isaacsapphire:

silver-and-ivory:

soulvomit:

For a lot of middle class reared people, ageing is an “out of sight, out of mind” problem that they put off thinking about for as long as possible; they don’t really have to deal with their parents’ ageing in ways that people from relatively poorer families have to.

This is one of those “material realities faced by most of us” issues that constitutes one of my biggest disconnects with so many white middle class leftists.

Most middle class, urban white Americans have been raised to think that their parents’ ageing is something they’ll just get to wash their hands of. They think dealing with it is an OPTION and something that’s the earned reward of their parents having loved them enough, and that nobody will frown on them, and or the consequences of that disapproval will be minimal. (And this may change because of social media and cancel culture, but the world most of us grew up in is still one where middle class-reared white urban people don’t think they have to think about these things.)

Gen X middle class urban Americans “went to visit Grandma.” Grandma did not live with us. And when Grandma finally died, she did it in a care facility or hospital, distanced from us. And lots of Silent Generation middle class and even working class people had pensions. 

So lots of people imagine that our parents’ ageing is something we can just put off thinking about, because our own parents possibly didn’t even have to think about it.  

There is a broad feeling that “I don’t owe my parents anything.” This isn’t even from people who actually hate their parents. It’s a relatively normified WASP, middle class sentiment. 

But what’s actually happening *on the ground* is that in my own age group - Gen X - quietly, one by one, elderly parents are moving back home, and in with their middle aged offspring. Quietly, one by one, Gen X people have had to even move in with their parents to do direct care. The number of working Gen X people I know who live under the same roof with an elderly parent, is incredible. 

The support structures that would enable any other kind of option, have completely fallen away for a lot of us… and what younger people say? “I don’t owe my parents anything?” Yeah, the thing is, lots of us said that, once. 

The reality is that even if you don’t technically owe your parents anything, unless you actually hate them, you’ll probably take them in, too. Or go to live with them. (Which is a common situation. We need to talk about how McMansions are actually becoming multigenerational compounds.)

And it’s not necessarily about providing direct care given how many of the seniors in question are comparatively able-bodied. Sometimes it’s about household economy. Often times a family member with their social security check, becomes  preferable to a roommate or boarder: “the devil you know.”

Sometimes, too, the spry ageing parent is who we turn to for child care. 

For the past 25 or more years, the shape of the white middle class family has been changing to match the household shape of practically every other group of people. Eventually, multigenerationalism could be a broad norm. 

And because of the taboo against talking about actual material realities that seems to exist among so many white middle class people? 

Feh.

Nobody will talk about it.

Then there’s the thing with our parents that we may have if the family is of a marginalized group. 

In my own family, my “owing something to my mother” is… well.. I get something out of this relationship, too? She is my only living connection to Jewish culture, where I live. It means that I put up with a lot of things in our relationship that other people feel like they don’t have to put up with.

And I have an actual cultural obligation to carry on the work my dad is doing for his tribe. 

Would I just let my parents fend for themselves? No. I can’t even imagine doing such a thing.

I could imagine it at 20, because the idea of my parents eventually being seniors *wasn’t real to me yet.* I didn’t know that I would have to eventually go to my mom’s doctors’ appointments with her because doctors had stopped taking her complaints seriously. 

And this is leaving aside the family obligations we inherit when we get married/have a partner. 

Sometimes we do things because SOMEBODY HAS TO DO THEM, and YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN DO THEM. And if your parents were abusive or neglectful, you end up having to weigh whether it was bad enough to warrant leaving them to twist in the wind, and possibly die. My mother was not always a good mother, but I still love her. She would have had to have been a lot worse for me to not look after her. 

And seriously, society exists outside of ourselves and our feelings. If we are prosocial people, and our parents didn’t actually abuse us, then we WILL do those things because otherwise we’d broadly be known as assholes, and we don’t want to be seen that way.

I wonder how much it’s an urban individualism thing, because… if you’re in a small town or you’re in a tight knit cultural community (with no support from the outside) then do you really want to be known as the Village Asshole?

(I’m not guilt tripping you! I’m saying that you WILL make these decisions. Eventually. You are just not there yet.)

We really underestimate how much social pressure eventually will catch up with us. Like, if I became the Village Asshole, I’d not only be leaving my mom to twist in the wind, but everyone at Chabad would know I was the Village Asshole and I’d lose the meager thread of support as a Jew that I have in this community. 

This is a thing where I feel like it’s easier for *actually* antisocial, uncaring people to socially climb, because less structural access equals more obligations that get shouldered, and (especially if you’re a woman) your parents’ and family members’ lack of social safety net, eventually catches up with you.

I feel like people who have a lot more access and options, whose families have always had a lot more access and options, tend to imagine that those options will always exist for them. People also tend to think they’ll always have the perks and bennies they have now, unless they’ve already experienced losing those perks and bennies, or there have been a *lot* of examples in their lived reality of people *not* having those perks and bennies.

The people who won’t consider ageing in their own ideology, likely don’t know anyone in their neighborhood who has grandparents under the same roof, or takes on those kind of family obligations. If you’re a white urban person then chances are, you might have even been raised around people who *did* have multigenerational family obligations or households, but if they weren’t white, chances are… you didn’t notice, you wrote it off as “that’s their culture,” and didn’t consider *why* multigenerationalism was the most economically sustainable family shape.  

Most of my generation didn’t imagine we’d have to eventually make up for the social safety net that has fallen out from underneath our parents. 

It’ll happen to Zoomers, too.

And a big reason I feel like progressive social causes *are* a big emergency, is because of the cultural crisis we will have when multigenerationalism becomes a standard American norm, across the board, most  people raising families will be doing it in multigenerational families. I don’t think multigenerationalism is *bad* inherently… but I’m worried that it could end up with a lot of personal liberties and civil rights getting walked back. 

We need to fix this problem NOW and we need to fix our family relationships NOW because otherwise, the norming of multigenerational households, could actually have a negative effect upon gains for women and, in general, LGBTQ people. Imagine NEVER being able to get away from your abusive, homophobic/transphobic parents. Imagine that the image of Woman As Caregiver is an even *more* broadly entrenched social institution, especially as jobs become more scarce.

We need to fix these problems NOW, and we can’t unless we actually FACE them.

you do not actually owe anything to your parents

You do not. But the day may come when you are faced with the decision, and the social ramifications, of letting them die on the street.

And I know people who let their parents die alone, earlier than they would have if they’d acted differently. And they made that choice because their parents had done horrible things to them, and I will not judge them. But they judge themselves. It weighs on them, and if more of their community knew, others would judge them.

You are young and your parents are young. There is a lot of time to consider.

If you follow the thread of logic here, this post is someone realizing that like, “caring about your family heritage” isn’t some harmless friendly thing, it really will drag you into a net of power and obligation, and that modern freedom really does require a radical individualism that cuts ties to family and community and understands ourselves as disposable things to be engaged transactionally