Congratulations! Your child, who you once fed and bathed and washed, now thinks they’re so big they can just make their own children! I am not a grandparent, but by my reckoning becoming a grandparent is apparently the World Cup of parenting, everybody’s doing all that other parenting just to get a shot at grandparenting.

You have your kids, they’re...fine, but maybe all the great things about you that your kids hate will skipp a generation and you and your grandchildren will be soulmates. It’s entirely possible!

Well, there’s only one way to find out: get your kid to have kids. “Babies having babies” was once the bitter cry of a generation watching their children destroy themselves. Today, it’s the ultimate fantasy of couples who want to be young, cool grandparents with Vespa scooters and long, lucious hair. Your grandparents were gray old coots in easy chairs. You will be the hip, MTV, Information Age grandparents of the future!

Well, I’ve got bad news, “hip” is only used ironically, MTV is dead, the Information Age has given way to the Misinformation Age, and you’re living in a fantasy as thin as the skin over your veiny, liver-spotted hands.

Haha, I’m kidding!  Everything’s cool, especially you!

If you’re reading this, I can only assume that you’re looking for tips on how to be a good, consciencious grandparent. Good grandparenting begins with good parenting, so just get a time machine and start over from the birth of your child and be a little proactive this time. Failing that, use the birth of your grandchild as an opportunity to demonstrate empathy, after all, you’ve been here before, you have kids! 

Help your child prepare for the big day! Put together some furniture. Do some painting. Plan a baby shower. Bring over an uncooked lasagna and put it in the freezer. Babysit. Send money. Give them your car and house. Retire so that the job market opens up a little bit. Sell all your jewelry so the kid can go to college. Stop voting if you’re just going to vote for idiots all the time. Fix the national debt. Get social security solvent again. Invent some clean energy solutions so the Earth can heal itself before it’s too late. Bring over a pizza.

Just do something, please, things are bad.

Maybe that’s too complicated, maybe you don’t have time to fix the whole world, but you still want to help. You need a role model. Well, that’s easy, there’s only one thing your grandkids really want in a grandparent: