According to my physiotherapist, I am a modern grandmother.
His comment arose during a discussion we were having about the cost of running a household. A book he’d been reading had some great practical tips on shaving dollars off the household expenses, which over the course of a year amounted to several hundred dollars. I expressed my interest in acquiring a copy of the book and said that I would buy it through fishpond.
When I need to buy something other than groceries, my first thought is to go to a website. It’s the modern solution to saving my sanity.
The hassles of getting to the shops, finding parking (public transport is almost non-existent outside of business hours), navigating crowds, and going through the face-to-face purchase process, makes online shopping my first choice.
In addition to the hassle factor, there is the poor selection – almost no choice – of products that I consider worth purchasing – i.e. sustainable, natural, quality, in shops in the region where I live. Jumping online and spending time searching for exactly what I want is time well spent. I’ve been shopping this way for many years and I have bookmarked my favourite stores so searching is far less time consuming. My underwear is full of holes – I can have new organic cotton ones delivered to my door within days without any hassle. I doubt I could buy them locally.
Being a modern grandmother means I can give my grandchildren, two of whom live on the other side of the country in Western Australia, gifts as if shopping at the local shops, but they’re better gifts because I’ve been able to select from a greater range of products. I avoid having to wrap and go the post office – I just get the order delivered to their door and have a phone conversation with them when they receive the parcel.
These choices also have a benefit to the environment. My small contribution to saving the planet is that I’m not using non-renewable fossil fuels to travel to the shops and I use solar electricity to power my home.
Yes, being a modern grandmother is entirely different to when I was raising my own sons. The choices about how to live are far greater.
The rapid spread of communication technologies for individual use, and the choices I have made to use devices that allow me to spend time doing things I enjoy outdoors, does mean that I am quite tech savvy – aka modern.
Being a modern grandmother also allows me to be more involved in my grandchildren’s lives – far more than I could ever have been with my own grandmother. It’s more than online shopping. FaceTime, Skype, Facebook, emails, text messaging, photo sharing, all mean easy, spontaneous and real-time communication. I can be there for them whenever they want me. We can choose to share as much of our lives with each other as we want.
I’ll proudly wear the banner of modern grandmother and enjoy every moment.
