assignments
week #8 – E1131, E1132 & E1133
write a comment in the box below (min. 80 words) about this article
I grew up in a traditional society, where my grandparents lived with us and were always in the house. When I came to this 
country, it surprised me how unusual it was for three generations to live together. I accept that most young people’s lifestyles don’t fit with those of grandparents. However, in my opinion, we are fully responsible for taking care of our ageing parents and grandparents. My reasons are that:
country, it surprised me how unusual it was for three generations to live together. I accept that most young people’s lifestyles don’t fit with those of grandparents. However, in my opinion, we are fully responsible for taking care of our ageing parents and grandparents. My reasons are that:- *our parents and grandparents invested a lot in caring for us, and it’s our duty to do the same for them.
- *elderly people can experience loneliness and helplessness. If we care about someone, we should protect them from these feelings.
- *it’s more expensive and wasteful for people to iive in separate homes.
I feel strongly that everyone should reconsider the way they live, and move towards a more traditional family structure, even in a modern context.
With Skype, people have the possibility of remaining connected with their family even if the members are dispersed all around the world. It is easy to organize daily appointments that do not cost a dime. Technology is cool for elderly people and it is cheap and easy to use. Nowadays, it is impossible to feel alone, far from the people you love.
In our occidental societies, it’s usual for different generations to live in separated homes. The youngest people want there freedom and the oldest people too. In our culture, we don’t consider old people like in oriental culture : for us, they are only the elderly, but for them, they have knowledge and experience.
I hate retirement homes where elderly people are abandoned and do not receive visits.
I feel that it’s a good thing to keep in touch with our grandparents and our parents, to take care of them like they did for us, but not necessarly in the same home.
I understand and agree with this woman’s feeling; her arguments are completely logical and right in an ideal life. A life where you can manage to live with your whole family to permit the elderly people to live correctly in their last days.
Howewer, it is a question of habit. If you were already used to living with your grandparents, it would be easier to repeat the experience with your parents. It depends also on your connection with your parents. But it is necessary that your partner shares the same values to accept this kind of lifestyle.
To conclude, without these conditions, I think it could create more inconveniences than advantages for everybody to live together.
I think she’s completly right because today we live in a society which is losing the most important: the link between generations. Today in our western economy, aging people have become a real business. The more we get “rich” the more we get individualistic and selfish forgetting that without our parents we’d never have been here!
It’s very hard to live with our parents when we are single but when we get married it’s absolutely impossible to accept the parents of your husband or wife. I think that if the economic crisis persists and the increase of flat rent we would reconsider our relationships with parents and grandparents.
The most of us are living far away from our parents, sometimes in another country with other habits, another language, and the elderly don’t want to change their environment even if they are no longer able to live alone.
I agree with this old woman about the advantages of living with our grandparents.
On one side, Grandparents could help to look after the children. They can help children with homework, teach them traditional culture, talk about history and share their wisdom.
On the other side, children could give a lot of happiness to them. It’s really important for old people not to be alone and feel that they are useful during this part of their lives.
In occidental countries, this way of life is not really common and it’s not in our culture to live with our grandparents.
I understand the opinion from this old woman. But times have changed. Like many French people I come from an agricultural family, in which, at least three generations lived together in the same house up to the 70′s. Of course every one took care of each other, but most of the time the family hierarchy was maintained up to the last day of the patriarch. And it was sometimes really difficult for individual personalities to emerge. Separation into small family units is a really good thing for the emergence of individual liberty and autonomy. Of course we need to be attentive and present for our parents.
It is a point of view. But in our occidental way of life, it is difficult to reproduce this habit. People live in an individual way and have more various activities than the old generations. This reality does not mean that the link between the grandparents, the parents and the children is broken. Each generation lives in a different place but supports each other according to the present day.
100 years ago, all families lived together in the same flat because of necessity. Money, house or flat were often missing. According to my grandparents, the conditions of living were difficult and some quarellings exploded regularly.
Nowadays the situation has changed. We have more money to rent or to buy our own home so we win then in liberty and independence. Each generation can lead the life they aim for. For me it’s a great progress for every one.
But, the chidren must help their parents especially when they become old and remember what they have done. This relationship is between 2 generations and the leadership has changed from the parents to the children.