Sunday, May 5, 2024
"Forget-me-not" by dawnzy58 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
National Grandparents Day has more than one origin, but most credit Marian McQuade, a housewife living in West Virginia. In the 1970s, McQuade attempted to educate people about senior citizens and the importance of their contributions to families and to society. She was also an advocate who urged people to “adopt a grandparent.”
Many view her efforts are as the reason that National Grandparents Day was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. McQuade received a phone call from the White House to inform her of the signing. On Sept. 6, 1979, a presidential proclamation made the day official, and it was decided that Grandparents Day would fall on the first Sunday in September following Labor Day.
In the United States, grandparents’ names can vary, but the most common are “grandma” and “grandpa.” The traditional names for grandparents in Germany are “oma” and “opa,” while in Spain and Latin America, the names would be “abuela” and “abuelo.”
Today, people are becoming grandparents at a much younger age than in the past. More than two million grandparents in the United States are considered “head of the household” and are raising their grandchildren.
Several famous individuals who have been raised by their grandparents include Bill Clinton, Jack Nicholson, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Foxx, Carol Burnett, Willie Nelson and Eric Clapton.
Honoring grandparents can be done in a variety of ways. Some grandchildren will give a gift or invite their grandparents to their school to participate in activities. It is estimated that more than four million greeting cards are sent in the United States each year on Grandparents Day.
Grandparents even have an official song, “A Song for a Grandma and Grandpa,” by Johnny Prill. The official flower for Grandparents Day is the forget-me-not flower, which seems appropriate for the occasion.
