Forget Nonna-Maxxing. Ask Your Grandmother One Question Instead
· Time
Before you turn to Google or AI for life advice, think about who you could call. Maybe it’s your grandmother, an older neighbor, a longtime family friend, or the former colleague who always seemed to understand what mattered—and what really didn’t.
Visit rouesnews.click for more information.
Karl Pillemer has made a career out of doing just that. The Cornell University gerontologist and author of 30 Lessons for Living directs The Legacy Project, which has gathered practical life advice from nearly 1,500 older adults since 2004. Across backgrounds, income levels, and regions, Pillemer says, the same handful of themes surfaced again and again: Prioritize relationships over money. Say yes to opportunities instead of always playing it safe. Pay attention to ordinary pleasures, like a warm bed on a cold night, a good cup of coffee, or a brightly colored bird outside the window.
You don’t need to interview 1,500 people to benefit from that perspective. Start with one older woman you trust—but don’t simply ask which habits she followed. Some were meaningful choices; others were simply what her time and circumstances demanded. Instead, Pillemer suggests asking: “As you look back over your life, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned that you’d like to pass on to someone younger?”
Then ask her to help you make it small: “What could I do this week to put that lesson into practice?” Trying her answer might make your life a little better, while asking the question could make both of you feel more connected.
Ask what she learned—not simply what she did
This impulse is already bubbling up online. Nonna-maxxing has filled social-media feeds with slow mornings, Sunday dinners, homemade pasta, gardening, knitting, and other routines associated with Italian grandmothers. Hana Ben-Shabat, a generational researcher and founder of Gen Z Planet, believes it’s resonating partly because it offers a reprieve from the algorithms, constant stimulation, and pressure to optimize nearly every aspect of modern life.
“It would be a mistake to think of it as simple nostalgia,” she says. “I really think it’s a desire to find something that modern digital life can’t offer,” including practical wisdom, rituals, real-life connection, and the satisfaction of developing skills that don’t need to be tracked or turned into content.
Still, copying what an older woman did isn’t necessarily the same as learning from her. Your grandmother might have cooked every meal from scratch because she believed deeply in gathering people around the table—or because she didn’t have a microwave, two incomes to juggle, or a delivery app. “Copying the habit itself risks copying her circumstances rather than her insights,” Pillemer says. As he puts it: “It wasn’t wisdom. It was 1962.”
He learned that lesson while interviewing women old enough to remember the arrival of household technologies we now take for granted. When Pillemer asked some very old women to name the most important technological innovation of their lifetime, they didn’t say the moon landing or the television. They said the washing machine. Before it became commonplace, laundry could consume two days of a woman’s week; many would have happily traded parts of the traditional lifestyle now being romanticized for modern conveniences and expanded opportunities.
That’s why Pillemer advises getting curious about the meaning behind a routine. Ask why it mattered, when it helped most, and whether she’d actually recommend it to you today. You could also ask what she wishes she’d done differently. “That habit only counts,” he says, “if it survives the question: ‘Would she actually tell you to do this?’”
Turn her lesson into something you can actually do
A life lesson like “worry less” or “enjoy the present” is lovely, but it’s hard to know what to do with it at 8:42 on a stressful Tuesday morning. Push for something concrete: “When did you learn that? How did it change the way you behaved? What should I do the next time I’m in that situation?”
When Pillemer asked older adults how younger people could reach their 80s or 90s with fewer regrets, he expected to hear about big mistakes and dramatic roads not taken. “I was not prepared for how many people said, ‘I wish I hadn’t spent so much time worrying about things I couldn’t control,’” he says.
One woman recalled learning that layoffs were coming at her company. “I spent three months only worrying about being laid off,” she told Pillemer. Then she paused. “I now wish I had those three months back.”
Pillemer, who describes himself as a compulsive worrier, has turned that advice into a practice of his own. When he starts spiraling, he remembers all the older people who told him that worrying—not planning or taking useful action—had stolen time they could never recover. “You have to imagine this room of 1,000 grandparents yelling at you: ‘You’re just wasting your time worrying about it,’” he says.
Your borrowed practice might be even simpler. Every morning, psychologist Mary Pipher, author of Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, sets an intention for what she’ll look for throughout the day. Sometimes it’s beauty; other days, kindness, gratitude, laughter, or love. “We find what we’re looking for,” she says. Choosing something positive to notice alerts her to its presence all around her—and makes the day more likely to be a happy one.
For Mijal Tenenbaum, 32, the habit is wearing perfume every day, even if she’s simply going grocery shopping or lounging around in pajamas. She picked it up from her bobe Jaia—bobe is Yiddish for grandmother—whose signature scent was Very Irresistible by Givenchy. Jaia wore perfume even when she barely left the house, alongside other small rituals like applying moisturizer nightly and getting regular pedicures.
Tenenbaum came to understand those routines as a way her grandmother cared for herself while spending much of her life caring for everyone else. “It’s OK to give yourself to others,” she says, “but also, where are those moments where it’s just about you?”
Another habit might involve doing something with your hands. When therapist Erika Mills spent summers with her grandmother, now 96, their Saturday mornings began with a walk and a search for treasures at neighborhood garage sales. They brought their finds home and imagined what they could become; eventually, the two worked together on Mills’ wedding dress. Mills still sews and repurposes items when she needs to feel grounded. Life can be chaotic and uncertain, but, she says, “I can always control that sewing machine.”
Try whichever practice you choose for seven days, paying attention to how it affects the rhythm of your life. You don’t have to execute it exactly as the older woman does. Adapt it to your circumstances while preserving the insight underneath it.
Remember that asking is a gift, too
Whatever habit you come away with, the conversation itself might be the most meaningful part of the experiment. Throughout The Legacy Project, Pillemer found that older people didn’t merely tolerate being asked for advice—they relished it.
It felt different from simply being asked to recount their life story. When a younger person says, “I want to know what you learned in life so I can use it,” Pillemer says, it “reverses the power dynamic.” The older person isn’t being treated as someone who needs help. She’s being recognized as someone who has something valuable to offer.
That can be especially powerful in a culture where older adults often feel overlooked, says Jennifer Breheny Wallace, author of Mattering: The Secret to Building a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. Asking for advice communicates: “I value you. I value your hard-earned wisdom. I trust you to help me.”
Wallace remembers that whenever she spoke to her Italian grandmother, the first question wasn’t about work or accomplishments. It was: “What did you have for lunch?” Wallace now asks her own children the same thing—a small way of signaling that she cares about who they are, not simply what they achieve. She also makes a point of greeting them with the unrestrained joy her grandmother once showed her.
“The fastest way to feel like you matter again is to remind someone else that they do,” Wallace says. Asking an older woman for guidance can start that cycle for both of you, especially when so many younger and older people are struggling with loneliness and disconnection.