from the usual suspect, or rather his wife, on Gab, where she references this article from Daily Mail as the proof that Boomers neglect their own grandchildren. The article, btw, isn't about older people demanding salaries, but rather about an estimation of the costs of the free childcare they provide by some insurance company, but that's not the point.
What I find really bizarre is that people who are supposedly for traditional family apparently believe raising children is now the duty of their grandparents and not their parents. The truth is that in the times past, grandparents only babysat occasionally and expected their daughters or daughters-in law to quit working and raise their offspring themselves, and not so long ago, either. It's not Grandma's duty to babysit while her daughter is out there in the office being a career woman.
In fact, in really traditional societies it's vice versa: the adult children have a duty to look after their parents in their old age, the elderly folks don't have a duty to babysit, clean the house and cook for free (which yes, many are doing) while their entitled adult kids enjoy their 2 income life style. There was time in my country when money was taken out of the adult sons' salaries every month to support their aged parents back then when we were traditional.
In my opinion, most internet personalities promoting "return to tradition" wouldn't like it a bit to live in a really traditional culture.
In traditional cultures, it wasn't that uncommon that grandmother had a baby or toddler of her own, when her oldest children started reproducing...
ReplyDeleteAnd it wasn't that long ago: my friend is the "evening star" of her parents, over 20 years younger than her oldest brother. And her mother didn't marry that young, she was 25 when her first child was born. My friend was born at 1967, if memory serves me right.
Yes, it's true, here it was the same. If something, the Boomers started the current babysitting craze and encouraged their daughters to work. The reason for this was the Pill. Big families went out of fashion plus Boomer women usually married very young and had their 2 kids right away so by the time they were 42 those kids had moved out and they were left with nothing to do.
ReplyDeleteThey should have probably just taken another child as they weren't too old instead of teaching their daughters to be feminists. Now it's too late as the Millennial men and younger won't/can't support a family for various reasons (mostly laziness and entitlement, but this is the topic for another discussion).
Laziness could be part of it, but it's also economics. I'm GenX, but after everything is taken out, I'm on $2700 per month. I'm not in a big city in Texas, but rent for a one bedroom is easily $1k plus utilities. Don't forget food and a car with insurance, repairs/maintenance. Not much left to raise a child and an adult or even think about saving. Of course, I'm better off here than in Europe I would think.
DeleteI will always contend that if the wealthier alleged Christians really cared about their future, they would forgo the huge home and mommy driving a suburban and encourage the kids to marry early, maybe live in the same house until the kids can get off to school while married young people start working or going to a trade or university.
Texan, it's perfectly possible over here to live on one income as many (low income) Poles whose wives don't work prove every day. It becomes a bit difficult, though, when you only choose to work 32 hours a week.
ReplyDeleteThat said, both men and women are lazy and entitled nowadays and expect to live in a villa or at least semi-detached, eat out regularly, drive the latest cars and have numerous luxury vacations. My husband's parents raised 3 children in a 60m2 council flat and their vacations was 2 weeks staying on a German farm once a year.