Discuss any aspect of this question that you like, but vote based on your own gender and which of your grandparents has been the most influential in your own development in terms of at least:
Looks
Interests
Skills, talents, special interests
Personality
Character
Poll coming. Anonymous, one vote.
Code:
M - Male
F - Female
PGF - Paternal Grandfather
PGM - Paternal Grandmother
MGF - Maternal Grandfather
MGM - Maternal Grandmother
I just responded M-PGF because I’m an idiot, and meant to respond M-MGF.
My mom’s dad was such a well-rounded guy, a true jack of all trades. The guy could do anything and I didn’t appreciate it or him as much as I should have while he was still alive. We’re a lot alike, as it turns out, and my mom enjoys the similarities in our personalities. I really miss him.
Oh, my intellectual, bitter, atheist, wise-cracking lesbian grandmother (my mother’s mother, 1898-1987). She once told me, “I’ve learned two things in life–never get married, and never have children.”
I’ve followed her advice to the letter, and darned if she wasn’t right.
Well I didn’t know my maternal grandparents.
My paternal grandpa is still alive and we have the same sense of humor. He’s a pretty devout Christian tho, and I’m a slacker Christian.
My paternal grandma is the one I voted for. She is dead, died on my 7th birthday. But I most definitely, without a doubt, have the exact same body as her. All my other grandparents were/are tiny and/or skinny. Me and grandma are big ladies with big skeletons.
Grandma was also certifiably nuts - electro-shock treatment and everything. I feel a twinge of psych problems (anxiety, depression) but thank God not as bad as her.
Cool. That’s the way I view Mama’s “Papa” too. Daddy’s “Daddy” had a big influence on my interest in trivia and details, but the other had more effect on my overall personality.
My grandmothers were okay but not anything like as influential as my grandfathers. Mama’s “Mama” was an invalid and died when I was 10 so she had virtually no impact on my life.
My mother’s mother helped raise me. My father’s mother lived too far away–he died young & family ties weakened over the years. (Mom took us to visit a couple of times but none of them ever came to Texas.) I remember her vaguely.
Both grandfathers died before I could know them…
My MGM and her mother were both only children. My mother had one sister. Of MGM’s five grandchildren, four are girls. MGM and her mother were both widowed fairly young, and aunt was divorced young. Growing up, my experience of family was very matriarchal. My poor brother - no one was quite sure what to do with him. The four girls would get matching Christmas presents, we received jewelry “heirlooms” on significant birthdays, etc. I guess my brother at least got to be an individual!
Anyway, my sense of how to be a family definitely comes from my grandmother, and it’s a good thing. I also have her hair. I’m going to continue to hope that she didn’t share her tendency towards serious health problems with me, though.
I never knew my grandfathers. One of my grandmothers was pretty ghastly so, in spite of knowing I do have some traits of hers, I voted for the other, nicer one 
Female here, voted for my maternal grandmother. I never knew my PGF, and my PGM I saw only a couple times a year as we lived several hours away from each other.
My maternal grandfather I remember with love, I learned how to fish from him. But it’s been my MGM who has heard all the confidences and sorrows. She was also a teacher, so I “learned about learning” from here. When she dies (she just turned 107!!) I’m going to be a mess for a while.
Probably my paternal grandfather, since he was my connection with history and actually got me mentioned in a footnote to Walter Isaacson’s Einstein.
I was closer with my maternal grandmother, though.
Here’s the count after 20 voters minus the voter’s gender breakdown:
PGF 4
PGM 6
MGF 2
MGM 8
Voters: 20.
I could go on and on about why, but instead I’ll just say this: When people ask me who my role models are, I immediately think of my maternal grandmother. She passed in June - quite suddenly, at the age of 90 - and my greatest regret is that I never got to thank her for being a wonderful example of a confident, incredibly kind, adventurous, and all-around strong woman was. I only saw her for maybe a week or two a year - Christmas and summertime - but she gave me some of my best memories, and a concrete goal of “how I want to live my life.”
Christmas was actually really hard without her this year…
I knew only one of my grandparents – my mother’s mother. Her husband died right around the time I was born, and my father’s parents lived in England and we never visited that country until after their deaths.
I selected my maternal grandmother, but that’s largely because my maternal grandfather died when I was an infant, and my paternal grandmother and grandfather died when I was 11 and 13 respectively. My maternal grandmother is still around, and I think I got my love of travel from her. She always used to take my cousin and I on vacation. By the sheer virtue of time, she’s had the biggest influence.
Well, maybe. My paternal grandmother, who died when I was eleven, probably had a lot to do with shaping my morals. Maybe even more than my parents in some ways. I was closer to my paternal grandparents when they were alive than I was to my maternal grandma (though I was very close to all three!).
It’s really hard to think about my maternal grandmother’s influence on my life. She’s eighty-three, and. . .really not all there, mentally. That’s immensely hard to see, and it’s difficult to separate the way she used to be from the way she currently is.
Neither…
Impressive!
I’m the lone F - MGF. It was kind of a toss-up between the MGF and MGM. Indirectly, it was probably the MGM because of the influence of her on my mother which was passed on to me, but with direct contact, it’s my MGF because I spent the most time with him. I was always fascinated with the fact he was my only grandparent to not be born in Canada and he saw so much in his long life. He was also a hard son of a bitch in a lot of ways, having survived as a child the illness that took his parents, then the Great Depression over here.
After 30 Voters and without Voter Gender breakdown:
PGF 4
PGM 8
MGF 3
MGM 15
Voters: 30.
I voted for my maternal grandmother. Her influence wasn’t great, but she was the only grandparent of whom I have any real memory (she died when I was 16).
I never knew my grandfathers and only knew my paternal grandmother briefly, so I chose my maternal grandmother. Her influence was indirect in that the way she raised my mother directly influenced the way my mother raised me.