[CompoundEyes]

I see it a different way. Parents reach a period in life where their kids strike out on their own and want little to do with them beyond a safety net. That’s normal and natural and the parents move onto a new phase too. In fact they might just not be that into you anymore. It’s ok if visits upset their routine and holidays are somewhat irritating. Same for being not overly enthusiastic about taking on care giving roles for grandkids. They’re still individuals and it’s not like old age causes someone to lose their inner world. They’ve seen a lot and not as much is novel likely. They’re facing loss, mortality and decline. If they feel compelled to scroll let em scroll. I’m so glad assistive technologies and a11y will be there when I’m decrepit so I can have something more stimulating than TV. Maybe ask grandma to play some Lethal Enforcers the next time you visit you’d be surprised — mine did.

[rafaelmn]

> That’s normal and natural and the parents move onto a new phase too.

Is it really ? I would say the "natural" way of things is older generation gets supported by children and they help take care of grandchildren while their children are working. The whole late retirement/both parents working situation we have these days is reliably leading to a population collapse.

[paulryanrogers]

> the "natural" way of things is older generation gets supported by children and they help take care of grandchildre

It's an ideal. Structuring society to require it falls down often because:

- people have kids later, making them too old to help

- disease and addiction can make grandparents unfit

- young families often must move to where work is, even if far away

- deeply in debted grandparents may be unable to afford to help

- grandparent's own care needs compete with those of their grandchildren, i.e. sandwich situations

- cultural expectations unfairly burden some over others, usually women

[graemep]

People have kids later but life but expectancies and health and medicine for older people are far better than they were historically. Not for everyone, but for most people.

The rest all comes down to solvable social and economic problems, mostly as a result of putting short term GDP growth over all else.

[antonymoose]

Really couldn’t have put it better. When I was a child my grandmother retired and relocated 800 miles to help with my mother with childcare. Why? Because it’s why you do. It’s what all of her family did as far back as anyone could care to remember.

This world where your boomer parents retire to a beach house to drink margaritas, smoke designer weed, and play pickleball and ignore their offspring is the real aberration here.

[watwut]

It used to be that YOU help elderly parents. And they they are the patriarch ruling familly and his wife at that time. When the grandma did that help with children, it was at her terms - she was the decision maker to large extend.

That arrangement is not working from both sides. Younger generation wants autonomy and expects parents to not try to run things, not to demand more contact then they want etc.

Which makes sense. But you cant have it both ways - both autonomy/independence and service.

Younger generstion has their period of low responsibilities - before they create familly. It is shifted to later years tgen it used to ... but it is weird to then get jealous over their parents having some free time after work.

[antonymoose]

It used to be a two way street, actually. The broader family was just that, a unit.

Now it’s little independent atomic cells doing whatever with little to no regard for the bigger picture.

Ultimatel, it’s the Boomer me generation that broke this tradition. It’s not weird for a millennial to look back and say “How nice of them to have their cake and eat it too” as I raise children alone and deal with the dilemma of how to treat their greed and selfishness as they age and demand of us while contributing little.

[wisty]

Millenials are the "stereotypical manchild who hates his parents because he's too much like them" generation. (I'm a millenial too)

[graemep]

A large part of both is the professionalisation/outsourcing of child care which weakens family ties.

[watwut]

I really think you did not bothered to check how families historically functioned.

[carlosjobim]

That's not how it was. When the patriarch became too old, he'd give the farm and the "crown" to the eldest son - who would have more physical and mental strength than him.

Thirty or forty year olds in the past wouldn't take any orders from their fathers or mothers. Of course they would help them, as they are family. But the elderly would absolutely have to step aside, and those who were in their prime would call the shots.

[watwut]

> When the patriarch became too old, he'd give the farm and the "crown" to the eldest son - who would have more physical and mental strength than him.

That would mean very old. They kept main decision power as long as they could. By the time they gave it away, they were not helping with childcare much. Instead, they were cared for. And even with that arrangement, you are ignoring younger sons, daughters and wife's. Because childcare part is not something that concerned men - it was women's area.

> Thirty or forty year olds in the past wouldn't take any orders from their fathers

Yes they did. The dad was 50, that is not nearly old enough to give up power even in your arrangement. And yes, they were frequently pissed about it.

> or mothers.

They were taking orders from mother in law. And if you look at less individualistic societies now, that is the source of large friction - mother in law vs sons wife. Where mother in law expect her to be, basically, a maid and she does not like that at all. A woman marrying into the husbands multigenerational family is the lowest person in the hierarchy of adults, basically.

[lotsofpulp]

Daughter in laws butting heads with mother in laws (and father in laws) is a story portrayed in many cultures’ popular tv shows/movies. As are parents who own everything on paper, making them the ones with actual power, butting heads with their children.

It is only in the previous 100 years where young people all over the world have the power to support themselves without anyone else’s help, which is why the preference for independence was revealed.

[carlosjobim]

Young people have always had the power to support themselves without anybody's help. That's how life has worked for billions of years now.

It is only very recently that the industrialized world became completely financialized, so that the cost of life has become artificially increased for the youth. Young people have always moved away from their families for marriage, or for becoming sailors, soldiers, miners, hunters, lumber jacks, etc. It was only the oldest son who would inherit anything, so the rest of them wanted to scram as soon as they hit puberty.

Inheritance-baiting your children is the oldest scam in the book, but people weren't complete fools in the past, and wouldn't stick around if the old folks went too far. A lot of head-butting between generations and in-family as you mention.

[mitkebes]

People also used to marry younger and have children sooner. When people were getting married and starting to have kids in their teenage years, it meant that new grandparents would only be in their mid-30s or so. That put them in a much better spot to assist with the grandchildren.

Now many people I know are waiting until their 30s to have children, meaning that the grandparents are already 50-60s.

[graemep]

When was that? The average age of marriage in medieval England was early 20s as far as I can find out.

There are cultures where it is usual for grandparents to help where people are having kids in their mid twenties or later.

I know and have known lots of people who are perfectly capable of looking after kids (maybe not full time permanently), but for holidays or during the day, in their 70s or 80s.

In fact standard retirement age (insofar as it still exists) here in the UK is 67 so most people will still be working in their 50s and most of their 60s. It really is not that old.

[skissane]

I think one thing that has changed-both my parents and my wife’s parents are divorced, which makes things socioemotionally more complicated in terms of grandparental involvement in our children’s lives-it still happens, but I think it involves difficulties which didn’t exist for my own parents and grandparents when I was young, and were it not for those difficulties, it likely would happen more

Both grandparents divorced means you go from two family units involved to four-which in itself adds logistical complexity-and new partners doubles the opportunities for interpersonal conflicts

[Markoff]

TBH it was also expected trade - you will take care of elderly parents in exchange for their help with kids participation, so since boomer parents don't help they also can't expect help

my (divorced) parents (5+ and 2.5+ hours away by car) didn't help us with kids at all (wife's parents are 7500 km away), but they can't expect I will be taking care of them when they will be really old, after all my father and his sister put their own mother to retirement home, when she could not live alone by herself, so they should kinda expect the same treatment (although I was against it and wanted grandma rather die alone in her house earlier than suffer slightly longer in retirement home without her garden/animals), actually my mother put her mother to retirement home as well, though I think she wanted to go there, it was pretty great facility, it was very small house (studio), each separated part had one occupant with minigarden with meals minutes away + it was also <1km from her old big house, so not much change and not much difference for her since she lived in front of the living room TV anyway

[MattGaiser]

> Parents reach a period in life where their kids strike out on their own and want little to do with them beyond a safety net. That’s normal and natural and the parents move onto a new phase too.

This is at best extremely cultural. It is certainly not a global norm and not really viewed as desirable, just necessary.

Average American doesn't move very far at all from their parents and America is where the idea of time limited parenting is most prevalent.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f...

[tcskeptic]

My parents moved from Texas to Chicago this year to be near my sister instead of me (their son) because in their very traditional minds they need to be taken care of by a daughter in their old age. I get to send checks. I thought it was a terrible idea, they have friends and family here and Chicago is very cold. That being said they moved into a community of her 11 kids and their spouses and their kids — probably 30+ relatives in their orbit. And they are surrounded by people who love them and help them. It’s really been good for them. Much less scrolling and much more conversation, group meals, board game playing, storytelling.

[jkestner]

Your sister has 11 kids? Smart of your parents, then. That’s a good pool of caretakers for them to live around. But I’m surprised they didn’t move sooner to help raising that many kids.

I live in Texas now, and think I’d ultimately prefer Chicago too. Don’t have to drive as much to find stimulation, and the cold preserves.

[wisty]

Phones are like alchohol or fentynal. I might dabble a bit but if I see a loved one constantly zonked out on the couch I worry.

[tossandthrow]

I think this misses the point.

Excessive scrolling is like excessive eating, smoking, or snorting coke.

It is not healthy and not indicative of a full filling life.

[borski]

Except that doomscrolling causes aged folks to deteriorate in health faster than being active in some way, just like for everyone else.

If it were simply that they weee living their own lives, I don’t think anybody would take issue with that.

But they aren’t - they are spending their lives on their phones, doomscrolling, which is much more likely to cause accelerated aging.

No, I don’t have a study for this, but it is not a secret that being active and not on your phone improves health outcomes.