Hello everybody, I'm Jackie Goldberg, the Pink Lady. Hot weather - hot issues!!! Being a Pink Grandmother still doesn't help keep me cool. Sad to say that some things do not get better with age. For grandparents who are coping with the ever present drug problems affecting their children and grandchildren. It is still a huge problem.

My friend's sixteen year old grandson is in a drug rehabilitation center. Another friend's fourteen year old daughter is going through drug withdrawal. How can we as grandparents help our children help their children? 

One solution, as old-fashioned as it sounds, is to have regular family get-togethers and just begin talking to each other for a change. It doesn't matter the subjects we talk about, good, bad, or controversial, but open discussions on what's happening in our own particular family's life is what's needed to bring the family together.

I remember when it was mandatory every Sunday to have dinner at our grandparent's home. It didn't matter what was happening in your life. Sunday dinner was taken care of. We sat around the supper table, we talked, we joked, we argued, but it was the family time to come together. Looking back as a child, they were some of the best times I had with my family. We helped solve many issues, and thus cemented relations among the family.

I believe we should get back to some of the old values that we had before the 60s & 70s sexual revolution came about.

Grandparents who have been through the "hippy" years, trying to save our children from using drugs, should now tell our children to use us, to rely on us. We will never let them down and will help them with their families. I believe that our grandchildren will open up to us, definitely more than they do to their parents, for the kids realize that we will listen, we have been through this before and are open to hearing and helping solve their problems.

It may sound like a corny idea, but it can work if everyone pulls together, perhaps even going back to family dinners. As they say, "It couldn't hurt." I am calling on all grandparents to be assertive, positive, and energetic in guiding their families to have this open communication between the ages. I believe doing this will get us back on track to what this world is missing - family togetherness.

Let's do ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren a favor. Let's bring back a tried and true formula: love + talking = understanding.  -- Jackie Goldberg, the Pink Lady.