Advantages of Multi Generational Living

My family doctor complemented me on the care that our family had given my mother as she aged.   He said that kind of loving care was an exception rather than the norm.  I reflected on that comment and I have come to the conclusion that families today are different than the families of yesterday.

I only know how my family lived.  I was born at the end of World War II.  My father who was state side was still in the service.  We lived with my mothers extended family.  There were four generations living together under one roof.  This included my grandparents, my parents, my great grandmother and myself and my baby brother.  I never remember any discord.  All the women in the family helped in the kitchen.  I remember that we all lined up to do the dishes. Someone would wash another dry and the another would put the clean ones away. 

There was no television to start with so we would sit together and talk or play card games.  In the summer everyone would sit outside on the front porch and visit with neighbors who would be out walking.  There was a camaraderie in the neighborhood as well as in the family.  People cared about each other.  Older people were revered and considered a valued part of the family.

Loving and considering and making sure that an older family members had a good quality of life is the natural thing to do.

Unfortunately in some families  this family unity has diminished.  People have moved away from where their families live.  Mothers, as well as fathers, work there is a rush to hurry up and eat and watch television or to play games on the computer or to check the cell phone.  People go their separate ways.  The interconnections among families has greatly decreased. 

Young people need the connection with the older generations.  They need the support and shared wisdom and when they age, they need the support and love from the family unit.  They need to understand the love that is the family and what it means to be part of an extended family unit.  The love in a family is a gift that can go from one generation to another.

Roses and Mother's Day

It was Mothers Day some time in the early 1950s and we were picking roses to wear to church.  It was traditional to wear a red rose for your mother.  As we were picking the roses to pin on our lapels we only picked 3 red roses and a white rose.  My grandmother, Lillie Maud Porter, and my mother, Beverly Lewis and I wore the pretty red roses we had picked, but my great grandmother, Viola May Jones wore a white rose.  I asked her why her rose was white and she told me that it was because her mother was no longer alive.  As a child I let it go at that, realizing that she was old and that her mother would have been very old so it made sense to me that she was no longer alive.  It was not until I did some research into my ancestry that I found out that she had lost her mother at a very young age.  Gram as I called my great grandmother lost her mother when she was a very young child and grew up with her older sister as a substitute mother and the main female influence in her youth.  I was blessed to have the loving early upbringing of my wonderful mother, grandmother, and great grandmother all living together in an extended family unit. This mothers day I will wear a white rose near my heart for those I have lost.  I can only hope that I have been as good a mother as these wonderful ladies.