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An anecdote: If you ever take a tour of Amish country in Pennsylvania, most of the houses have two or three generations living in them. What the Amish do is pu
by maresca 13y ago
An anecdote: If you ever take a tour of Amish country in Pennsylvania, most of the houses have two or three generations living in them. What the Amish do is put an addition onto the house for another generation of family. It's been that way for a long time and will be in the future.
- scarmig 13y agoProbably too late for anyone else to see this, but how many families in the USA handle relations seems utterly warped to me. Perhaps the two biggest lifecycle stages--having children and growing old--we deal with absolutely terribly. Young couples go through many sleepless nights taking care of kids, and struggle to find a way to care for them while still maintaining a connection with the outside world. Old people have a different problem: many face total social isolation, feel great sadness at not being connected with their children, and want some way to feel productive. (Indeed, one of the best predictors of year-on-year survival rates is number of friends an old person has.) They're two problems that seem to me to almost solve one another: why not have older generations help more with the kids? Not like it's a unique solution either, because it's been done pretty much everywhere until recent times.