Rename Grandparent's Day?

Grandparent's Day is celebrated in September. Lately, it has been overshadowed as it falls the same time as  memorial events for 9/11.  Perhaps  this is a good time to remarket the concept.

Grandparent's Day should be an occasion to gather family members and children around their elderly relatives. The idea is to share family heritage and traditions that might have been taken for granted or ignored because everyone is too busy and going their own way.

Having a warm fuzzy day honoring grandpas and grandmothers is welcome respite from our hard driving life styles, but today's culture just wants to get past the "grannie" part of the idea.

There is a current car commercial that features a senior couple heading for a beach party while the grown son is making his own dinner in a microwave:

"They always said I had the fun parents. Now where is the fun now?"  The son is back home, and living with Mom and Dad, but reflects attitudes about growing old that are more mainstream today.

The stereotype of Gran knitting in her rocker, and Grandpa chewing on his pipe while reading the newspaper, are out of fashion. Today's baby boomers are trying to stay employed as long as possible and do not like to be reminded that they are headed out to the scrap heap.

The mention of "Grandparent's Day" is  likely to be met with conscious denial by baby boomers not ready to retire.  I know of an 84 year old who does not want to go to nutrition centers because that is where the "old people" are.

There is a need for the care and comfort and leadership which seniors supply without equal. However, getting this resource to the younger generation is the problem. If we see this as a delivery problem, as a marketing problem, maybe changing the name will update the concept.

Seniors have love and experience in abundance.  Children left out because they don't have grandparents could be otherwise feel included if the celebration of love and tradition were just called something else....

Seniors rock.