Losing The Connection; Children

About 40 yers ago 60 was old.  Really old.  And the old mother would have to depend on the children.  Today, one needs to be 80 or so to equal the disability.    This means that the power of the child over the elderly parent doesn’t come into play until the child is in their 50s or 60s.

This has caused a great upheaval, because no longer can the child of 20 or 30 be able to exercise a kind of ‘you follow me or are alone’ .

The image of the 30 year old being able to dictate to the parent has been replaced by the independent parents who at 60 move to another State or travel, leaving the child’s ambit.  

In the 1960s Grandma often lived with one of her children as a tolerated burden who was totally dependent and had very little say.  If she became too vocal she was pitched into some home to die.  In the 2000s, Grandma doesn’t live with the children, she lives her own life.  She doesn’t have to put up with the children, hence she has just as much power to disregard them as they can disregard her.

The lengthening of Indentity has made many 75 year olds capable of walking away from children who seek to control and keeps the resources in the pocket; in sharp contrast to being able to pitch a 60 year old into a home and seize his/her property. 

This delayed old age is another factor in todays peculair societal constructs.  One can not expect to inhereit as a matter of course when one is 40, and this dependancy, nurtured over the centuries is another factor in the economic problems faced by those in the 40 – 60 age group. 

Usually, at those ages one came into some largess, be it an Insurance policy, property, etc. which enabled the child to gain the extra financial assistance at a useful  time, i.e. college fees for children, sums for investment, a home that could be sold or resided in, cash; and so the child and their children benefitted from the death of the grand parent. 

By the time the Grandparent dies or becomes infirm the Parents have already suffered whatever disaster befalls, whether bankruptcy, loss of home, lowered life style.

The Grandparents may be living active lives into their 80s and often because of the break down of the family, where the children live in California and Wyoming and the Parents in Florida, and the Grand children in Texas, the collective economic block  is destroyed, leaving each to fend on their own.