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Do you think things were better when people lived in extended…


Randomguy

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I am just thinking of how little RO  really knows about her grandparents.  My mom can’t travel at all, and my dad is her caregiver, so they can’t visit out here.  RO is not into FaceTime, I have to really work to get her on the phone with anyone. 
 

Just realizing that they will probably die without her knowing what they are really like, other than some incidental contact and some visits here and there.  
 

I am realizing that grandparents will get kind of forgotten if you aren’t in their presence all the time, and I am happy I was around mine growing up.  One grandfather died when I was four, but the others lived until after college. 

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5 minutes ago, Bag of Dicks said:

I am just thinking of how little RO  really knows about her grandparents.  My mom can’t travel at all, and my dad is her caregiver, so they can’t visit out here.  RO is not into FaceTime, I have to really work to get her on the phone with anyone. 
 

Just realizing that they will probably die without her knowing what they are really like, other than some incidental contact and some visits here and there.  
 

I am realizing that grandparents will get kind of forgotten if you aren’t in their presence all the time, and I am happy I was around mine growing up.  One grandfather died when I was four, but the others lived until after college. 

In a way I feel bad for my in-laws as they saw my kids 1-2 times a year and really don’t know my kids nor do my kids know them.  My kids saw my mom 2-3 times a week and were really close to her.  

My wife and I see our grandson 2-3 times a week. We usually have to sneak a visit in mid week to see the boys. I cant imagine seeing him 2X a year. 
 

Im thinking RO doesn’t know what she’s missing but yeah it’s gotta be tough on you.

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My siblings and I spending two weeks almost every summer with my grandparents was priceless. Yes, it is sad that that is a pretty difficult thing to arrange for most families now. I wonder if living closer would have been better or not?  Yeah, sometimes I think having an extended family nearby would be nice. 

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When I was younger my family was more of the extended type.  Even when separate homes were involved they were close together.  Sometime in the 80's or 90's I began to notice that children were moving away from their parents homes, often to other parts of the country.  This was also a time when families started getting into dual wage earners on a larger scale causing families to spend less time together.

It seems that the more modern version of the extended family is when the kids move back home for some support by the parents, not the other way around.

You tell me.  Is the world better?

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It depends.   We never lived in an extended family home, but when I was growing up my maternal grandmother lived less than two blocks away (and just a few houses down from my grade school).  My Mom was a teacher, so when I was in the younger grades (that only went half day), I'd go to my Grandma's house until my Mom finished school.  She was a wonderful, sweet lady and I benefited from the time I spent with her. Even when I went to school for a full day, my Mom and I  would often stop by her Mom's for a quick visit. 

When my sister's kids were young, my sister worked part time, and my parents (who lived about a mile away) would pick up the kids after school three days a week and watch them.  They really had a nice chance to bond and get to know each other (and the little family stories).  My now grown nephew was recently talking about some situation and he said something like "I tried to think how Grandpa would handle it" and do that.

But if the family member was not a positive influence, I could see that such closeness would not be good for rest of the family.  So I think it depends lot on the arrangement and the people involved.

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The last vacation my wife and I took we rented three cabins at a lake and two of our sons with their kids spent the week with us. It was glorious, the cousins got to play together, we had meals together, thanks to cell phones we could keep track of all the kids (10 kids between the two families). We rode our bikes to the beach and swam, the grandkids buried each other in the sand, they even buried the one mom. I still remember the one group text I got “Has anyone seen Clarissa?” A minute later we get a text “She is at Our cabin, she and Lexi are having a tea party”.

During the last two years of Esther’s life we often remembered and talked about what a great vacation that was. I had always hoped my kids would settle down locally but only Ben stayed in the area and is still the closest one but is almost an hour away.

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9 hours ago, Bag of Dicks said:

I am just thinking of how little RO  really knows about her grandparents.  My mom can’t travel at all, and my dad is her caregiver, so they can’t visit out here.  RO is not into FaceTime, I have to really work to get her on the phone with anyone. 
 

Just realizing that they will probably die without her knowing what they are really like, other than some incidental contact and some visits here and there.  
 

I am realizing that grandparents will get kind of forgotten if you aren’t in their presence all the time, and I am happy I was around mine growing up.  One grandfather died when I was four, but the others lived until after college. 

Wow, most kids I see glued to a phone:wacko:

Luckily my grandparents were very close to me growing up. And the older I got, the more I understood how great it was.

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9 hours ago, Bag of Dicks said:

…family homes?

A mixed bag, for sure.  From the paper yesterday, even being knowledgeable and having parents with you, it is tough these days with the challenges of advanced age illnesses.  When parents could die before retirement age (the likely reason we set SS retirement at 65), there was less overall impact.  Folks got old (65+) and died.  Some lasted, but most didn't.  Not a huge DECADES LONG time period where time, resources, and mental angst was required by children to care for their parents.  Now, it is different, but also at the same time when there are far fewer women staying at home who can be tasked with taking care of the parents and the children.  It's a tsunami many are unprepared for.

Amy Goyer is AARP’s family and caregiving expert. She has written two books on the subject and has her own consulting business.

“I am a caregiving expert. How did I end up in bankruptcy?” she says.

Ms. Goyer depleted her savings and ended up relying on credit cards after being financially drained by costs related to caring for her parents. After more than a decade of caring for her mom, who had a stroke, and her dad, who had Alzheimer’s, Ms. Goyer filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019.

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37 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

A good friend of mine just built 3 houses around a central back yard that has a massive gazebo, fireplace, swimming pool and lawn.  He gave each of his kids a house on the compound.  I guess that is one way to keep the family together. 

How far away did his kids live before he built the houses? That would only work if the kids could work from home or had jobs in the area. I would love to have my kids and grandkids that close.

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Just now, Longjohn said:

How far away did his kids live before he built the houses? That would only work if the kids could work from home or had jobs in the area. I would love to have my kids and grandkids that close.

It's actually something several of us have discussed doing, and it is only now, as working from anywhere becomes an option for all of us, that this sort of thing could work out.  Then it is a matter of settling on the WHERE of it. Right now, the bigger issue is that some of us have kids still in school, so schools matter, but as time progresses, that's less an issue, but so is older parents.  My family has my mom left.  My wife's parents are gone. My oldest sister's in-laws are gone. My one brother's in-laws already live with his wife's extended family. My other brother's in-laws are passed too.  Just my middle sister has her in-laws still around, but she is also the least likely to move to a family "compound".

But to me, location would be everything.  No chance I'm uprooting to a place I wouldn't normally choose as home.

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10 hours ago, Bag of Dicks said:

I am just thinking of how little RO  really knows about her grandparents.  

I think it was very nice when most members of the family were located in the same city or very nearby.  When I was a little kid in the 50's, almost all of my mother's and father's family members were within about a 10 mile radius.  I got to spend a lot of my childhood at my grandmother's (on my mother's side), surrounded by many aunts and uncles and cousins.  We also regularly visited all my aunts, uncles and cousins on my father's side of the family, as well.  It was great to grow up in such a large and loving environment.  :)

It was great until we moved to Virginia when I was about ten.  Then we were 300 miles away from all the people we had been so close to for my whole life.  We still visited a couple times a year, but it was never the same again.  :(

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3 hours ago, bikeman564™ said:

Wow, most kids I see glued to a phone:wacko:

RO is a screen kid, and this really bums me out.  Her mom has been babysitting her by phone since she was 2, despite the fact that RO broke her phone many times.  TV always on otherwise.  I used to read to her a lot, but she fights reading in favor of the TV.  I try to take her out to walk around, she wants to stay inside, She has gotten scared of covid as her mom is anxiety filled and continually talks of it and has had RO internalize her anxiety.  I make her go outside with me regardless, to the dog park, Central Park, around the local neighborhoods.

It would be helpful if other family members were around, just to hear differing ways of going about things and having other people to bounce ideas off of.  It is easier to see if someone is batshit if there and more non-batshit folks in daily life, and to see how people properly act.

I can see it would be less stressful to be a parent if family is close by to help, and it was nice growing up and having family dinners on Sundays.  I knew my family well, but then a few moved to the west coast, and others here and there, and nobody keeps track of the younger kids, as they are in all corners of the country now.

Having a really big multigenerational place seems better and better over time, or at least having houses in close proximity.  

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34 minutes ago, Bag of Dicks said:

Having a really big multigenerational place seems better and better over time, or at least having houses in close proximity.  

There was no career opportunity for me if I’d stayed nearby my dad. My kids are better off not being around him or their aunt and uncles on my side, truth be told. They’re abusive people. I left for numerous reasons.

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