How a Large Print Custom Calendar Helps Grandparents and Teaches Kids Empathy
The fluorescent kitchen light at my in-laws’ hit the glossy paper of the drugstore calendar Marnie had hung by the fridge last November, and I watched her lean in so close her nose almost touched the page, squinting to make out the words “Lila’s soccer tournament” I’d scrawled in the tiny date box. Her macular degeneration has been progressing slowly for three years, and she never complains, just laughs it off and says “my eyes just aren’t what they used to” when she misses a note. But that day, I saw her fold the corner of the page down hard like she was trying not to forget the date, and I started looking for something that worked better for her.
I’d always gotten her a generic calendar with garden photos or cat pictures every year, the kind that fit perfectly on the fridge but have date boxes so small you can barely fit your hand in one, let alone legible writing. I’d heard of custom photo calendars, but most of the ones I saw had the same tiny print. It took three late-night scrolls after the kids were in bed to find a company that did large print custom calendars, with 1.5 inch date boxes and plain backgrounds to make text easier to read. I ordered it, and roped my 7-year-old Lila and 9-year-old Jake into helping me pick photos and fill in dates, figuring it would be a fun afternoon craft. I had no idea it would turn into one of the most useful social learning exercises we’ve done all year.
When we pulled the blank template up on my laptop to plan out the year, Lila frowned at the screen. “Why are the numbers so huge? It looks weird. All the extra space is wasted,” she said. She’s used to the tiny date books she gets from the dollar store for her soccer schedule, so big empty boxes felt wrong to her. Instead of explaining, I pulled out my old pair of prescription reading glasses from when my vision was worse a few years ago, the ones that are way too strong for me, and handed them to her. “Put these on and go try to read the title of your puzzle book on the coffee table,” I said. She put them on, giggling at how big they looked on her face, and stumbled over to the table. She squinted for ten seconds, then pulled them off and said, “Everything’s all blurry. I can’t even tell what the big words say.”
“That’s what it’s like for Grandma when the words are tiny, right?” I said. She nodded, and didn’t complain about the big boxes again. We spent the next hour picking photos for each month: January was a blurry selfie the kids took at the pumpkin patch, June was Lila’s soccer team photo, October was Jake’s 5th grade band picture. Then the kids wrote in every important date themselves: their birthdays, Marnie and my dad’s anniversary, all their game and recital dates, every other weekend we planned to visit, Marnie’s monthly eye doctor appointments, and even Grandpa’s weekly bowling night. I had to remind them a dozen times to write bigger, to leave space between the letters, but they got the hang of it. Jake even drew a little dinosaur next to his camping trip that took up the whole box, and Marnie still talks about that.
We wrapped it up and gave it to her for Christmas. She opened it, and the first thing she did was hold it at arm’s length, like she always does with written stuff, and then she smiled. “I can read every single word without my magnifying glass,” she said. She hung it right next to the old tiny one, and took the old one down the next day.
Before this, I’d spent a lot of time trying to teach my kids to be kind, to think about other people’s feelings. I’d read all the little parenting tips about talking about emotions, volunteering at the food bank, all that stuff. But what stood out to me about this whole process is that it didn’t feel like a lesson. It was just a small thing we did to make Marnie’s life easier, and the kids got to practice seeing the world through her eyes in a way that stuck. Most kids under 10 don’t really get abstract ideas like “some people can’t see as well as you.” They need to feel the inconvenience of it themselves, to adjust what they’re doing to accommodate someone else, for it to sink in.
If you’re thinking of doing this for your own kids’ grandparents, there are a few small things that make it work better than just ordering a regular calendar. First, skip the busy patterned backgrounds behind the dates—solid light colors make the text much easier to read for anyone with low vision. Go for matte paper instead of glossy, to cut down on the glare that makes reading even harder for people with eye issues. Make sure the date boxes are at least an inch square—any smaller and even large writing gets cramped. And most importantly, let your kids do most of the work. Don’t write in all the dates for them. Let them pick the photos, even if half of them are silly selfies, and let them write the dates themselves. If they push back on why it matters, let them try blurry vision on for size with a pair of too-strong glasses, like I did. It takes 30 seconds and it makes the point better than any lecture.
It’s been eight months now, and it’s not a perfect solution. Marnie’s vision has gotten a little worse since we hung it up, and sometimes she still texts me to ask what a date says when the kids’ handwriting is too messy. Next year, I’ll look for a calendar with even bigger date boxes. But the small changes I’ve seen in the kids are unexpected. Last month, when Lila sent Marnie a video invitation to her recital, she added a text note at the end with huge letters that said “START TIME 2 PM” and told me she made the letters big so Grandma could read it. They remember to remind Marnie to check the calendar when we talk about upcoming visits, instead of assuming she’ll remember it if we just tell her over the phone. It’s just a calendar hanging on a fridge. But it’s done more to help my kids understand how to show up for the people they love than any big planned lesson ever has.
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