Just curious. How old are you?
My kids grew up with their grandparents first in the apartment upstairs and then after my father in law passed, we all moved into a house together. They have never known a day in their lives without three generations.
They learned a ton about life in the past through her stories. You should have seen the discussion at the dinner table when they were learning about the depression and WWII. Lets say there was a little disagreement between Noni and the Teacher when it came to the horrors of dropping the bomb.
Its stuff like that, that I think kids have missed out on. My kids take better care of their grandmother than most kids take care of their parent. Watching them deal with her aging gives me comfort that they will take care of me.
I don’t understand this grip about generations of families living together that you sometimes get on FR. My husband’s family lived 3 generations in The Bronx together and the kids all ended up well-educated and employed. His grandparents (from Sicily) were fascinating. Even I learned things in the 90s from them. I sometimes think the nuclear family (in which I grew up) is not all it is cracked up to be.
I’m only mid 60s, I feel older than that but my kids say I look a decade younger.
We lived three generations together in the old family home, rebuilt in 1840.
A big old four bedroom house with running water. The septic system was added in 1964, so I spent my earliest years using the outhouse.
I grew up very rural. We were only five miles from the nearest town but that was a completely different world.
We only *went to town* once a month to get what we couldn’t grow, raise or make ourselves.
Coffee, tea, sugar from the grocery store. Cloth, buttons and sewing supplies from the variety store.
We did have space in the community frozen food locker. We put a couple of steers away every year.
There was the Farm and Home store for everything a farmer needed, from seed and fertilizer to gum boots and overalls.
Daddy made me learn how to plow and cultivate with the horses before he let me get on the tractor.
Many times he told me “don’t let those horses get too hot”. He never said anything about me getting too hot.
Now though, I am glad he did it. It taught me patience and care and gave me an experience that has served me well.
Other than my daddy, momma and my brother everyone around me was about two generations older. I grew up with their attitudes and beliefs.
It was almost a relief when I quit school to work full time because I had very little in common with my contemporaries.
I was raised to love and care for those around me and that family was family from birth to death.
Caring for an elderly family member wasn’t a chore it was an opportunity to return their love.
I have had a somewhat odd life.
But it has given me great and wonderful memories.