Living near your kids’ grandparents is great. The pop-ins for bedtime stories. Help with the school pick-ups and drop-offs. And your go-to phone call when your babysitter is sick one hour before your anniversary reservation.
It’s the best, isn’t it? I wouldn’t know.
My mom lives in Haslett, Michigan — 1,891 miles away from our home in Portland, Oregon. She’s the only living grandmother to my two daughters, 6 and 8, and their only grandfather is close, but at 85, his mobility is limited. There are no pop-ins, drop-offs, or backups, and they lose out on that daily, in-person bonding with her.
Many other families are in the same situation. A study by Cornell researchers found that about one in seven children lives 500 miles or more from their grandparents. Despite the distance, we’ve found ways to bridge the gap, making it feel like Grandma is always near.
There are challenges to living far from Grandma
The distance means Grandma misses all the fun firsts. She’s missed first steps, first words, and first days of school. And it’s not just big moments. When she’s back in town, they suddenly know how to do things like brush their own hair, tie shoelaces, and buckle seatbelts. She missed those little wins, too.
It’s also harder to pass down family traditions and history, though we’ve still found a way to give our kids a sense of belonging. Grandma’s great-aunt’s German ‘city chicken’ recipe, which is breaded veal or pork on a stick (it’s good, I swear!), tells my kids where they come from. The bedtime lullaby she learned from her own grandmother shows nurturing runs in the family. The black-and-white picture on Grandma’s shelf, filled with “people who look like me,” as my daughters say, lets them know they’re not alone in this world.
We’ve worked hard to make it feel like she lives next door
We have a couple of rituals that help us stay connected in between visits. When our daughters were babies and toddlers, Grandma would chat from a screen while they splashed around during baths. She’d talk about her day, ask about theirs, and tell stories. My girls would get so excited to hang out with Grandma. As soon as I’d tell them, “Grandma’s calling,” they’d run for the tub.
Every Sunday, for several years now, she reads to my girls for an hour through an app called Readeo. It features hundreds of books that they can navigate together, and they can see each other on the video screen. And once they started learning to read, she got to fill me in on some of their firsts.
Our in-person visits mean even more these days
There are several non-stop flights from Detroit to Portland, which allow Grandma to attend ballet recitals, spend Christmas mornings with us, and go with us to the Oregon coast. She comes our way twice a year, and we head her way once a year.
When we visit her, it’s special. My girls love to stay at her home. They snuggle under blankets that smell like her, ask about where her art comes from, and fall into her routine. Waking up is an intimate pocket of time they share before my wife and I are awake.
That’s the silver lining of living so far away. When we come together, we make the most of the moments we do have — whether it’s big holiday gatherings, small family dinners, or just having breakfast in our PJs.
We may not have the pop-ins, drop-offs, or backups, but my daughters’ relationship with their grandma is still remarkably close, even from almost 2,000 miles away.
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