"Boomers" are often criticised for (among other things) refusing to babysit their grandchildren. Now, obviously, it's a good thing for grandparents to be involved with their grand-kids, to be available, to offer help and advise as needed, and to babysit occasionally, when the parents have a date night together, for instance.
However, I have a feeling that's not what Boomer haters really mean (and btw, many of these so-called boomers are more like early GenXers at that moment). What they do mean is that they want their parents to raise their kids for them while they are out working full time for luxury stuff and having fun at night.
Here is a (generic) example of 2 generations from real life. Parents: mother stays home when the kids are born and may later work very part-time when the kids are teenagers. They live in a cheap average size house in a lower middle class neighbourhood and have 1 budget vacation a year. Children: both work full time while daycare and parents raise their kid (usually one as two is too much hassle), live in a big expensive house in a posh area (which their elderly parents help clean, as they have no time for all that nonsense) and have "many luxury vacations".
Oh, and they expect their parents to help with the yard work, too.
Is it a wonder that many parents rather don't like it? You know what? Your parents don't have an obligation to raise your kids. They already raised you. In fact, if less parents babysat for their entitled children, more mothers would stay where they should be, in their own homes raising their own kids. You don't have to live in a villa. You don't need 2 brand new cars. You aren't entitled to staying in all inclusive 5 star hotels 3 times a year. It's a want, not a need.
When you think of it, there must be a reason that people are at their most fertile in their 20s and not their 60s. It takes a lot of energy to take care of small children, and young people are much more energetic and resilient than someone who (nearly) reached the retirement age.
I think we should all stop hating on Grandma...
Quite frankly I think its all gone off the rails. I believe things went off at least a century ago and kept slowly getting worse.
ReplyDeleteThis is will probably draw some hate, but it needs to be said. People need to go back to getting married at 15 to 20, and having kids at 16 to 14. I think that maybe not arranged marriages, but there needs to be some way for the parents to introduce good matches is needed. As we have seen over the last few decades women typically make absolutely horrible choices in who to marry, and men tend to marry women who are willing to give them sex. So maybe its better if their parent's could not choose for them, but choose their potential matches.
Something concerning that I've been seeing as a constant theme in the backdrop is ages getting pushed higher and higher for decades now. The term kids used to refer to children up to 12/13, now its been pushed to 26/28. Marriage age used to be 15-21, today its 29-36. The age for a first child (Note: in wedlock) was 16-22, now its 29-40.
All this is bad, extremely bad. Families were meant to have kids young as they would have the energy to deal with said kids. Girls weren't meant to have kids so late as the children are born with increasing risk of issues the later in a girls life they are conceived. It also lowers the number of children a family has, as by the time a girl decides she wants another kid, often today its too late.
Then there is the next bit of this Triangle of Trouble. Families are scattered. This too is not good. Oh I understand why its happened, but that doesn't mean it doesn't effect people. Kids are suppose to grow up around family. They need their parents, their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, and cousins when they are young. It provides them with stabilizing bonds, people who can help them out of a bad mental situation, etc.
All this has gone away, the family is scattered to the winds. I was lucky to grow up with both sets of grandparents, and one set of cousins, plus their parents in the same town. This blessed me tremendously. In contrast I have a few friends who were not so blessed. Who's parents lived whole states away from any family members. One in particular sees his grandparents once a year. They acted like not strangers, but kind of held each other at a distance. It is not healthy at all.
You need family nearby as a kid to help ground you and build social connections. Its much harder the way things are now.
The last point of the triangle, is who raises the kids. It isn't supposed to be just the child's parents, nor is it just supposed to be the child's grandparents. It is a team effort. It always has been, up until the last century. Today most households have to have both parents work to survive. This is not good. The child need's their mother when the child is young. At the same time, the grandparents can't be expected to raise the child by themselves. They already did that, but they are expected to "help" raise their grandkids.
This was never meant to be a stand alone thing. That old saying it takes a village to raise a kid. The village in the saying didn't mean a bunch of strangers, the village in question was the rest of the family, the parents, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins. They are the village, and in the current day and time, that is missing, and we have been feeling the effects of that being missing for at least 3 generations now.
- W
edit, 2nd paragraph "and having kids 16 to 14" this should have been, "and having kids 16 to 24"
ReplyDelete- W
Well, I won't speak for everyone, but usually it was girls who married young. Men had to support their family and it's hardly possible when you are 16. Here in Europe men were always somewhat older, in some countries (like France) in some circles often considerably older.
ReplyDeleteMy husband had traced his family back to 1400s. Women started having children young, but they kept on having them well into 40s, sometimes into late 40s. One of his great-grandmas, e,g. had more than 20 children, the last one about 44. They all were "normal" as in healthy.
Nowadays you are either too young to have kids or too old
apparently.
Further on, "the village" didn't raise the children, their mothers did (fathers worked 60 hours a week and had little time). But the children grew up considerably quicker than now. Around 1900 they usually started working at the age of 12. Boys went to sea, girls became domestic servants.
They were expected to help with the housekeeping from early on.
After WWII they stayed at school longer, but by the time there were in their early teens, they were expected to do the majority of the housework. My mother-in-law did all the family laundry together with her brother at the ages of 10 and 11 respectively, before school. She had to get up at 5 a.m. on Monday morning because this was the day they rented a washing machine.
They did have a lot of contact with the family, but by the time the last of the 10 kids finally left home, the last thing Granny wanted to do, was to take care of her grandchildren.
Also, here you can live on one income quite decently. It's all about lifestyle. I won't argue about the USA but Germany and Belgium aren't much different.
Yes! Agreed. It is something I won't do and haven't been asked to do because I raised my kids (some are already grown and some still being raised into adulthood) to understand their roles and responsibilities in their adulthood. I also think it has to do with having small children in my home still and they know I am busy with raising their siblings. (Yes, we had 12 kids together. No twins. Homeschooled/homeschooling them all. I stayed home. I had my first at 18 and last one at nearly 46. Was it hard? Yes. Would I do it all again? Yes, a thousand times!!)
ReplyDeleteWow, respect!
ReplyDeleteI do think babysitting has a lot to do with the empty nest syndrome. Boomers here married quite young, sometimes even younger than their mothers (usually about 18) and had all their kids (2) by the age of 20, because the Pill started being promoted (now I wonder why). By the age of 40 they were still full of energy but basically had nothing to do (upper classes usually had less children, but their women were raised to follow other pursuits, like being a good hostess, gardening, travelling, being a society woman etc) so they decided to encourage their married daughters to keep on working and to borrow their children.
They should have taken a 3d child instead, 40 is not too old;)
In my country we seem to have to opposite problems: grandparents, who wont babysit, and then grazy grannies, who want to practically steel the baby and walk over mother in every situation.
ReplyDeleteSome grannies apparently see the baby as some sort of emotional support toy. "I cannot work, if I a not allowed to babysit her on weekends, she MUST stay overnight, otherwise I do not have strength for next workweek". This an example from real life, and the baby in question was 2 months old, HARDLY in the age for overnight visit without mummy.
These grannies are those who had their children at 70's and 80s and neglected them, as proper feminists and strong roaring working girls apparently were supposed to. I mean, they went back to work when baby was 3 months! What kind of a monster for a mother abandons that small infant?
Boomer women here mostly didn't work, unless they were divorced. But they did raise their daughters to be feminists. Believe it or not, 20 years ago it was still normal for the woman to quit working upon marrying/having 1st child and stay home permanently. Those who did work, often worked less than 12 hours a week. Boomer women had lots of time to babysit, but their daughters not so much. So I guess their grandchildren will all be going to daycare. I should add that here in the Netherlands mothers didn't even work during WWII when Germans took our men to work in their war factories. Other family members helped. It's quite shocking, the way things changed.
ReplyDelete