The Reluctant Grandparent
April 9th, 2008
I am a child of the 60’s-70’s; a child of the Universe. Wherever I go – there I am. Well, in reality – sure, I have ideals. For the rest of it – I have led an unremarkable life the past 20 years working and raising children.
I was a reluctant parent: never planned on kids. But they just happened and that’s part of the circle of life; so, you go forward. After all – how much time/effort could it take?
Anyone without kids cannot understand what could possibly take so much time in the raising of kids! A parent is always busy. Either a sick kid or a school project, Boy/Girl Scouts (or something similar), school fund-raising efforts, child character development (possibly involving getting them to excavate their room) – or the 1001 tasks that come from being around and working with kids to bring them to an adult launching point. Including hormonal storms at adolescence (there’s one to keep you up nights with nightmares). Or course, careers/work is in addition to all that and much too involved to talk about here.
Ah, that mythical grown child launching point! That promised quantum time of sweet rest and (relative) leisure when parenting is done and parents of adult kids are free to vagabond off to Europe or somewhere interesting (mainly not ‘here’). The travel brochures were acquired, stacked, organized and the planning stage of escape was well underway.
That was when my purple-haired (better rebellion through Goth) newly married 22 year old daughter shyly offered that she was expecting a baby in 8 months. You did what?! It will when?!?
My reaction was beyond shock, I admit. She was afraid that I’d be angry due to thinking she was too young to start a family. I was irritated: my escape plans had been interrupted. Anyway, I am way too young to be grandparent! And I’m just getting some B.C. Quality (Before Children) free time!
Yes, I know. I could have said: ‘That’s nice, kid! Have a good life’! And could have gone off to Europe anyway. (Still hoping to do so at some unspecified time in the future). What I did - was dig in and try to be of help wherever possible.
Even at 22, young people do need some extended family support. Support: emotionally, with fix-it chores (that horror of first time home-owners) and sometimes financially. In fact, all young families could use some extended family emotional support and less isolation. That is part of my 60’s Ideals surfacing: enough already with modern urban isolated micro-family Aloneness! Many hands make the work light.
While parts of Europe have implemented ‘co-housing’ and various forms of community-creating and green living arrangements - here in America we have stubbornly refused to notice.
*Why should a couple (of any age) with a new baby be stuck alone and isolated with their new charge? Is the only alternative – putting the child into infant daycare (with a much-stressed adult trying to care for 4 other young infants at the same time) so the mother can return to work and association with other adults?
*Are new parents doomed to be isolated and alone in the ‘baby ghetto’? Yes, Baby Ghetto: that spot where new parents are kept isolated from the rest of society. Alone and frequently terrified by all the newborn and infant symptoms that come and go with breath-taking speed and regularity.
*Old pre-baby friends frequently melt away (suddenly and permanently ‘busy’).
*My daughter’s job promised a part-time schedule after the birth for a few months (as an alternative to her regular 70 hour per week schedules). But after the birth, the company backed off, deciding that having part-timers for any reason just ‘would not work out’. So now she is jobless with an infant and no disability pay (company rules: she had worked there less than a year when she became pregnant).
*Her insurance on that job would have paid for a C-section in hospital – but would not pay for her midwife and delivery in a birth center ($20,000+ cheaper than the conventional C-section).
*Her husband’s salary alone does not begin to cover their expenses.
Obviously, it is up to individual families to patch the gaps. And by families - I mean Baby Boomers. Of course – pursuing my own 60’s Ideals in this matter means that Actions speak louder than mouthing Ideals and Platitudes. I was caught up by my own ideals.
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