Together

June 12, 2020

‘I never fought with my grandparents’

Family Zoom celebrating my Grandpa’s 84th birthday. Both laptops are mine; they don’t even know how to use their flip phones. — *Credit…Rachelle Olden*

Rachelle Olden, 36
Columbia, S.C.
Living with her grandparents Ann and Charles. She’ll return to her home in Seattle soon.

I never fought with my grandparents, but three months of quarantine can change any relationship. Arguments with my grandmother started over my dog’s ban from the kitchen, then moved to the mistakes I’m making in my love life and on to the length of my summer dresses.

Lately we’ve been arguing about the approach to the Black Lives Matter protests: My grandmother’s experience as a Black woman in America, born in rural South Carolina to sharecropping parents, is extremely different from my own, as a Duke University-educated and Microsoft-employed Black woman. I am her wildest dream.

We debate how Black Americans protest police brutality and systemic racism. She wants me to stay home, away from the tear gas and rubber bullets, and not speak so candidly to my white colleagues, for fear that I’ll lose my corporate job. I believe the consequences of a peaceful protest don’t outweigh the necessity to make my voice heard.

I moved in with my grandparents after a long-term relationship with my middle school sweetheart ended abruptly in March. I’ve tried online dating — my grandmother swipes on my behalf. I went on a social-distanced date and my grandmother critiqued every outfit.

My grandparents have a 57-year marriage. I thought they had marriage figured out and could teach me, but they don’t. They argue and act childish like most couples. I guess I’m on my own with this marriage thing.

They would probably say living with me for the past three months is the best Covid-19 gift. I not only grocery shop but also introduced them to streaming church on YouTube. They don’t understand “working from home” and therefore think I’m unemployed. They’re sad to see me go.