BEST & WORST OF 2015

Goodbye, adios, au revoir, shalom, ciao, aloha, auf Wiedersehen and sayonara. WHOOSH! is the sound of another year on the way out. Where did the summer go? And what happened to fall, our favorite season? Here we go again with another of our highly unscientific, extremely subjective annual lists of the best and worse of the year that was:

BEST NEWS OF ALL: It’s what we’ve been saying all along, but along came some new supporting research to back us up. According to a recent Boston College study, emotionally close ties between grandparents and their adult grandchildren reduce symptoms of depression in both groups.

WORST DEMOGRAPHIC TREND: Can you say “grandparent deficit?” That’s what some call the growing shortage of grandparents, caused by more women who are waiting longer to start families. While the women wait and wait, the would-be grandparents age and die off, depriving the newborns of ever having a grandparent. There doesn’t seem to be an easy solution to this problem.

GREATEST GRANDPARENTS EVER?: Hail to the Boomers, the Baby Boom generation that constitutes the majority of today’s grandparents. According to author Lori Bitter, boomer grandparents spend more time with, and more money on, their grandchildren than previous generations. Does that make them the greatest ever?

WORST CELEBRITY ROLE MODEL: From top to bottom, the tacky, self-important Kardashian clan is so bad that they have a lock on winning this category for the foreseeable future. They continue to invent new ways to offend, annoy and shock every sensible American. The great tragedy is that so many impressionable grandchildren hang on their every move.

BEST NEW GENETIC DISCOVERY: Scientists at the University of California at San Diego have discovered so-called “grandparent” genes they believed evolved in humans to extend the lifetime of elder grandparents, who in turn can pass on their accumulated knowledge to grandchildren and protect them from others. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

BEST CELEBRITY ROLE MODEL: Leading songstress Taylor Swift is edgy but likeable. She takes a stand against bullying and donated to charities under her friend’s names to avoid the publicity. She has never smoked or done drugs.

WORST AGE TO BECOME A GRANDMOTHER: A British woman became a grandmother at age 28. Do the math. Her daughter repeated her mother’s mistake and had a child at age 14, despite her mother’s best efforts to make sure the daughter didn’t repeat her mistakes.