Extended Family Fun

I never want to be one of those sad middle-aged people who begin every sentence with, “Back in MY day….” For one thing, life really is short, and we need to live in the PRESENT—that requires enough energy & concentration. We shouldn’t waste precious time on regrets/nostalgia about the past or anticipation/anxiety about the future.

But I’ve fallen off the “Eckhart Tolle channels Ram Das” truck lately, thinking about the old tradition of keeping extended families together. Today, kids go off to college, away from family, then go even further away to begin careers. Siblings are often spread out across a region or a country. One’s childhood nuclear family rarely spends time together, except maybe during holiday gatherings or “reunions,” which become increasingly rare as kids begin having kids, and the parent-kids are pressed into cub scout, brownie, sunday school, PTA, band booster or soccer servitude.

I think there was “method to the madness” in extended families. For one thing, first-time parents are often…well…incompetent. Really, anyone with opposable thumbs can change a diaper, but things like correct baby food temperature, rashes, vaccination reactions, and total lack of sleep can give the smartest new parents that glassy-eyed zombie look. There really IS no manual for parenting, and so traditionally we learned by modeling ourselves after the parents around us—grandparents, parents, aunts & uncles, etc. Scary, if the models are horrid at parenting themselves, in which case, kids had best move far away and sign up for parent effectiveness training at their local community college.

When good models are available, extended families are a lifesaver. When my oldest son was born, I lived in a 17-room house with my younger siblings, my mom, and my grandma. Someone met my son’s every need, immediately. He was spoiled beyond belief and entertained my grandma’s church circle in a Superman cape and not much else by age two. He grew up believing he was the CU (Center of the Universe), but he also grew up listening to adults in constant conversation. Today, the kid is a golden-tongued debater and performer extraordinaire. And the MOST important thing about raising him in this extended family is that I could hand him over, or better yet nap, whenever I was overwhelmed by new motherhood.

My daughter was also born while I lived in the Big House (the family home, not prison). The first granddaughter, she didn’t touch solid ground until around age three. I’m surprised her feet didn’t atrophy, she was held so often. She too listened to adults, and she didn’t attempt a word until she had a full, complete sentence ready to go. I believe it was, “Please don’t put eggplant in the lasagna any more.” My daughter had childhood asthma, and there were many times when the extended family saved MY life and hers, staying up with her in shifts, sitting in a steamy bathroom with her, driving us to the ER, or calming my fears so I could calm hers.

My youngest son lives right now with my mom, while he makes important career choices between work, college, being a destitute European street musician, or hitching to California to skate boardwalks and live off discarded cotton candy. I’m incredibly grateful he can be there. Mom can often have meaningful discussions with him, even when he adopts his quizzical, “I don’t understand this foreign tongue you speak” look with us. And she feeds his antisocial cat and gargantuan dog when he’s off skateboarding.

Right now I’m working on getting my oldest son, with my daughter-in-law and two grandkids, back into the fold of family & Midwest, after their Northwest adventure of the past few years. I want the grandkids to have the same benefits of an extended family that my son has always had, even when he locked himself in the trophy case at school, got arrested for cruising downtown at 4 a.m. on a “suspicious skateboard,” left prank phone messages on the assistant principle’s answering machine, or called for gas money home when he found himself living in his car in Boulder. And when my children are all back in the bosom of their adoring family, and they’re raising their own families, I won’t just KNOW karma is getting them back for every fitful, sleepless night I spent during their formative years—I’ll get to WATCH.