Paper short abstract:

New grandmother tropes are emerging in contemporary children's books. The role has changed as families have become geographically separated. By presenting my own counter narrative, I ask if there is a need to protect these idealised notions in communal lore or repurpose them for new contexts.

Paper long abstract:

A new grandmother narrative is emerging, one which presents questions of if, how, and why the family story is being passed on. The movement away from having nearby authoritarian grandparents to a culture of non-interfering grandparents has created the recent phenomenon of the distant but active grandmother. Enabled by technology and longer retirement, she may now engage with grandchildren in new ways.

In recent children's picture books, the grandmother narrative can be seen to be stereotypically romanticised. She appears as single, old, resourcefully living alone, somewhere 'other' with a moralistic pivotal role in the grandchild's young life experience.

Through interviews with fifty-nine grandmothers and reflexively drawing from my own experience I ask, is this what we want? Are there mutually agreed ethical principles that protect and confine the character of the grandmother? Are there narratives that are unacceptable to our notions of grandma?

My approach is to deconstruct the grandmother identity, releasing it from these boundaries. I offer a transgressive alternative and ask if it triggers satisfaction or disconcert, and to identify new social codes. I also ask whether there are unacceptable narratives that contravene our notion of what a grandma should be; whether there is collusion between writers, illustrators, publishers to protect this symbolic construction; and whether grandmothers themselves are trying to live up to or subvert those tropes.

In presenting my own counter narrative, I ask if there is a need to explore and protect these idealised notions in communal lore or redefine them for new contexts.

Paper Download (3.9 MB)