How Gorgeous Grandma began

Alice Solomon
Author, Columnist, Radio Host

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* Empowering women to age with style *

How Gorgeous Grandma Began

I never thought I was a rebel until the day I turned fifty and was labeled forever more . . . “senior citizen”.

Hold it! What’s happening here? In an instant, and only one day older, I was thought of as over the hill: no longer sharp, strong, vital, useful, sexy, hip, interesting, or worthy of hiring - in other words, gonzo, finished, kaput.

As one former male friend so sweetly put it, “The over-fifty crowd? They’re yesterday’s news.”

That did it!

Hello, dear sisters. As a newspaper correspondent for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts, I wrote a monthly newspaper column for and about us from 1994 to 2001. Its title: “A Guide For Gorgeous Grandmas.”

The concept of the Gorgeous Grandma began following my graduation from Wellesley College at age fifty, when I returned to the real world to discover that many worldly observers were ignoring my generation and especially the single women in it.

My crowd - those who attended high school and college in the late forties, fifties and early sixties - were, and are, a relatively sane, stable group. As a result, we were not noteworthy enough to be studied, written about, criticized or even celebrated very much. Only over the last few years has the media and advertising crowd begun to notice that we are here and that many of us are affluent, powerful, and conspicuous.

Meanwhile, experiences in public relations, marketing, and fashion had kept me in touch with hundreds of women, and numerous opportunities arose for me to observe my peers closely. To my dismay, I discovered that many gals over fifty (and men too) had begun to lose their enthusiasm, their joie de vivre and their motivation for a good life because “it’s almost too late to try anymore.”

im33.jpg (16366 bytes) In response to that, I began my newspaper column focusing on and for women of my generation who had a lust for life, but needed more than a boost, perhaps, to get from “just surviving” to “thriving.” Indeed, we all have a lot more living to do - regardless of age.

For months, I tried to think of a name for our group, one that would be upbeat, fun, catchy and grab attention. Finally, “Gorgeous” was selected because it presents a snappy, “notice me” image, while “Grandma” instantly defines an age group and stage of life - regardless of whether a woman is actually a grandmother!

Hence, Gorgeous Grandma is not meant to be taken literally. It is meant to make us smile and take notice - and isn’t a smile and some attention a good beginning?

After the newspaper column appeared, I began to receive wonderful feedback from our many readers. Fifteen months later, “A Guide For Gorgeous Grandmas” was being published weekly, biweekly, or monthly in thirteen newspapers, with a circulation of over 150,000 readers.

One day, a year or so after writing about image and attitude in general, I received a call from an old, dear friend who was having some big problems after her divorce. We were on the phone for quite a while. She was still on my mind when I sat down to write, and the article that day was about being single, over fifty, and alone. Following that article’s publication, we were deluged with letters. I continue to write for and about the single world often.

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