Meet author Keen Berger at
“Grandmothering”™ talk
The grandchildren three years ago reading “Where’s Waldo.” Caleb, 5, whose birth Berger attended, Asa, 6,
and Isaac, 2, with Berger’s new book.
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
On Nov. 17 at Judson Church, grandmothers,
grandfathers, and parents will
meet Greenwich Village’s Keen Berger
to discuss her new book “Grandmothering:
Building Strong Ties With Every
GenerationIt will be a chance to listen,
question, learn, laugh and disagree
with Keen Berger, whose author name
is Kathleen Stassen Berger, on the pitfalls
of too much or too little grandmothering
while eating and drinking.
Combining personal experience with
scholarship is what propelled Berger to
write “Grandmothering.”
“My book is unlike the others, which
are often too sweet, too personal, or too
uninformed about other grandmothers
or about what the research says,” the
author explains. In the second part of
the book she covers each age of grandchildren
and provides some advice.
“Finding time to write was hard,”
Berger admits, and with another grandson,
juggling teaching, politicking, and
writing textbooks, it took ten years
from idea to the bound book. Furthermore,
she never knew if it would be
published.
Our Greenwich Villager also credits
the encouragement from her neighbors
after she read part of the first chapter at
the Bedford/Barrow block annual literary
soiree.
“I have been heartened to see that
the book resonates with many other
people,” Berger reflects, thrilled by the
positive feedback.
A local political activist, Berger recently
completed a 14-year tenure as
(West Village) Democratic District
Leader.
Professionally, her academic emersion
in developmental psychology includes
writing four textbooks on the
subject and teaching this field of study
at Bronx Community College for 40
years. Berger’s textbook The Developing
Person through Childhood and Adolescence,
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
in its 11th edition, is used at
more than 700 colleges and universities
and has been translated into five languages.
Starting with her first grandchild,
Keen remembers her own trajectory of
grandmotherhood. St. Vincent’s Hospital
did not know what to do with her
as she languished for hours in the waiting
room, while her daughter Elissa
labored and son-in-law Oscar and the
midwife attended the birth of her first
grandson.
Ten years transpired from idea
to the new bound book that Keen
Berger authored. Three grandchildren,
politicking, teaching and
writing text books kept Berger
busy and juggling time.
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Subsequently, Keen realized that
grandmothers are not respected or understood,
nor is the science that she has
learned about all her life.
Then, her eldest daughter Bethany
asked her to be her birth partner during
the delivery of her second grandson.
Berger was exulted for not being
excluded.
Welcomed to prenatal classes, medical
check-ups, and the labor-delivery
room, with the midwife, she tended
grandson Caleb’s delivery. Her daughter
began to nurse and Keen was in
bliss. But then, overhead lights became
stars flashing bright and she fainted,
there in the delivery room.
After that, Berger realized that something
deep within her, and probably all
grandmothers, is a powerful force and
has been for 100,000 years.
She knows from science how important
families are for human development,
“but the specific roles and tasks
of each family member varies depending
on history, past relationships, and
much more.”
Available through her website KathleenBergerAuthor.
com and on Amazon
(printed “just in time” printing, more
as demand increases), “Grandmothering”
will be for sale at the Judson book
talk and in the future, there will be
an audio book. Her event will be held
on Nov. 24, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Keen Berger’s grandchildren, three years ago, reading “Where’s Waldo.”
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
16 November 21, 2019 Schneps Media