Preparing to Be Older First Grandparents: Eight Tips of What to Do or Not Do When You Want to be Grandparents but the Future Parents to be Are Not Cooperating

All the news today is that “Women in Their 20s May Not Be Having Babies, but by 45 Most Probably Will," New York Times, April 9, 2026, by Claire Cain Miller.

Statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics say that the fertility rate, the number of births per thousand women of childbearing age, dropped to 53.1 from 53.8 in 2024 and has been falling since 2007

“…. showing a rise in the fertility rate among women in their 30s and 40s. The fertility rate for women from 30 to 34 rose by 3% in 2025 compared with the previous year, the data shows. …But by the time that cohort of women had reached their mid 40s, they had an average of 1.9 children and subsequent cohorts had an average of two.”

Maybe seeing the trend started in 2007 is why I, September 14, 2015, wrote a blog post about the concern then of us Boomers never going to become grandparents. We, in the trenches, were seeing our twenty and thirty somethings nowhere near marriage or children on their brains.

My bottom line was to be patient, and to be proactive in ways you might not have considered with eight tips. Updating my 2015 writing to 2026 statistics, going up a decade on each of the tips, means that it is likely if we are going to be grandparents at all, we are going to be older grandparents.

The tips I wrote stand the test of time, as updated. 

Eight Tips of What to Do or Not Do When You Want to be a Grandparent but the Future Parents to be Are Not Cooperating

As a Boomer, I write often about our generation not being our parents’ generation. I speak of it about the way we think, the way we act, the way we feel, and that we intend to be forever young. But, we do want to be grandparents–the reward after the hard work of being parents.

Similarly, this generation of new parents is not our generation. We cannot relate to the entire social media generation and how social media has changed their personal and professional lives. We cannot relate to the speed at which their day progresses. Instantaneously, the news appears. It is addictive to be able to get an answer immediately. Overload and over stressed. It is no wonder that there is additional stress upon our adult children’s generation about becoming partners in a committed relationship, much less parents.  We should not add to that stress.

They have the information at their fingertips about how expensive it is to raise children. They have the information at their fingertips about how a child impacts the marital relationship. They know everything that can go wrong. We, as parents to be, had little information. It was expected that we would procreate. We had no idea what we would have and what faced us. The information did not exist, in many instances.

There is so much we Boomers don’t know about this generation of parents to be. Only 48% of young people are marrying, and most of those are college educated. They are marrying even later than we thought we were marrying. Our parents’ generation might have married in their teens and early 20s. We married a mostly in our early 20s to mid-20s. This next generation is getting married even later and the statistics show that if they wait until they’re in their 30s they have a good shot at a lasting marriage.

Here are eight tips of what you should or should not do when you want to be a grandparent but your adult children or the future parents to be are not cooperating.

Tip Number One is leave your “adult” children alone about marriage in their twenties and early thirties. [See, Why Marriage, for So Many, Is Less Appealing Than Ever: From Gen Z to Gen X, a pause in the march to the altar, or a decision to skip it altogether, is becoming more common,” New York Times, by Tammy LaGorce, March 29, 2026).

 Tip Number Two is leave your “adult children” alone about procreation in their twenties and early thirties.

Tip Number Three is become proactive when your adult children hit their mid thirties and beyond. This younger generation does not date. This younger generation goes out in groups. What I have found about the older of the generation, those in their late 30s and early 40s, is they are reluctant to use a dating website. They are more reluctant than the people of our generation, in and my personal experience, I know many people who are in their 60s and 70s who met our spouses on a dating website. There seems to be a generation gap with regard to the benefits of a dating website.

Tip Number Four is to gift your adult child in their mid thirties and forties a subscription to a dating website of their choice. The gift is non negotiable and you are allowed to nag about them joining. [Update: According to a 2023 Pew Research Center study, approximately 10% of all partnered U.S. adults (married or cohabitating) met their significant other on a dating site or app.  44% of users aged 30 to 49 have used Tinder, indicating a high prevalence in this demographic, according to Forbes in 2025. ]

Offer it as an unsolicited present that you will pay for the dating website. This is not acceptable when the “adult” children are in their twenties and early thirties but the rules change when the adult children are in their mid thirties. Do not forget encouraging them to become active in religious and charitable organizations. Doing good deeds and expanding their horizons. You can tell them I said so. 

I have a friend who paid for a dating website for 11 years, never saying a word, just paying the bill for the dating website. The adult child, now in the forties, met his intended on a dating website, is in a wonderful and serious relationship, and planning marriage and children – and that means grandchildren.

Children do better in a household with two committed parents than a single parent household. So what if it took 11 years for that parent to be to find who they believe they can stay married to. This generation does not want to divorce. They saw the large number of divorces in the 70s. They want to select better and select for longevity. Studies show that it is expected they will only divorce at a rate of about 16% committing later when they are truly adults and know who they are and their future partner knows who he or she is.

Tip Number Five is to be truthful when you speak of marriage and children.

Our adult children are reluctant to take upon themselves the financial responsibility of marriage, and even of raising children. In today’s economic times, to 30 somethings, that looks like a responsibility that is too difficult to bear. There are options and choices to become a single parent, and sometimes becoming a single parent is not a choice but has happened. Speak of what makes a good partnership, of commitment to a relationship and children, and the financial and emotional investment. We want the ‘adult” children to know what they are getting themselves into. Otherwise, you may join a large segment of our population who are grandparents raising their grandchildren because the parents could not handle the responsibility or not capable of doing so.

Tip Number Six is to discuss technological advances that are available.

Today, this Grandma recommends that when adult children reach early to mid thirties, we can begin exploring other options. We can explore the best sperm banks in the United States, and options like freezing sperm or freezing eggs. Our generation never had that option. There are many technological advances for our adult children who desire to be parents to use in vitro fertilization and other means. Only the best one of the articles and research we read can be passed along with just comments on how amazing all of this is. No overload, no stress.

Tip Number Seven is to respect their ultimate decision, keep your mouth closed and pocketbook open.There is nothing wrong with offering to pay for the storage of the eggs or the sperm. There is nothing wrong with offering time and assistance with the care and raising of children.

Actually, it is our duty to support the relationship of the parents of our grandchildren to keep that relationship strong for our grandchildren. We have the time, and they need the assistance of our time, even more that what is contained in our pocketbook. When we Grandparents consider opening our pocketbooks it is to improve and protect the lives of our grandchildren.

Yes, like the generation before us, I think our generation has it all together. We have enjoyed the change in culture of our generation. We think the culture of our generation is better than what our children are dealing with. We have to remember that when we speak with them and when we don’t.

Tip Number Eight is the most important.

Less is more. Do 10% of what you’d like to do if you want to be a grandparent but your adult children or the future parents to be are not cooperating. Be sensitive and back off quickly. Retreat, regroup, and plan.

In the end, the parents of our grandchildren are the gatekeepers and we never want to offend the gatekeepers to preserve access to grandchildren, even if the grandchildren are still in our dreams with

Joy,

Mema

PS. In the Sunday, New York Times, April 12, 2026, titled “Reasons to Believe Record Low Birth Rates Could Just be a Lull,” by the same author,  Claire Cain Miller repeats, “even as annual fertility falls, most women eventually have two children on average…” by age 45!

And we have to be able to lift the baby! Good reason for Boomers to stay forever young!