National Grandparents Day

National Grandparents Day is the first Sunday after Labor Day, so it always falls between September 7 and September 13. It honors grandparents and encourages families to spend time with older relatives. The first national observance was Sunday, September 10, 1978, under a proclamation by President Jimmy Carter, and a 1979 law asked every president to proclaim the day each year.

The date moves with Labor Day. Grandparents Day was September 7 in 2025, September 13 in 2026, and will be September 12 in 2027. The table below gives the date for each year from 1990 to 2035.

What National Grandparents Day Is

Grandparents Day is a family observance without a day off. It sits in Title 36 of the US Code alongside other commemorative days such as Father’s Day and Flag Day. The statute, 36 U.S.C. 125, asks the president to issue a proclamation each year designating the first Sunday in September after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day and calling on Americans and organizations to mark it with ceremonies and activities.

Carter’s 1978 proclamation set the tone. It described older family members as the ones who set “the moral tone for the family” and asked each citizen “to pause and to reflect on the influence his grandparents have had in shaping his own destiny.”

Grandparents Day History: A West Virginia Campaign

Marian McQuade

The holiday’s best-known advocate was Marian McQuade (1917-2008) of West Virginia. She raised 15 children and lived to see 43 grandchildren, plus great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild. After her youngest child finished high school, she turned much of her energy to older West Virginians, serving on the state’s Commission on Aging and its Nursing Home Licensing Board.

McQuade had two goals. She wanted families to honor their own grandparents, and she wanted nursing home residents, many of whom had few visitors, to be remembered. A day set aside for grandparents served both purposes.

From a state proclamation to the White House

Her first success came at home. In the early 1970s, West Virginia Governor Arch Moore proclaimed a Grandparents Day for the state. McQuade then wrote to officials across the country, and most states issued their own proclamations within a few years.

Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia brought the idea to Congress. He introduced a resolution in 1973 that did not advance, then in February 1977 introduced a joint resolution asking the president to proclaim the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day.

The 1978 proclamation and the 1979 law

On August 3, 1978, President Carter signed Proclamation 4580, naming Sunday, September 10, 1978, as National Grandparents Day. The proclamation applied to that year only.

Congress made the request permanent the next year. Public Law 96-62, approved September 6, 1979, asked the president to proclaim the day annually. The first observance under the law was Sunday, September 9, 1979. The provision was later renumbered as 36 U.S.C. 125 in a 1998 recodification.

How the Grandparents Day Date Is Calculated

The rule depends on Labor Day, the first Monday in September:

1. Labor Day falls between September 1 and September 7.
2. The next Sunday is always six days later.
3. So Grandparents Day falls between September 7 and September 13.

A worked example: in 2026, September 1 was a Tuesday, so the first Monday was September 7. Six days later, Sunday, September 13, was Grandparents Day, the latest date the rule allows. In 2025 Labor Day came on September 1, its earliest date, which put Grandparents Day on September 7.

Because the day is always a Sunday and is not a federal holiday, it has no observed weekday. It does sometimes share a date with Patriot Day on September 11. That happens whenever September 11 is a Sunday, as in 2022, because September 11 then falls six days after a Labor Day on September 5. The day of the week calculator can check any September.

How Families Celebrate

Celebrations are low-key and personal:

• Visits and meals. Because the day is always a Sunday, many families mark it with a visit or a shared meal.
• Calls and cards. Grandchildren who live far away send cards, photos or video messages.
• School and community events. Carter’s 1978 proclamation asked officials and voluntary groups to plan activities recognizing grandparents, and schools, libraries and senior centers commonly answer with intergenerational events.
• Nursing home visits. In keeping with McQuade’s original aim, volunteer groups and congregations visit residents of long-term care homes.

The forget-me-not is often named as the day’s flower. The observance has never developed the large retail footprint of Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Grandparents in American Households

Grandparents play a larger role than a single Sunday suggests. Each year the Census Bureau marks Grandparents Day with American Community Survey tables on grandparents who live with grandchildren under 18 and grandparents who are responsible for those children’s basic needs, along with data on how many of those grandparents still work. Those tables are a starting point for anyone researching multigenerational households.

The Census definition is narrower than everyday family language. It measures grandparents who share a home with grandchildren and separately identifies those responsible for basic care; it does not count every grandparent who provides regular transportation, child care, money or emotional support from another household. When quoting a statistic, check the table’s year, age limits and responsibility definition instead of treating it as a count of all active grandparents.

Families can use the observance to preserve information that does not appear in public records. Recording a conversation about work, migration, school, military service, recipes or neighborhood change creates a useful family source. Add names and dates to scanned photographs, save the recording in more than one place and ask permission before sharing a personal story publicly. The result is more durable than a generic gift and gives younger relatives evidence they can revisit.

Grandparents Day Around the World

Many countries honor grandparents, but there is no shared international date.

Country or group	Observance
United States	First Sunday after Labor Day
Canada	September observance, first proposed in Parliament in 1995
United Kingdom	First Sunday in October (since 2008)
Japan	Respect for the Aged Day, third Monday in September
Catholic Church	World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, a Sunday in late July (since 2021)
Poland	Grandma’s Day, January 21, and Grandpa’s Day, January 22

How the Observance Has Changed

When McQuade began her campaign around 1970, the main concern was older Americans living apart from their families, especially in nursing homes. The holiday has since become a broader family day for grandparents of every circumstance, including the many who help raise their grandchildren.

The date rule has stayed the same since 1978. To find Grandparents Day on a past calendar, such as the 2008 calendar or the 1995 calendar, find Labor Day and count six days ahead.