I got to thinking. The worst thing about "granny panties" is that supposedly they are what grandmothers wear, and therefore they are taboo. Certain shoes have been dissed on What Not to Wear because, as Stacy London says, "Those are the kind of shoes my grandma would buy." Then there's that talking-book commercial I see on TV sometimes, in which a woman says, "My first thought was, are you kidding me? My *grandmother* listens to books!"

Maybe it's because I'm a grandmother myself now, but I just don't understand. What is so bad about Grandma that, whatever she does, we should be duty-bound to do the exact opposite?

I dunno LovebirdsFlying. You asked a good question.

Do you think it's because we always did the opposite of what authority figures told us to do? Now we are the ones in charge. Now we are the granmas?

Maybe it's because our grandparents were so old when we were kids...seems like people aged faster then? My grandmother (mom's mom) was dead before I was even
born. People didn't age well. I feel much younger than my mom behaved at my age.

If we do the stuff they did, we're destined to get old the way they did?

Good thought, good question. Thanks--------------------------Pax theo

[salukigirl]

I think it goes both ways. There are commercials for "adults" that call things stupid for being things teenagers do. Like those commercials for adult men and they show teenage boys calling body wash stupid or girlie. They're basically calling teenagers dumb in things like those.

Someone pointed out that young people tend to want to show that they are young and modern. By definition, a grandmother is the opposite of young, and therefore anything Grandma does is deemed out of style.

I suppose the commercials aimed at adults want the adults to get the message, "Use this product to show that you have matured past teenage angst, are now more experienced, and have learned a thing or two about life." (Although, to hear my mother talk, I'm still a wet-behind-the-ears upstart who needs the benefit of HER experience.) True that it goes both ways. I don't like to see all teenagers lumped together either--where they are all rebellious, all on drugs, all foolishly impulsive, all lazy, all this or all that. But maybe I was more sensitive to that when I was a teenager, and now that I am a grandmother, the "eww, my grandma does that" is what stands out.