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For a lot of middle class reared people, ageing is an \u201cout of sight, out of mind\u201d problem that they put off thinking about for as long as possible; they don\u2019t really have to deal with their parents\u2019 ageing in ways that people from relatively poorer families have to.
This is one of those \u201cmaterial realities faced by most of us\u201d 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\u2019 ageing is something they\u2019ll just get to wash their hands of. They think dealing with it is an OPTION and something that\u2019s 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\u2019t think they have to think about these things.)
Gen X middle class urban Americans \u201cwent to visit Grandma.\u201d 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.\u00a0
So lots of people imagine that our parents\u2019 ageing is something we can just put off thinking about, because our own parents possibly didn\u2019t even have to think about it.\u00a0\u00a0
There is a broad feeling that\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t owe my parents anything.\u201d This isn\u2019t even from people who actually hate their parents. It\u2019s a relatively normified WASP, middle class sentiment.\u00a0
But what\u2019s 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.\u00a0
The support structures that would enable any other kind of option, have completely fallen away for a lot of us\u2026 and what younger people say?\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t owe my parents anything?\u201d Yeah, the thing is, lots of us said that, once.\u00a0
The reality is that even if you don\u2019t technically owe your parents anything, unless you actually hate them, you\u2019ll 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\u2019s not necessarily about providing direct care given how many of the seniors in question are comparatively able-bodied. Sometimes it\u2019s about household economy. Often times a family member with their social security check, becomes\u00a0 preferable to a roommate or boarder:\u00a0\u201cthe devil you know.\u201d
Sometimes, too, the spry ageing parent is who we turn to for child care.\u00a0
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.\u00a0
And because of the taboo against talking about actual material realities that seems to exist among so many white middle class people?\u00a0
Feh.
Nobody will talk about it.
Then there\u2019s the thing with our parents that we may have if the family is of a marginalized group.\u00a0
In my own family, my\u00a0\u201cowing something to my mother\u201d is\u2026 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\u2019t have to put up with.
And I have an actual cultural obligation to carry on the work my dad is doing for his tribe.\u00a0
Would I just let my parents fend for themselves? No. I can\u2019t even imagine doing such a thing.
I could imagine it at 20, because the idea of my parents eventually being seniors *wasn\u2019t real to me yet.* I didn\u2019t know that I would have to eventually go to my mom\u2019s doctors\u2019 appointments with her because doctors had stopped taking her complaints seriously.\u00a0
And this is leaving aside the family obligations we inherit when we get married/have a partner.\u00a0
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.\u00a0
And seriously, society exists outside of ourselves and our feelings. If we are prosocial people, and our parents didn\u2019t actually abuse us, then we WILL do those things because otherwise we\u2019d broadly be known as assholes, and we don\u2019t want to be seen that way.
I wonder how much it\u2019s an urban individualism thing, because\u2026 if you\u2019re in a small town or you\u2019re 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\u2019m not guilt tripping you! I\u2019m 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\u2019d not only be leaving my mom to twist in the wind, but everyone at Chabad would know I was the Village Asshole and I\u2019d lose the meager thread of support as a Jew that I have in this community.\u00a0This is a thing where I feel like it\u2019s easier for *actually* antisocial, uncaring people to socially climb, because less structural access equals more obligations that get shouldered, and (especially if you\u2019re a woman) your parents\u2019 and family members\u2019 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\u2019ll always have the perks and bennies they have now, unless they\u2019ve 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\u2019t consider ageing in their own ideology, likely don\u2019t know anyone in their neighborhood who has grandparents under the same roof, or takes on those kind of family obligations. If you\u2019re 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\u2019t white, chances are\u2026 you didn\u2019t notice, you wrote it off as\u00a0\u201cthat\u2019s their culture,\u201d and didn\u2019t consider *why* multigenerationalism was the most economically sustainable family shape.\u00a0\u00a0
Most of my generation didn\u2019t imagine we\u2019d have to eventually make up for the social safety net that has fallen out from underneath our parents.\u00a0
It\u2019ll 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\u00a0 people raising families will be doing it in multigenerational families. I don\u2019t think multigenerationalism is *bad* inherently\u2026 but I\u2019m worried that it could end up with a lot of personal liberties and civil rights getting walked back.\u00a0
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\u2019t 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\u2019d 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
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