in a lovely, safe neighborhood. And here’s the secret sauce: the neighborhood comes with grandparents.”
“A group of retired senior citizens — some feeling they too had been discarded — have moved there to help heal the children. But — and this was not foreseen — the children end up healing them as well.”
According to their website, www.hopemeadows.org, seniors have come from all over Illinois, and the U.S. to be a part of their community. The common thread among them all is that they were getting ready for retirement but wanted to remain active and help make a difference. 
“I used to think life had four necessities: food, oxygen, love and friendship,” Stahl writes. “Now I know there’s a fifth: purpose. For the seniors at Hope Meadows the purpose isn’t only sustaining the children. They are also anchoring and assisting the adoptive parents, who, for the most part, have taken on more than they can handle by themselves.”

Booking signing, appearance at Madison Theatre
“We at Turn of the Corkscrew Books & Wine couldn’t be more pleased to be hosting Lesley Stahl at the Madison Theatre,” says Carol Hoenig, co-owner of the Rockville Centre bookstore. “Not only that, but I’ll have the opportunity to interview her.” Hoenig says that when she read the book, it was a delightful surprise to her, even through she’s not a grandmother.
“Readers may be interested to know that the book isn’t all warm and fuzzy, but it does address the complications that can come with being a grandparent. Lesley not only writes about her experiences, but discusses what being a grandparent means to some of her friends and co-workers. I think people will be surprised with what is in this book, and I’m looking forward to discussing the darker side of grandparenting with Lesley.”
At a time when grandparents are more vital — and needed by young parents — more than ever, “Becoming Grandma” offers a rich perspective on this changing life stage.

When/Where: Wednesday, April 5, 7 p.m. Madison Theatre, Molloy College, Rockville Centre. (516) 323-4444 or www. madisontheatreny.org.
Cost: $20, includes an autographed copy of the book.