The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Facetime Grandma

When my daughter had a baby on a different continent, I had a quick lesson that modern grandmotherhood, like everything else, requires adaptation, and a really good internet connection

At forty-six, I never imagined I'd become a grandmother to a child I primarily know through a screen. Yet here I am, the proud owner of what I've dubbed the "Facetime Grandma" title—a role that comes with its own unique set of challenges, cultural confusion, and the occasional existential crisis about whether my granddaughter thinks I'm actually a talking rectangle… Or Miss Rachel.

My daughter has been pestering me to write about this experience for months, probably because she finds my technological fumbling endlessly entertaining. I've been reluctant, partly because I wasn't sure it would be a particularly uplifting piece, and partly because writing about it would force me to confront some uncomfortable truths about modern grandmotherhood that I've been happily avoiding.

When my only child—who had never shown the slightest maternal instinct and seemed completely uninterested in babies—suddenly announced she was pregnant from her new life on another continent, reality hit me. (Ironically, she told me on Facetime, a few hours after I had traveled from staying with her in Virginia, back to Britain.) I was going to be a grandmother, and not the kind I'd vaguely imagined during my rare moments of forward-thinking.