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Do you think it is dysfunctional when 50 YO kids and their parent(s) spend nearly all their free time together? My family is not close, so I cannot understand this as a positive thing. It seems to me that kids should move on and have their own lives. Please enlighten me how this could be a good thing. It's not about helping each other. They mostly just party away from their homes.

CrazyQuilter 7 July 13
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0

I would not say dysfunctional per se. I would wonder do the parents or kids not have any friends or spouses to occupy their time with? Are the parents dying or in poor health so the adult kid(s) have decided to spend as much time as they can with them before they die? Or are the adult kid(s) the care givers of their sick parent(s)? I would wonder why myself tbh.

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In a pretty hostile world, why not?

1

Follow your belief and let others follow theirs.

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No it’s quite the reverse of a dysfunctional family. The fact that they are interacting and socialising with each other on a daily basis proves that they must enjoy each other’s company and are functioning normally. I have friends who have similar relationships with their children, most of whom are now in their forties and fifties. This can only happen when all the members of the family live close to each other, more likely in families where the children don’t go to university and find work and partners close to home and where their parents live. My children went off to university and after graduating, found jobs and partners in other parts of the country from where they lived with me, so it was never going to be an option to hang out with them on a daily or even a weekly basis. Personally I would find the sort of relationship you describe as being too close, but that is from my own perspective of raising my children to be independent adults who can function and feel my love without the need to speak to or see me constantly. Dysfunctional families on the other hand do not communicate or interact with each other properly, are generally unhappy and would not voluntarily wish to spend time together.

0

Some families are very close and some are not. I think that if you are very close it is so much harder when something happens to one of the family. Family doens' only have to be siblings and parents, one can choose another 'Family', very close friends can be 'family' too.

2

In England, up to the sixties, it was very common for an extended family of grandparents to great grandchildren to live in the same village, within easy walking distance and often only a few houses apart. Then, such close family relationships were very common and many family members would meet in a local pub (bar). It is only with better education, greater freedom of travel through car ownership and young adults traveling / moving to other areas for university education and higher paid or more interesting work that has broken down the closer family bonds.
We now have many elderly people alone in their homes and having few, if any, visitors, and so many young people with mental health issues now; back then there was a family networkm an inbuilt support system always someone to help the elderly,always someone to listen and talk issues through - .
I am not saying things were better then, simply that things have changed, with some benefits, but much has been lost.

1

No. Some families are close. It's not weird to have normal human bonds. Sorry but people who can move on and leave their families behind are the damaged ones IMO and I ought to know.

@NoPlanetB same here. Leaves scars though.

1

No close family it's cool 😎

bobwjr Level 10 July 13, 2019
2

I have close friend who is one of 4 and has large extended family. she and her siblings and spouses eat one day at their granmothers and her husbands family does a Saturday breakfast, he only has a sister. It is odd to me, but I am an only child and have 2nd cousins, but other than them and my 2 children have only a step sister. I met as adult, who I love. I had friends as family to me. I did realize when young it was odd. Where I live now family being close is not unusual. I find this friend and her family wonderful, just not the culture of mine who had more only children than not.
I would not say they spend all their spare time but they are close. Most of my life, even as a kid, friends' family kind of adopted me, so that was nice.All my long term relationships have been with tight family relationships, which I loved.

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Why do you care?

1

Is this cuz your kids won’t go home? (Just kidding)

3

That is completely personal and I imagine hugely influenced by culture and subculture. Some might think it would be really odd if you didn’t spend a majority of your time with your family. I think until recently (in terms of human history) it was the norm for multiple generations of a family to live and work together with children only leaving the nest for marriage or because of overcrowding.

I think so too. though there are cultures who are collective and others, that are individualistic cultures.

@gigihein Totally agree with you and Jacob, class and culture make a big diff in what is considered "normal".

4

I believe it’s a very positive thing and works well for many families.

Meal sharing celebrating household after household especially after grandpa&grandma did all the free babysitting and driving snotty nose kids to doctors while parents were all quite functional. ...good to see Walden Two in action..
BF Skinner and daughter would be proud

@GreenAtheist Having a granddaughter and a daughter with serious health problems, keeps me hanging out with my 3 year old granddaughter often. I had support with my kids with my close friends. At some point I may not have the access to her and don't consider it helping out consider it just bring family.

0

Maybe it's a farm small town family pattern or maybe the 50's kids are staying close to the 70s inheritance....a big kegger is planned for the wake to keep the party going around the grave

Beer defines buzzed family life after 9-5 lives?

You're describing what is very common here in Iowa, even in the urban areas, not just rural, since the rural culture most people grew up in follows them even after they go to college and move to Des Moines, my area. Hence, that's why I say that most of my problem in online dating is trying to find a single hipster woman out of a dating pool chock full of farmer's daughters, exactly who I don't want and who don't want me....

@TomMcGiverin I dated a hipster from a tiny town straddling 2 counties.....her problem was dope addiction common with hipster Atheist women staying in the closet so to avoid narcs knowing her code.....3 joints and 9 Marlboros per day is no good now for my lungs 2nd hand smoke or shotgun sharing.....give a date any reason to hide or betray and no amount of seduction will bring me back to their kitchen or swimming pool ....xians betray for loyalty to an alleged gawd....closet hiding means fearful dishonest living.....I am holding out for my Yoko Ono and she wants to sing with me her John Lennon....that rare hipster must be somewhere in Iowa where we all first heard I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND so please say to me and let me be your man

@GreenAtheist Well, hipster women, esp. ones our age, have no need to hide around the Des Moines area. I think my problem is more that the few hipster Atheist women our age around Des Moines are either all taken or no longer interested in dating. Judging from the slim pickings they have of hipster Atheist men our age around DM that are single, I can see why they have either given up or decided they are better off alone. I'm afraid my only hope is to wait around until some of my peers die off and leave me some Atheist hipster widows to date...Right now I'm still too much younger to date most of the hipster Atheist widows out there.

@TomMcGiverin the professional date matching services promise compatible women but for pure profit reasons they do not encourage either sex to screen only for Atheists....you might get lucky finding an Atheist in Ames or Des Moines Unitarian Universalist congregations but there also inclusivity steers away from open Atheism.....there are no shortage of sexually active women in all age groups but the double standards make them hide coyly and hide behind religions like an intellectual chastity belt.....to find a rational lover for our lifetimes is a challenge with TrumpOLINI PENCE and Reynolds misdefining women as fetal heart beat mandatory brood stock for the fatherland.....most women deny FEMINISM as bra burning and lesbianism....with an alleged gawd loyalty stamped on their voter cards.....go to political rallies against TrumpOLINI and you just might find your match wearing beads and tie dyed clothes and an Atheist Liberation button on her purse

@GreenAtheist Sorry Larry, but I'm too proud, or maybe too honest, to attend political rallies solely for the purpose of finding women to date. I have been around long enough that I am starting to find protest rallies as tedious pieces of public performance art that really change nothing. I have too much self respect to waste my time or energy on them. I have marched with the Sanders supporters at two parades this month and will occaisionally attend Sanders events as long as he is in the race. But I will not attend impotent lefty rallies against Trump, etc. to meet women when I don't respect anymore the usefulness or efficacy of the events these days. I have no doubt that you are probably right about all the closeted hipster and Atheist women who may be hiding there on paid dating sites in Iowa, but that knowledge won't help me any. Women who don't have the guts to be themselves in the dating market aren't compatible with a non-conformist like me anyway.....

@TomMcGiverin I think Bernie is the waste of time ever since he betrayed the revolution in Philadelphia

@GreenAtheist Meaning when he backed Hillary at the convention instead of fighting for the nomination at the convention, as he said he would? I think he should have taken Jill Stein's offer to run as the Green Party candidate with her in 2016. He might have won too, but instead he cared more about keeping his committee assignments in the Senate and being able to keep working with the Dems in the Senate.

@TomMcGiverin and brags having F35s billion buck$ each based in VERMONT

0

It's a Southern thing for sure, and also the way it was done until recently. Families mostly socialized with family members. My mom used to constantly tell us that friends are temporary, but family is forever, so treat each other "right."

But now that both parents typically work long hours, whenever people get a holiday, many want to be with their relatives since they seldom get to see them. I always saw this behavior as a red flag, indicating that person is a redneck. Educated, wealthy people typically spend their vacations with their families in the Bahamas or Ceylon, not at family reunions.

Really? Family reunions are for red necks?

4

it's a good thing. Life is more rewarding if lived for others.

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