As the Boomer generation ages and starts to become grandparents, they continue to spread their narcissistic errors, affecting yet another generation. Now it’s not their own children they’re neglecting, but their grandchildren.
Does anyone want to stay with the kids anymore? In this Newsweek article, there is mention that 40% of boys are being raised without their father. Now, this MSN article says that not only do grandmothers not want to be called Grandma but they are making their grandkids pencil in appointments to see them! The father issue is very important and one that needs to be addressed. But, in addition to fathers being absent, it seems that no one in the extended family wants to hang out with kids anymore—including grandmothers:
Look, I’d love to nip over and whisper secrets into 1-month-old Maggie’s ears, or to dress 2-year-old Ryan in the black leather jacket I bought her recently and take her to look for late blackberries in Golden Gate Park on my bike (with its deluxe new kid seat). But I have a job. I’m a reporter, I have two books to write…
Thankfully my daughter’s grandparents won’t be like that at all. If three of the four of them didn’t live in different states, I’m sure they’d be here all the time after her birth in May.
Technorati Tags: Baby Boomers, grandparents, parenting
The MSNBC article had women who had board meetings and law degrees and jobs at Newsweek who purchased black leather jackets for two-year-olds that will be outgrown in half a year. That says something about the narcissism of the upper crust, but perhaps not much about the rest of us.
I’m waiting and praying for our 3 to start having babies. I plan to homeschool ‘em myself.
In the interest of full disclosure, Dh & I are Boomers (he’s turning 50 this year.) I’d like to point out that such self-centeredness did not begin with our post-war generation. Take a look back at the parents of the ‘50s & ‘60s who were awfully busy, not only with work and PTA, but also with golf, cocktail parties, bridge games, clubs, etc. Whatever guilt they might have felt about ignoring their offspring they assauged by buying them stuff – and more stuff. We were by no means “upper crust” but it was pretty common in my family, and in the families of my friends, for things to be substituted for time and involvement. There was also a frankly expressed attitude of entitlement among those adults, who wanted to make up for deprivations endured during their own childhoods and during the War. My own mother never got over her resentment of missing out on the social life she’d fantasized about when the war took her new husband overseas. While it was okay by her to have her first baby among the multitude of other new mothers right after the war, by the time I came along a decade later, she was more than ready to spend her days socializing during the older children’s school hours. She certainly wasn’t alone at the Women’s Club, Garden Club, Ceramics Club, golf course, etc. When she learned she was about to become a grandmother for the first time, she was horrified and took pains to let everyone know that she’d been a teen bride. I don’t recall a single one of her friends who thought she was old enough to be a grandma either. It was very common for them all to express the sentiment that they’d raised their children and were not about to get tied down with grandchildren. So while hardly any of these grandmothers had the excuse of employment to keep them from spending time with their grandchildren, they still failed to make time in their busy schedules. By the time my children were school age, they knew well that golf and country club friends took precedence over them in their grandparents’ lives. We lived less than 1/2 an hour away then, yet we saw my parents an average of once every two months despite our frequent invitations to visit or to join us on outings. When their health deteriorated and they could no longer play golf, all of those friends faded away.
Dh & I learned from example how not to be parents. If we’re ever blessed with grandchildren, I hope that we can remember how our children felt to be ignored by their grandparents and make the next generation a priority in our lives.
Go for it, Charles! If for some reason my chidren cannot homeschool their children (death of a spouse, for example), they know that dh & I will be happy to step in. We homeschooled them through 12th grade, and it was a grand adventure.
Hip, hip to homeschoolers.
Not ever having a Dad around (burnt out on drugs in the 1970s) I pray for the intercession of St Joseph when I get into parenting quanderies.
It works!
There may be, also, a sense among baby boomers about how it all went so very wrong.
“I’m sure they’d be here all the time after her birth in May”
Dom, did you just let the cat out of the bag?!
Grandparents are so important. My own mother was always glad to drop everything on a moment’s notice if her granddaughter was available. She turned up in my kitchen with donuts at least once a week, much to my daughter’s delight. Then there were days when said daughter was young that she would drive me to my last ounce of tolerance, since she could make messes faster than I could clean them up. (Her attention span was about half an inch long.) When the point came of either screaming at the kid or calling her grandmother, Mom was the better choice; and an hour or an afternoon of solitude was a childsaver. It was a happy solution for all three of us since Mom was 15 minutes away.
I wonder how many abused children would not be if the grandparent outlet were available to more families.
Grandparents are so important. My own mother was always glad to drop everything on a moment’s notice if her granddaughter was available. She turned up in my kitchen with donuts at least once a week, much to my daughter’s delight. Then there were days when said daughter was young that she would drive me to my last ounce of tolerance, since she could make messes faster than I could clean them up. (Her attention span was about half an inch long.) When the point came of either screaming at the kid or calling her grandmother, Mom was the better choice; and an hour or an afternoon of solitude was a childsaver. It was a happy solution for all three of us since Mom was 15 minutes away.
I wonder how many abused children would not be if the grandparent outlet were available to more families.
Grandparents are so important. My own mother was always glad to drop everything on a moment’s notice if her granddaughter was available. She turned up in my kitchen with donuts at least once a week, much to my daughter’s delight. Then there were days when said daughter was young that she would drive me to my last ounce of tolerance, since she could make messes faster than I could clean them up. (Her attention span was about half an inch long.) When the point came of either screaming at the kid or calling her grandmother, Mom was the better choice; and an hour or an afternoon of solitude was a childsaver. It was a happy solution for all three of us since Mom was 15 minutes away.
I wonder how many abused children would not be if the grandparent outlet were available to more families.
Not sure why anyone would be surprised by these stats or stories. When we downgrade children to simply “another thing as part of my life”, rather than an absolute gift from God to be treasured, trained, and given back, then that’s what we get. Add in the “Contraceptive Mentality”, the NOW gang, and a heavy dose of relativism, and you get something far worse than the latch-key kids of the 70’s and 80’s. Been to a day care center lately? See how many of those kids are infants: 4-6 weeks is the average age to head off to “school” (I just love that phrase).
RE: Grandparents, I don’t think they have the natural “it takes a village” responsibility that some say. My dad had a strict “18 and you’re out” rule. Not that he didn’t want me back to visit or to bring our three daughters over. But he understood the distincting between parent (primary care giver) and grandparent (mentor, spoiler, and occassional substitute parent. Both my parents still work 50 hours a week in real estate and see our girls once a month probably. My wife’s parents are both retired, and have watched our girls while we’ve traveled abroad. I don’t think either set of parents loves the our kids more or less.
My wife and I have a saying we use on each other, when one of us starts to slack a bit: “Be the Parent.” I think it applies here. Have children? Then they come first until they are raised and out the door. Not at the expense of providing for your family, or nurturing your marriage. But parenting is prime gig.
Just catching up here.
My parents are actually going to retire to the little mountain town in New Mexico where my sister and her husband and their growing family (#5 due next month!) live. My father, who’s been a designer or executive all his life, is getting a small machines certificate at community college so he can start a part-time business, and Mom is looking forward to being a grandma and community volunteer, having worked very hard over the last decade as a top producer at a hoity-toity dept. store. She’ll be able to retire with full benefits in about four years or so, my father in a couple of years, so they’re doing this in stages. But even now they spend up to 4 weeks a year up there. I really admire how they want to spend time with my nieces (their only grandchildren – so far!) and also want to build a balanced life for themselves. I should note that my parents aren’t Boomers – Daddy was born in ‘38 and Mom just under the wire in ‘44.