My Nana, my last remaining grandparent, is quite ill and is in the hospital. She’s been a very active grandparent to me and my sisters. She lived in the same city as us, growing up, and was never more than a ten minute drive away. She and her husband, my Papa, took us on trips and took us for sleepovers and took us out for McDonalds — a very special treat — after church every once in a while. They helped my mom through her divorce and were especially close to my younger two sisters, becoming like another set of parents to them.

Lately, Sir Monkeypants and I have both been thinking about the active role my Nana and Papa played in my life, and how we would like to use that as a model for ourselves as grandparents. We hope to live close to our kids, to visit often, and to really know our grandchildren as people, not just as cuties in photos. We hope to travel with them and care for them and slip them treats as often as possible.

But when my mom had my older sister — SocialButterfly was the first grandchild — my Nana was only 47 years old, my Papa 52. It was just a different time, when people got married young and then had kids right away, so both my Nana and my mom had been in their early 20s when they first gave birth. Forty-seven! These days, half the actresses in Hollywood are still having babies of their own at that age. It’s easy to see how you can be an energetic, fun-loving, travel-filled Nana and Papa when you’re barely out of the baby-having years yourself.

Like most people of our generation, we waited until we were done university, established in our careers, and settled in a home before having any kids. When I had my first baby, I was the same age that my mother was when she had the last of her four children. When Sir Monkeypants and I first got together, he described his parents as being “older than most,” and indeed they are older than most of our friends’ parents…yet still, Sir Monkeypants’ mother was 32 when she had him, the same age I was when I had the Captain. And Sir Monkeypants is her youngest. Someday, Sir Monkeypants and I are going to be those “older parents.”

Assuming our kids follow a similar child-having pattern, we could easily wait until we are past retirement age to become grandparents. I was 36 when I had Little Miss Sunshine; if she has a child at 36 as well, I’ll be 72 then. Seventy-two! It’s hard to imagine having the energy to take the baby for a weekend when you’re 72 years old, or take them to Disneyworld for the first time when they’re six and you’re 78.

I just really want the chance to get to know my grandkids. I want to see what kind of people they are and see what kind of choices they make. I really, really want to see all three of my own kids become parents — to see the dawning realization in them that we were right all along. I want to see them discovering all the joys and sorrows of parenthood that we are experiencing now, and to have the memory of these beautiful, wonderful, crazy times come flooding back.

Then I expect to laugh knowingly and go back to playing online bridge with a cup of Darjeeling.

I don’t regret waiting until later in life to have kids…I don’t feel like I was ready any earlier for the challenges. I like feeling like I’ve experienced the world out there, and I choose to be here at home instead. It doesn’t feel like I’m missing out on something; it feels like I’m moving on to something even better. That makes me a better mother, I think.

And I really, really do not wish for any teenaged mothers or fathers in this house, just so I can become an early grandmother, thank you very much.

Still…it gives me pause to think that I might not get a chance to really know my grandkids, to be a part of the passing of generational knowledge, to catch a small glimpse of how the love in this family will only continue to grow in the future. I plan to fight to be a part of this world until the bitter end, no matter what.