The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • F4

BETTER LIVING TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008 FAMILY Boomers stepping up their grandparent game F-4 THE RECORD Today's breed more active, more involved When Shelly Lipton was growing up in Paramus, some of his happiest moments were spent bopping around North Jersey with his paternal grandfather, a New York City taxi defunct park. We were more excited about going out in the cab for a ride, sitting in the jump seats, than we were about going to Palisades Amusement Park." too, remember the lure of those Checker cabs' jump seats. My siblings and I actually used to fight over who got to sit in them. Times sure have changed since we boomers were little. As Lipton well knows, today's kids have many more sophisticated amusement options.

His Web site, launched last September, aims to keep grandparents abreast of the hot entertainment choices and generally help them "get more out of the time they spend with their grandchildren." The new set The average age of today's first-time grandparent is 53, Lipton says. This puts him or her smack in the middle of the boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964), whose members tend to be more active, more tech-sawy and better-educated than their forebears. So, what are we like as grandparents? A recurring theme: Boomers have "real passion and desire" to be more involved with their grandchildren than their grandparents were with them, and they want to spend real quality time with them, Lipton says. "They want to do things that are really memorable," he says. "One of the things we're seeing is a growth in intergenerational travel grandparents talcing the grandchildren on a trip or a vacation.

It goes back to the idea of time well spent. We refer to it as 'more smiles, more fun, more In addition to blogs, brag pages, discussions, expert advice and such, grandparents.com provides information about places to go, things to do, deals and discounts. There are activity guides for 25 major cities (including, of course, New York), with plans to add another 25 before the end of the year. "The Web site launched really around the goal of providing a VIRGINIA ROHAN BOOMER ON BOARD live at a distance from the grandchildren "tend to be more indulgent in terms of buying things, or investing for the children. "But even those who have greater proximity are still looking at 'How do we spend that quality There are so many more options for things to do, places to go, than they had with their grandparents." Despite all those options, Lipton stresses that quality time does not have to equal extravagant plans.

Many grandparents connect with their grandchildren by "going to all the Little League games or the soccer games throwing the ball around even something as simple as talcing the kids out for ice cream." Great memories Besides those jump seats, Lip-ton's real great memories from childhood include trips to Bi-schoff in Teaneck for ice cream and his maternal grandparents talcing him to the Van Saun Park Zoo, where they rode the train -all still fine (and available) activities, after all these years. Yet Lipton doesn't recall doing anything really physical with his grandparents. When the time comes, he expects to be a more active grandfather. "Fifty is the new 30 there's just this ability to physically sort of keep up," he says. "I think that makes a real big difference." E-mail: rohannorthjersey.com a lot more vain and youth-obsessed than former generations of grandparents.

Determined to never become the fogeys of the family, we don't necessarily want to go by stodgy old names. Big Recently, the Web site Grand boomers.com which was launched for boomers by a Boston-area family therapist and her husband offered a box with 49 alternative grandparental nicknames, all sent in by readers. They included many ethnic variations and some old standards, like Nana (what my 2-year-old step-granddaughter calls me) and Pop-Pop. But there were also some unusual ones that, frankly, sounded far worse to me than, say, Granny. (Big "Grandchildren do call their grandparents by many names, and what we learned is, many of the names are brought in by the cultural roots," Lipton says, predicting that "we'll probably see more names that are either made up or that connote less about age." Many boomers also have a fair amount of disposable income.

According to Lipton, today's first-time grandparent spends, on average, $2,000 on the grandchild in the period before the birth through the baby's first birthday. "The grandparent gets involved as soon as they learn there's a grandbaby on the way," he says, adding that grandparents who Shelly Lipton, 52, has launched a Web site aimed at baby boomers who are becoming grandparents. vehicle for the new generation of grandparents," says Lipton, who is not a grandfather, yet. "I have a daughter who's off to college, so it's in my future, certainly," says Lipton, who now lives in Mountainside. When that happens, there's a good chance he may not want to go by "Grandpa." One other thing about boomers is that we're driver who pick him up in the cab for a trip to Palisades Amusement Park.

"The memories that I had -talk about cheap thrills," says the 52-year-old, who is chief marketing officer for the Web site grand parents.com. "He had a Checker cab. Remember the jump seats? He used to come out to Paramus, and then we would go up on this really bouncy road to the now- Book teaches that change never ends A f.it-of mmm boomer and mature-adult issues. "You never saw older people having that kind of an experience. If you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you're considered over the hill.

But that was against everything we talk about in Age Wave that your life will be filled with reinvention." Long in the works the Dychtwalds' son and daughter are now 18 and 21 re Baby boomers Ken and Maddy Dychtwald two of America's leading authorities on their generation had long wanted to write a children's book that would help kids understand their parents and grandparents, and shape their expectations about adult life. "It really began as a kernel of an idea when we first had our own kids, be mi Newark native, Maddy went to Millburn High co-authored the book with illustrator Dave Zaboski, a senior animator for Disney, and his "very opinionated" daughter, Grace, who's 7. Ken, a best-selling author and an adviser to Grand magazine, says "Gideon" is an ideal book to read to one's grandchildren, because "the myths and fables we're exposed to when we're young shape our thinking." The Dychtwalds wanted to drive home that it's never too late to dream and, with longer life spans, "you're so far away from the finish line when you're 55 or 65 that there's plenty of room for fresh starts and new beginnings." Adds Maddy, "You have a chance to keep becoming a butterfly for your entire life." Virginia Rohan Udii Thrift). v-1 iiv'ju I with special guest, July 24 Af i "Send In The Sides mJ 'Turn, cause we would read stories to our kids every night, and we noticed that most of the stories had young people going through a transformation," says Maddy, co-founder of Age Wave, a firm that advises companies and government groups on baby- spectively their "Gideon's Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings" is about a caterpillar named Gideon who is initially fearful of changes in his life but ultimately transforms into a happy butterfly. The former New Jerseyans Ken is a When climbing stairs becomes difficult, a home stair lift may be the solution.

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