As a hippy-punk grandmother, here’s how I learned to stop disturbing the baby – and his parents | Rose Rouse

Coming to terms with my son and his partner's modern, tender and considered parenting hasn't been easy - but now I love it

I was 70 when I became a grandmother for the first time in 2023. My son Marlon had a son of his own, and while I had never been the kind of mother who was desperate to become a grandmother, I was delighted.

But it soon became clear I was entering uncharted waters. Very little about the way they entered into pregnancy and parenthood was the route I'd taken in my hippy-punk way. They were consciously well informed. I think I made it to two NCT classes. Lina - my son's partner - had a birth doula. I'd read the one book, The Experience of Childbirth by Sheila Kitzinger, from 1962; they'd read a raft of parenting books like Philippa Perry's recent The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read.