May 19, 2007

Bring back the Babooshka

Sarah Vine has blogged about Alpha Grannies - grandmothers who are too busy running their own business or organising investment groups to do the whole babysitting and bottles bit. Emma Mahoney, a Times Online family travel writer, has new idea for how grannies should spend their time:

Back in 1986, when I was a teenager studying in Russia, foreigners' hotels had a Babooshka, or Granny figure, sitting behind a desk on every floor. There was nothing on her desk, no books or papers, just her grim face staring at every nervous individual that passed by. "Devooshka!" she would exclaim if I left my hotel room in some dodgy outfit, "It is forbidden to wear a yellow hat! Yellow is for mad people in this country". My father was turned back on one visit as he sheepishly made his way to Red Square in a pair of shorts. Shorts were not suitable for meeting Lenin, embalmed and lying wax-like in the mausoleum, apparently.

More important than the Babooshka's sartorial judgement, was her role as chief busybody. It was her business to nose into everyone's affairs - what they were wearing, what they were carrying, why they were loitering. As teenagers, we would launch major distractions on the Babooshka at the desk so we could carpet crawl into each other's rooms. She would be showered with gifts, flattered but, above all, feared.

As the whole of the travel business looks set to review child care on holiday, I keep wanting to shout out "Bring on the Grannies". Grannies are a ferocious deterrent against any shenanigans, from the kids themselves or any unwelcome interlopers. My own Mum (pictured above with our two-year-old twins on our first holiday abroad) sat outside the hotel room on a hard-backed chair while I snuck off for a swim in the midday sun. She wasn't going to change nappies or make up bottles, but as a static benign presence with a watchful eye, she more than earned her keep. Forget the gum-chewing, bored teenagers that make up the "nannies" or "kids club entertainers" in resorts, they are more interested in the earrings you are wearing than most of the children in their care. My three have always refused to be palmed off in these brightly painted prisons, catching the whiff of unwanted kids and crying to be let out immediately. Foreign nannies in resorts think we British are bonkers anyway for dumping our kids in clubs, Southern Europeans would never dream of such a thing.

Far, far better for kids to be a bit bored on the beach with Granny nearby. I am a great fan of teaching my children the valuable life skill of how to entertain yourself with a bit of sand and a wooden stick. Boredom is a great state of mind. It forces resourcefulness. Children are far too overstimulated with Kiddie Golf and Toddler Tennis, my own summer holidays were spent mainly in the back of a car, scrapping with my brothers while my mother delivered Cape Fruit banners to grocers. Who needs the certificate from a Karate Workshop, the child or the show-off mother in the playground?

So I shall be lobbying more tour operators to offer Granny Discounts on their holidays in future. And with the discounts I shall ask for free cardigans instead of t-shirts, insist on rocking chairs on every hotel floor, and Stannah Stairlifts so geriatrics can enjoy a good night on the town. Then, and only then, may we poor raddled parents sleep easily at night. Well, at least until the unwelcome mewling sound from the next door cot. -- Emma

Source: http://timesonline.typepad.com/alphamummy/

The Globalappointments.com team loved this article and all wholeheartedly agree… "Bring on the Grannies".