Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
I discussed how the rising costs of childcare surpass the cost of rent by 25% to 50% across the United States. The cost of raising a child is directly reflected in the birth rate crisis we are seeing across the world. Another new phenomenon is permanently altering the family structure as a result of economics – the absence of the role of grandparents.
Unlike countless animal species, humans were designed to survive well past child-rearing years. Only a few animal species, such as elephants and whales, undergo menopause, and not so coincidentally, these species rely on shared wisdom passed down through the generations for survival. Men begin to decline in testosterone around the same time that women go through menopause, and while they can continue having children throughout their life cycle, men are wired to be less likely to compete for mates later in life. Grandparents served an essential role in the family structure.
The nuclear family has always been supported by the extended family. Older generations helped to care for the younger generations, passing down priceless knowledge. Younger generations had the ability to then care for the elderly. Tens of thousands of years of evolutionary biology is no longer the norm due to economics.
Simply put, most grandparents are still working to survive. I will speak from the US perspective, but this phenomenon is happening throughout the world. Over half of families (53.3%) were dual-income earners in the United States as of 2019. A recent survey found the average age of retirement is between 61 to 64, up from 57 in 1990. The current cost of living will require most to work far beyond this age for survival. Social Security will go bust, and hardly anyone outside of government employees will receive a pension. A comfortable retirement is hard to obtain for the average person.
Additionally, children are less likely to support their parents as they age for cultural and financial reasons. We saw nations like China fining young people for not caring for aging parents. Individualism is favored in our societies, and the youth throughout the world is geared toward starting a new life in the cities away from their immediate families. Younger generations notoriously have less saved for retirement compared to earlier generations due to the high cost of living, and many are unable to financially care for sick and elderly parents because they lack the resources. Life expectancy is slightly declining, but we are living far longer than past generations.
Since grandparents are preoccupied working, the parents are placing their children in daycares rather than with grandparents. That once essential role of the grandparent is less prominent in modern societies. The public education system rather than the family is passing down knowledge, or the knowledge they deem appropriate.
Could the extreme increase in the cost of living revive the multigenerational family structure? Pew Research has found that multigenerational homes, “defined as including two or more adult generations (with adults mainly ages 25 or older) or a “skipped generation,” which consists of grandparents and their grandchildren younger than 25,” are now rising in America. Around 59.7 million Americans lived in multigenerational homes in March 2021, compared to 58.4 million in 2019 before the pandemic. Yet a large cause of this shift is an increase in Asian and Latino immigrants, who account for a higher proportion of multigenerational households.
Around 10,000 Baby Boomers will turn 65 every day from now until the pivotal year of 2030. Estimates believe that there will be a 50% increase in the number of seniors living in nursing homes full-time by 2030. The Washington Post found that 10% of seniors 85 years of age or older now live in retirement homes unless they are working in US Congress.
The role of the grandparent was essential throughout all of evolutionary biology. Women had the opportunity to enter the workforce, and now, it is mostly a mandatory obligation due to living costs. Both parents are working, as are the grandparents, and the children are being partially raised by daycares and the school system. The role of the grandparent is vanishing from our society as a direct result of shifting economic and societal norms.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Only a few animal species, such as elephants and whales, undergo menopause, and not so coincidentally, these species rely on shared wisdom passed down through the generations for survival.
Did federal grant dollars get donated to a university where scientists discovered these reported facts?
Just wondering how they came to those conclusions.
Were the elephants and whales getting hot flashes, and screaming at males for no apparent logical reason? Did the elephants and whales’ heads spin around like Linda Blair in the Exorcist when menopause was intense?
Asking for a friend…an elderly gentleman who is currently living with a female homo sapiens who is experiencing menopause.
He drinks now.
Never used to, but he does now.
My guess is specific older females are being observed having sex, but never getting pregnant. From the point of biology their age outlasts their eggs, that is menopause.
The key is to get your spouse to drink more than you.
Naps… lots of naps.
Both sets of grandparents were extremely influential in my life, as much if not more than my parents in many ways.
I can’t wait to become a grandparent, should I live that long.
Not one either, but many contemporaries I spend time with are GP’s.
They tell me it’s one of life’s greatest, prideful, and enjoyable experiences.
That old wooden swing will be active again with the giggles of babes, and you shall be around to witness it. That is my hope for you
Being an active grandparent has been the crowning glory of my life: period. The sooner it happens for you, the better. My three live sixty yards from my house on a shared property already deeded to them with life tenancy for my son and his wife. I see those three (10, 8 and 5 years old) every day and delight in it no end. The “extended family” is imoh the natural order of things and taking an active part in its growth is a fitting finale to a now (77 years) long life. If I were to be asked about my “vocation in life” at this stage, I have no doubt whatsoever I would contentedly name it “grandfather”. When “father” has been completed to one’s satisfaction, “grandfather” simply seems the natural progression, a conclusion I reached before it became a reality. It’s even better than I’d hoped!
Very well said, and I am experiencing the same rewarding outcomes.
Grandchildren are Gods gift for not killin’ your own children… 😉 Attended my granddaughter’s graduation from her preschool yesterday. Homeschool now begins in earnest. May you too have the same joy!
Wonder how much grandparents did when life expectancy was 35. Article conveniently ignores that little factoid. Grandparents didn’t do shit because they died off before they ever became grandparents. What was important was the wisdom and knowledge resident in the relatively few that made it into old age. The entire community was responsible for children. Grandparents, not so much.
Good to see you’re still kickin’, Chief. Stay healthy and well.
You confuse life expectancy with the average back when childbirth deaths were averaged in.
There’s a cemetery nearby that goes back to the 1700’s and there are plenty of graves with folks who lived into the 90’s and over 100.
I would say that as a percentage of the adult population, those who make it past 80 are far fewer today than 100 years ago.
I always bring this up, when they lie and say we live longer.
HSF – that is too short a time period to make your case. This also discounts the vast numbers, and the very high percentage, of people that died violently throughout history.
If you die in childbirth, just how much grandparenting do you do? If you die giving birth, ditto.
People married much, much younger back then. They didn’t wait until past thirty to get married and have kids like they do now. Even now that’s almost too late. There was no such thing as adolescence until recently.
For some odd reason, that brought back an old memory….
Back in the early ’80s, I was having Thanksgiving dinner with a friend at her parent’s house. The table talk was mostly about the goings-on within their clan. Someone mentioned a niece was getting married, and an old granny pipes up and says, “How old is she?” The reply was mid-twenties, and granny shook her head and said, “She’s too old. She’s not trainable anymore.”
Not a big fan of “it takes a village”. Happily, life expectancy has long been higher than 35!
35 is simply an average. “The early years from infancy through to about 15 was perilous, due to risks posed by disease, injuries, and accidents. But those who survived this hazardous period of life could well make it into old age.”
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/life-expectancy-myth-and-why-many-ancient-humans-lived-long-077889
You sound like a miserable person. People have routinely lived past their 70’s for centuries.
Factors like childhood deaths and death during childbirth skew the average. saying that people pretty much died at 35, is like syaing everyone at Amazon makes 300K, as the mean is 300K..
Amazon’s salary distribution, the mean salary is around $300,000, but the median salary is around $70,000 https://www.dictionary.com/e/average-vs-mean-vs-median-vs-mode/
All you nitwits -the guy says in the article talks about this happening over tens of thousands of years. Go back to the dawn of man. Those fucks lived very short lives. The ancient Greeks averaged like 28 years. Bronze Age 26. A species doesn’t genetically modify much in a couple thousand years. What you see today is much what has been around for a very long time.
My wife has watched our grand-kids from the day their mother went back to work until they were in school full time. She will continue to watch them in summer until the oldest, a granddaughter, is old enough to care for herself and her brother. We are extremely closely bonded with the kids, and take them many places during the day to do different activities. The number of grandparents also doing that is astounding. I think the high cost of daycare is part of the reason. Also the danger posed by some daycare centers and their employees. I do acknowledge not all grandparents can afford to have one or both not working and some just aren’t willing to tie up their lives that way.
But if you love your grandchildren and have the ability take care of them, it is a great experience for both the grandparents and the kids.
“Daycare” is the key word here. We need to go back to before daycare.
A young child in a Memphrica Day Care center was recently rushed to the hospital where they figured out he had eaten a THC gummy that one of the workers left out. Not the best people working in those places.
I watched all 3 of my grandkids at various times so my daughters could work or go to school. Now they are all teenagers. Where does the time go?
My parents retired in Florida when my kids were born. They were past 40 when I was born. I wouldn’t have had my mom watch them as she started having symptoms of Alzheimer’s when they were still young. My mother-in-law worked and I worked part-time. I had to put them in day care. I hated it. But at least it was only part time.
Nonsense. Biologically, far more people live to old age today than used to be the case. Grandparents are a large part of today’s society (for families that have kids).
And while concentration of wealth is a huge challenge for ordinary families, the main problem with people continuing to work is people in power addicted to said power, not working because they need a paycheck.
It’s part of why I think the system has been sustainable longer than some thought. The visible government in DC is still largely run by people born in the 1950s and 1960s (and even older!). These petty tyrants simply won’t let go. They don’t want to transition to being village elders. They still want to be in charge.
Fauci is a prime example. He worked at NIH for more than 50 years and was in his 80’s when he retired.
Some people work in physical jobs and can’t even make it to 62, the have to get disability. Not everyone is a government worker or office worker. Rotating shifts also shorten life spans.
A society that pushes children out of the family home at 18 whether they want it or not should not be surprised if they want nothing to do with the elderly 30 years later. There is no commitment to the core family unit any more. My parents did not “move out” until they got married and started their own new family.
I have a vision of our children living with us well into their 20s while we all enjoy mutual respect and a good balance between caring for another while allowing each other the independence we crave. I want them to hold jobs and learn to care for themselves without going into debt and while we can still give them roots and wings and such.
And then my husband accuses me of suffocating the children and being some sort of mix of a helicopter and a lawnmower parent. We shall see how it will play out.
I am an old Boomer. When we were in high school my siblings and I were gently taught around dinnertime conversations that we would be moving out of the house after we graduated high school. Because college was still affordable for middle class families, we were told resources were available for us to attend college, preferably in a different community. If school wasn’t of interest, we could get a job and live on our own. End of discussion. We didn’t feel abused; rather, we had confidence in our ability to start the separation from the nest as a prelude to a productive adulthood.
The deterioration/destruction of prosperity for average families has eliminated the luxury of these kinds of choices for young people unless they are willing to take on a load of debt. I don’t think the natural order of things includes energetic young adults living with parents. It’s tragic that economic and other factors promulgated by corrupt entities have made it necessary for many.
I graduated in 1974. No one was pushed out of the house, everyone want to be independent. I do feel sorry for people in foster homes and orphans. They are often pushed out and abandoned at 18. A lot of the males their only option is the military.
….”men are wired to be less likely to compete for mates later in life”….
You gotta’ kidding me!
I see tons of divorced men, 20 years older than their fake boob trophy wives.
It’s menopausal women that are done with “mating”.
We want your money you cheating assholes!
LOL.
I think it becomes weird when the new wife is younger than the daughter.
Their hell is that after they bang each other they have to “talk” to their sex objects.
Hah! Enjoy your infantile conversations guys!
“…like…you know…I don’t know…you know…”
I really am bugged by the fact that human behavior (here and on ZH)is always summed and calculated sans RELIGION!……as human behavior was never dictated by such things…I firmly believe without JESUS in your life you have no personal guide rails on your own behavior….where your going is predictable………the ignorance is astonishing!
Are you serious?
I would say 25% of people here believe in “The Rapture” and are hardcore Bible thumpers and if you don’t ” Believe!” you are going straight to hell when you die …even if you are a good person.
I will be the judge of that. It’s WAAAY to crowded down here for people like that.
I can’t incinerate people fast enough to make room!
My Mother keeps telling me about someone she knows who used to have custody of her 9 year old grandson. The mother walked out, then the father met an obese slob with a few other kids and suddenly wanted ‘his’ son back. The kid gets excluded from activities with the landwhale and crotchsprouts and has said on phone messages he wants to kill all of them. He wants to live with grandma again but the father won’t let him so the grandma wants to move back to be near the grandson. It might be his only hope.
Just spent the afternoon with my great-granddaughters and had a blast. We went to the garden and ate sweet peas straight off the vine and they sampled some of my herbs as I showed them the different plants that were growing. None of the 4 turned up their noses at anything and they wanted to pick extras to take to their Mommy for her to sample. We walked around in the field, caught a butterfly for them to touch, examined a bird nest in the rose bush and fed the catfish.
I hope they remember this when they are older and always want to come to my house and play.
Today’s grandparents — the Boomers — will all be held in high esteem when they kick off and leave behind the largest family wealth transfer in US history …
Most of the grandkids in my mom’s life have nothing but disrespect for her even though they live in her house. She complains to me and now at the point where I can’t listen.
My paternal grandfather was so influential.