Grand Parenting : The Most Important For You?

It is a known fact that people are living longer today and with older age comes many obstacles for which the elderly overcome. Such obstacles as; physical changes, mental changes, changes in income, friends, family, and at times their way of life. As the baby boomers are getting older, some find that their social life has declined because most of their friends have died. Moreover, some of the boomers are maintaining their lifestyles as though nothing has changed, while others are in the midst of significant changes in their lifestyles and their way of life. The purpose of this discussion board is to compare and contrast two social theories about aging and how it relates to the role of the caregiver. Furthermore, I will discuss the one new

The final stage is the “family in later life”. During this stage, individuals must accept the shifting of generational roles, as they become the grandparents. They must be able to let go of some power to their offspring as they find their new place in the family system. Dealing with this change while facing potential decline in health, financial security, and loss of spouse can be stressful. Grandparenthood can be a reward substitute (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988, p. 20).

3.   What important changes in family patterns do you see today?   Important changes in family patterns I see today are more independency and the value of family is coming back into perspective.   Do you see positive changes, negative changes, or both?   I see both positive and negative changes in families today.   The positive I see are fathers being more involved in their kids’ lives rather than just the moms and the negative I see is more single parent families.   What do they mean for families, in your opinion?   In my opinion that means that people are not taking family as serious as they should and I also think there is a huge lack of respect in relationships which is why there are many people not staying together these days.

Individuals between the ages of 80-84 are the fastest growing segment of the population in the state of Maryland. Of the nearly 5.7 million people in Maryland in 2010, 18.6% were over the age of 60. It is expected that this percentage will increase to 25.8% of Maryland’s projected population of 6.7 million by the year 2030. With these and similar statistics in mind, it is imperative, then, that the present groundswell of intergenerational initiatives continue to rise to meet this increasing demand. To that aim, this document proposes the Adopt-a-Grandfriend Project, pairing 8th grade James Madison IB World Middle School students with residents of Collington Life Care Center’s nursing and

Byl what her favorite part about being her age was and she said “my favorite part is that I am still young enough to do a lot of things, but I am old enough to have grandbabies.” For some older adults, being a grandparent is a source of emotional self-fulfillment, generating feelings of companionship and satisfaction that may have been missing in earlier adult-child relationships,” (Santrock, 366) The last question I asked was if she had any advice to someone 10-20 years younger than her, what she would tell them. She replied, “I would tell them, “don’t major in the minors. Sometimes little things that we get wrapped up in don’t matter. Let the main things be the main thing and the little thing be the little things! “She would also tell them, “If you have children you have to enjoy every stage that they are in because time just passes so

When one thinks of grandparents, they are usually compared to as being a wiser adult who has had various positive and negative life experiences and throughout it all managed to keep their family together. The family structure has changed and more grandparents are forced into parenting for second generation children. Raising second generation children can be difficult for the grandparents who have been forced into the role of becoming a primary caregiver. Most children have a loving and trusting relationship with their grandparents, but when the roles have been forced to change the environment changes as well. With the mass amount of changes happening to the family structure, it was necessary to assist these secondary grandparents in learning how to promote and advocate in their new roles as secondary parents. With the structural changes faced by African Americans, it was appropriate to use this group because of the barriers and challenges faced and it allows for a replication with other groups. African American women can become dominant in an unfamiliar setting, so limiting the size of the group was justifiable and allowed for more interaction and engagement among participants. Using the family system theory would be necessary because this theory places an emphasis on reciprocal relationships and mutual influences between the individual components (Barker, p. 157).

“We all have respect for our elders because of their hard work. We wouldn’t be in the U.S. or have what we do now if it wasn’t for them”, Ivan stated during the interview. I interviewed Ivan Miranda; a native of Acapulco, Mexico, about elderly roles in his family. Ivans grandparents are the first and the oldest generation of his family in America, therefore, a majority of the answers are of direction of his family’s values towards his grandparents and the ethics that are taught by them. In addition, I came to understand more about his family’s thoughts on the importance of elderlies, along with the loss of their heritage’s way of life towards the elders.

Elders are vital members within their communities and anticipated to fulfill essential roles such as those of mentors, cultural transmitters, providers of care for grandchildren, and civic and religious leadership (Ramos & Wright, 2010). Cultural values of collectivism and communal orientation can serve as a protective factor in alleviating distress” (Furman et al.,

Grandparents also serve as role models to their grandchildren. A role is defined by the "set of expectations, rights, obligations, behaviors, and duties associated with a particular status position" (Newman 592). Grandparents have a variety of roles that they play in respect to their grandchildren. They are stress buffers, watchdogs, supporters, family historians, and much more. Children, often fearing punishment, do not want to go to their parents with their problems. Grandparents can indirectly teach children the lessons that they need to learn by joking and kidding with them, talking about growing up, giving advice, discussing problems, providing discipline, taking trips, teaching a skill or game, or talking about disagreements the child had with the parents (Doucette-Dudman 112). Parents seem to be more uptight with their children, perhaps because it is the first time they have ever had to be responsible for another human being’s life. On the other hand, grandparents have already been through parenthood, making them more confident, and therefore, more relaxed in their attitude towards raising children (Kornhaber

The interview with the Harrisons associates with some of the information that I’ve found within my research. According to Connidis (2010) about 55% of grandparents over the age of 50 have been taking care of their grandchildren for five or more years. There is an estimation of about 6.6 million children below the age of 18 who are living with their grandparent (P.S Storm & R.D Storm, 2011). In 75% of cases it was shown that it was mainly single grandmothers who take on the role of guardian with a little over 70% of them being less than 60 years old ( P.S Storm & R.D Storm,2011).

In the text The Handbook of Families and Aging, Chapter seven Aging Parents and Adult Children: Determinates of Relationship Quality, and Chapter eight Grandparenthood: Grandchild and Great- Grandchild Relationships speak a lot about grandparents living longer and how their relationships with their child, and grandchild affect the family dynamics. I really enjoyed these chapter because I'm very close with my grandparents and seeing not only the positive aspects of these relationships but negative as well really interested me. In chapter seven Aging Parents and Adult Children: Determinates of relationship Quality, the authors shared that elders are now living longer. They state “ Individuals in their 60s and 70s currently enjoy far better health and much more active lives than did their counterparts as recently as two dancers ago.

In many families in our society today, the parents are a part of the sandwich generation and now are raising kids that are growing up to take part in the boomerang generation. The sandwich generation makes up of people who are in their thirties or forties that are trying to raise their own children while looking after their elderly parents. On the other hand, the boomerang generation consists of young adults who graduate high school and college to only come back and live with their parent and rely on their support. As a result of this, there comes many challenges for both the parents and the child since the sandwich generation is stuck in the conflicting nature of taking care of their elderly parents while providing for their children by meeting their needs of emotional love and providing tangible needs. However, many realize that their kids are entering into adulthood and now these parents face the challenge of pushing their children to be independent and take on responsibility while trying to secure a stable retirement.

The number of aging people is increasing at unprecedented rate. People seem to understand one another mostly when they are raised within same period of time since their perception of world and values rhyme. There is a need to bridge the gap between young and old generation. According to Harwood (2007) parents and caregivers should accomplish this by helping these generations to learn from each other. The quality of visits between the two generations matters a lot. To build a strong society, there must be a good intergenerational relationship between old adults, friends, grandchildren, grand parents, and adult children (Harwood, 2007).

Yet there are very few studies showing that children with present and active grandparents actually live longer lives in old age. In actuality, Kachel, Jean-Jacques, and Premo claim, “to date, important assumptions of the grandmother hypothesis remain undemonstrated and important questions remain unanswered” (384). The approach taken here is a grandmother’s helpfulness does not affect the longevity of her and her children’s offspring. There is a difference between having an impact on society and having a social role with evolutionary significance. Kachel, Jean-Jacques and Premo explain, “Despite the fact that the help provided by grandmothers significantly reduces the mean interbirth intervals of their adult daughters and significantly increases the survival of their matrilineal grandchildren in our model, grand-mothering has no effect on the evolution of longevity” (398). This is confirmation against the notion that grandmothers increase longevity in grandchildren. The results of the study comply with the ideas of Carnes and Olshansky, “A common misconception is the alleged assumption that longevity, and the mortality that defines it, is programmed within the genome of organisms”

1-Census data indicate that in the United States there are approximately 2.4 million grandparents raising 4.5 million grandchildren. Grandparents raise their grandchildren, for their biological parents cannot care, or choose not to care the child that they born. Some common reasons are teenage pregnancy, divorce, drug or alcohol addiction, physical health issues, death of the parent, unstable home life, homelessness, child neglect or abuse, or one of the parents is in jail.