Retrospect
Retrospect
The Evolving Role of Grandparents | Retrospect Ep.187
In this week’s episode we discussed how the role of grandparents has transformed in modern families. From active caregivers and emotional anchors to long-distance supporters navigating digital connections, today’s grandparents are redefining what it means to be involved.
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Retrospect
Grandparents' role, generational differences, technology impact, societal expectations, family structures, emotional support, financial assistance, multi-generational households, sandwich generation, childcare challenges, societal changes, family dynamics, grandchildren relationships, societal pressures, economic factors.
Jason
In today's fast changing world, the role of grandparents has expanded far beyond what it once was, no longer just the occasional visitors at holidays or keepers of family traditions, modern grandparents are stepping into vital roles as caregivers, mentors, financial supporters and emotional anchors. They're bridging generations, sharing wisdom while adapting to new technologies, new family structures and new societal expectations. In many ways, they are not just helping to raise the next generation. They are helping to shape the future itself, today, we take a closer look at the evolving and indispensable role of grandparents in modern life.
Ian
welcome to the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney
Stoney
hello
Ian
and Jason,
Jason
hello, everyone.
Ian
One thing that I like about that is the the evolving roles of technology and societal differences? Oh yes, that's a big thing that I feel like I don't have either either sets of my grandparents anymore. They both have passed on. But that was a big thing that I feel like in a lot of the communities I'm a part of right now is there's a lot of older generations now that I think are some not so much, but the people in my context and in my circle that are that would be in my grandparents generation, they're trying their best to get to those societal expectations and technology, and I think they're doing a great job. They're trying their best. I
Stoney
like that technology thing too. Yes, I have a friend of mine who's a grandfather, and he says, Why do I want to spend time with my grandkids? All they do is come over and stay on their phone. Stay on the phone all day. They don't visit with me. They don't hang out with me. All they want to do is hang out on their iPad or their phone. Exactly. He says, All I am is a is a distant basis. I'm over here, 1012, feet away, you know, doing whatever, and they're on their phone, yeah? So I remember going to my grandparents house, and I had the time of my life with the little wood puzzle track train set. Okay? I was
Jason
gonna say I remember those? Yeah, I could play for
Stoney
hours with that thing, and my granny would come and hang out on the floor with me and tell me stories about life and love and this and that with a little wood train. Yeah. You know, my kids today would look at that and go,
Jason
yeah. Well, I mean, things have changed, and we've, you know, the change in technology, technology, people are more self absorbed now.
Ian
And my, my grandma and I, it was, it was Uno and the board game. Sorry, yes, play some cards. I never, I never got super good at it, I think. But my, my grandmother, taught me how to play dominoes. Yes, she had the like the ceramic or whatever their domino set. And, yeah, anyway, so I remember all those classic games.
Stoney
I had some interesting grandfathers, but my grandmothers were amazing. Yeah, my granny, on my dad's side, could cook, oh, my goodness, is that where you got it from? Oh, she was one of my first inspirations, and my mom, yeah, my granny was one of my first inspirations, but that, that little old lady was stronger than anybody. That used to be one of the things in the holidays we'd all get down on the floor and arm wrestle granny stop. And she could beat us all. She could beat the grown men, because she had them little cast iron skillet all the time. You know. She was, you know, and going on, and she was one of the evidence of love and cooking, where I realized that love is a tangible ingredient, yeah, because she loved us, and she I'm cooking for my babies, while she's chopping the food and imparting that energy, Like we've talked about frequency and energy that's truly tangible. And I have a funny story I'll tell later, whenever we get to a point about my other grandmother that I got to tell at at her, at her celebration of life. So I'll tell that a little bit. But, um, yeah, grandparents aren't, you know, they're fascinating, yeah, you know, they have all of this to tell us, yeah, teach us.
Ian
I've heard from so many people that it's one thing to be a parent, but when you get the chance to be a grandparent is when, like, all of a sudden, it gets so much more fun, for numerous reasons to
Stoney
be step grandfather or grandfather coming because. Is hottie Dr Miranda's daughters, a week, two weeks, maybe a couple weeks, from having a baby. Okay, do you know what the role of a grandfather is? What's that to teach the grandkids the trouble that they can get into that they didn't know was possible?
Ian
That's awesome. That's
Stoney
Grumpy. Grumpy. That's my grandfather name I chose. Grumpy. Miranda is so bougie. She's still trying to figure out what her grandmother name is. But, you know, hopefully, you know, she's only got, like, a couple of weeks to make that decision. I want to be grumpy.
Ian
Oh, she starts a little more time, you know, wait until it, wait until the baby can, you know, move and talk around, and you got to decide that. But yeah, I have some very fond memories of my grandparents again. We I think we're going to touch on a little bit today, but like my there was a point in time where both my parents were working whenever I was younger, and so I spent a lot of time with my my mom's mom on, my grandmother on on her side. And that's where a lot of those instances come up, where we had uno, and she watched soap operas while I watched cartoons and, you know, on the on the old television and all that kind of stuff. And before cell phones and video games and everything, right? And it was a, it was a wonderful time, because, again, we lived in the same neighborhood, so again, I probably lived, like, four or five houses down, so I had a, had a big wheel, one of those, like little tricycles, had a big wheel on the front. I had that so I'd have a get a little backpack full of goodies and all my clothes and things like that, and go ride my big wheel. My grandma would meet me outside. They was a, I look back on it fondly. Was in this very nostalgic time. But, you know, I think, like I said, I think we want to talk about it like again, my generation are the our my parents generation, that kind of ex generation. There was a lot of changes that happened, I think, in the world, that shaped and molded them and and my generation as well, because of it so well, it's,
Jason
you know, growing up, I mean, my grandparents, on my on my mother's side, were indispensable to me growing you know, my sister and I growing up. I mean, that's where we got off the school bus. Oh yeah, you know my mind, of course, your parents are working, my mom and my dad, so my sister and I would get off the school bus at grandma and grandpa's. We lived in the same neighborhood grandma and grandpa did, which is rare now, which is rare now, and you know, different time, you know, I, you know, as a, as an as the ex generation on this show, you know, there was a lot of societal changes during, you know, during those years, and you start to see a lot of women go back to go into the workforce, either by choice or by necessity. There was the conditions that enabled for the man to go to work and support a family by himself, slowly started to evaporate. Economic conditions were changing during that time, I eventually say, a lot of the middle class started being affected by certain economic policies that were starting to take shape in the 70s. So for a lot of us, from my own perspective, we we were really left alone, and we were left alone to try to figure things out and do those things. So, you know, my grandma and grandpa were basically farmers, wow, yeah. So they had, you know, grandma, they owned a grocery store back in the day. Okay, how, you know how it worked, but, but yeah, so, I mean, my grandma and grandpa never really worked. Going to work. I mean, the work was the farm and so and my mom was young when they moved from the farm. I think she was like five years old when they left the farm. Really moved to, actually into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from from the point, copied parish. But, but yeah, so, I mean, it was really left to my sister and I to kind of, you know, entertain ourselves and stuff like that without a cell phone. Yeah, there's no cell phones. And, you know, so, I mean, you know, I remember as a kid. I mean, there was Legos, yeah, link a log, Legos. And I remember the advent of video games, starting during that time with the Atari and in television and all that stuff. But you know, it was a lot of walking and hanging out in the canals and building building dams, and you know that stuff. Saw
Stoney
an interesting video a while back on training to be a parent. It, and they had a treadmill with Legos glued, and you had to walk on it barefoot. Oh, no, and that was part of your training to be a parent. Sounds like torture. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you have kids, you're going to walk on some you know, I
Ian
hear you talk about all that like, I feel like I I feel like I feel very privileged and very special to be like the last generation to have experienced a lot of those things. Like, I still remember being able to go out in the neighborhood and ride my bike and be home when the when the street lights come on, and I used to go skateboarding with friends down at the park or whatever. And, you know, all those fun, all those things outside, but I also, I was at a really fun time when, like, I think a lot of the really fun home video game consoles came out. There's a lot of like, fun times that I have my brothers and my friends, not only outside, but also indoors for, like, you know, those kind of things. And I got to experience, you could do both. Now they don't, right, that's what I'm saying. And now, like, I mean, this, like, weird middle ground, like, I experienced this whole gradient of it all. In my youth, I lived
Stoney
in a little neighborhood that had four streets, yeah, um, in one, you know, four streets that you know paralleled each other, and then one street, kind of in the middle, perpendicular to them, and it was just a big circle, okay? And we lived on the far left one, and there was a neighborhood family across the street from us, and they lived on the far side. Now that was between us and the zoo. Okay? So you could actually, at night, you could hear the animals. Oh my gosh. But while we're moving around the the neighborhood and stuff, the street lights, when street lights came on, you need to come home. Or when that lady across the street whistled, she whistled so loud that you could hear her four streets, it was time for her kids to come home, yeah, or she wanted you she could just put them two fingers together and let that whistle out, and you knew something's going on. I think it's
Ian
also really a really interesting and kind of serendipitous that we had this plan for a minute this topic, and it's also the when this drops will be the day after mother's day after Mother's Day. Which thing is really interesting to talk about grandparents and parents? You know, just remember
Stoney
those grandmothers or mothers? Oh, I know. I There are. There are some
Ian
ladies in my life, some elderly ladies in my life, that that are not my grandmother by blood at all, but I would consider them to be, what an honorary grandmother of mine, by the way. They just love and are supportive and care for me, and I really love them
Stoney
for that. Well,
I will say this, let me. Let me throw this in there. If you're single and you're looking for you're a guy, yeah, you're looking for a young lady. The absolute, very best thing that you can do is, when you go to church, get to know those older ladies, because they know how to pick them. They know where all the single girls are. They know their personalities. They know and look them. Women talk, oh yeah, okay, oh yeah, central baby, they know everything. And it's also know those little ladies, if you get on their good side, get on their good side, and they gonna pick the very best one for
Ian
you. No, put in a good word for you. Yes. Sorry, no. Hey, that's true, though. No,
Stoney
stick with the retrospect.
Jason
Grandmas, no, you know, they can go say, Yeah, you don't. You won't stay away. No good there, yeah, well, you know, they've been around a long time.
Stoney
Yeah, they've seen it all. The matriarchs, they've seen it all. Yeah,
Jason
I'm looking at a report here United States Census Bureau on the grandparents and their CO resident grandchildren. This is dated 2021 even though the report was published February of 2024 so it's fairly recent. But in 2021 they say 3.3% of adults age 30 and over live with grandchildren.
Ian
That's my generation. Yeah, yeah, over half
Jason
of these adults were age 30 to 64
Stoney
Wow, that's a broad Yeah.
I mean, I just what it's saying grandparents living with grandchildren were older in 2021 than in 2012 in 2012 46.8% were age 60 and over, which increased to 60.1% in 2021 so, yeah, it's some of this stuff is, you know, we're talking. About kind of the this, these kind of changing trend of the role of grandparents in our society. Yeah, you know, for many people, and unfortunately, as as, as you know, people of my age category, right has now started to reach the era of they're having grandchildren because of their upbringing during a time when they were basically latchkey kids, and they were kind of left to fend for themselves, I think, in some ways, and I hate say it, but to a degree, a lot more selfish, right? They're very much more now inclined, it'll be very curious as the stats move we move into the future, how this trend evolves over time, because I think you're going to see more and more grandparents because they're living longer. Health has gotten better. I think you're going to start seeing a lot of grandparents that are not going to want to kind of default to some of those traditional roles that you know, that grandparents played in the past. Yeah, and unfortunately, I think you're going to start to see an emerging trend of grandparents that are basically want, I just want to go out and have a good time. I don't want to be dealing with, you know, a bunch of little brats and stuff like that. It's just unfortunate because that's so different than what I think
Ian
our experience. I think it's also interesting, like, again, we've talked about on this show, specifically about history of repeating itself, is that I feel like you have the boomers, you have the next generation, the millennials. And I feel like a lot of the people I know, the lot of the millennials that are, at least in my context, from around me, were raised by their grandparents. And I feel like I'm kind of hearing the same trend as well with Gen Z that are now old enough to start having kids, and the millennials are now having to take care of some of their their grandchildren now, which is interesting to hear and crazy. I'm curious if that's potentially a oh, there's
Stoney
also something else that's called the sandwich generation. Okay, have you heard of this? No, but I think No, I haven't. Okay, this is a multi generational household for different reasons. Okay, and this may be a family that has children, but now they have to not only take care of the children, but also a parent. For some reason, the age the or health problems or something. And you know, they're raising their own children and caring for aging parents also, and that's called the sandwich generation. So, you know, in a multi generation household, it's physical co living setup. It's kind of with the prices today and living today. Sometimes it just kind of makes sense to bring it together. You know, you got a little piece of property. I've always thought about that, if I could find 400 acres somewhere, I have all my friends and family living all around a little compound but a sandwich generation the sole responsibility of supporting both older and younger members of the family, regardless of the cohabitation. And so that's, that's something too, that's growing right now because healthcare needs, and it's just crazy to live today.
Ian
Oh yeah. And also financially, too, that's
Stoney
what, that's what we're talking about. You know, how many people live with their parents longer? Oh yeah. And then wind up back as they get a little bit older, just because it makes financial sense. And
Ian
like I said before, as well, there's a lot of friends that I, you know, don't have great relationship with their parents, but they do with their grandparents, and they have lived with them for a long stint of time because, again, they they've retired, they've paid off their house, that everything's all and so, but like, you know, the friends of mine that I'm talking about specifically don't have those luxuries right now, or what feels like luxuries so well.
Jason
You know, funny here, I've got a quote that I think, I think we all find a lot of common ground on here. It says, The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is that they have a common enemy.
Stoney
Okay? That's
Jason
awesome. I accredit the person who's credit that is Sam Levinson, so that's
Stoney
funny. That's awesome. You know?
Yeah, parents, because they're the ones I've got to be mean, yeah. So it's, you know, I was also, there's a YouGov survey I was looking at. It said 69% believe it's very important for grandparents and grandchildren. Have a close relationship so, and they say people 65 and older, 84% of those are especially likely to view grandparent and grandchild closeness as very important so. But you know, I've noticed those those age now, that's more of the boomer, yeah, generation than it is my generation. So it says a large majority of Americans say their grandparents have been either 39% or somewhat 29% influential grandmothers. 52% are more likely than grandfathers 30% to say their grand child has been in, you know, their relationship has been influential. Wow, so
Ian
interesting.
Jason
Yeah, it's, uh, you know, I definitely think I have seen, definitely, many times. It just my experience of seeing very active grandparents involved with the raising of children, of their grandchildren now, because of circumstances that are just, you know, unfortunate. I think some of the, you know, kind of the issues that we have in our society day with the breakdown of the nuclear family, yeah, I think the challenges of that, I think you haven't. Unfortunately, you're having people that are kind of abdicating their responsibilities because they just want to go out and worry about themselves. And I said that attribute that back to my generation and the forces that shaped you know us when we were little, yeah, that we kind of felt like, yeah, you're on your own. You've worried about yourself. And I think, in a way that has permeated the consciousness of a lot of people, where they just, you know, they get into a point now and their kids are having kids like, Oh, don't be calling me. Well,
Stoney
I found a couple of articles saying that that a lot of the maybe a little bit older of the millennials, are saying their boomer parents are not helping enough with childcare. And my point to that was, well, okay, you're the one who moved really far away. Yeah, I have a friend of mine right now. His his daughter and baby, moved to Calif, got married, moved to California. So what kind of role is he going to be able to play? But you know, from my generation on, and the ex Gen and the millennium. You didn't you moved far away when you moved down the street from your parents and grandparents and my generation? Yeah, then all of a sudden, no, we got to move to the far away from the other side of the city as we can, but still within driving distance. And now we're moving to other parts of the country, and that can be economic job for whatever or to get away from the controlling factor of the family unit. But then now we're gonna whine and moan because they're not taking care because they'd rather go on vacation than take care of the grandkids or the kids. But wait, we raised ours. Now it's your turn enjoy that you were the one telling us what bad parents, I think something, and now you get to enjoy, I think
Ian
some of that too is probably, I mean, I wonder how much of that too is, you know, I don't mean this in any bad slight, but it's like unplanned families, like, how many people in my generation, you know, have children, whether by accident or, you know, with people in relationships that don't last, or whatever, and one side of the relationship flakes out, or what, you know, like that kind of stuff. How much of that also plays into that situation as well, where, you know, I'm not to say that you don't wish that you had that child, but like, you know, sure if you didn't plan to, you know, start a family, and here you are, and you don't have the help that you were expecting or hoping for. I can understand how that could be.
Stoney
Oh, Magnus is turning 15, and while back, some really 15. Oh, yeah, man, yeah, he turned 15 in March. I
Ian
remember when he was like, what? 11, yeah. And, um, he threatened
Stoney
to run away, right? So I told him, Okay, go. Nobody's gonna chase you. Go. And what you need to do is run away. Now, while you think you know everything, because when you because he was calling us stupid, okay, so now that you think we're stupid and you know everything, right, go ahead and do it now, yeah, and he just looked at me like you're an idiot. And I'm like, Well, you think you know everything, go ahead and enjoy the world. Go find out everything, because you'll find out quickly you don't know, and um, and that's what's so great about grandparents, is they've experienced kind of those generation they can see so many ebbs and flows and cycles and changes and financial things. You know, our grand my grandparents lived through depressions and things like that, not just recessions of the the 2000 recession and stuff they've seen real, you know, real poverty. Yeah, you know, poverty, soup lines. Sorry, I was Yeah, same
Jason
thing because they bread and. Soup was best. What they got, yeah, you know, right? So, yeah, it's, I just, I think, I think part of this why grandparents roles have become a little bit more prominent. And of course, when you take these numbers, you got to take it somewhat with a grain of salt, because I imagine it varies in different parts of the country. I imagine the statistics might vary if you get off into Europe and and kind of how those dynamics work. Also, you thought, you know, towns like, you know exactly, I mean, so you have to, you know, when we talk about these things, it's, it's sort of like in kind of a broad, a broad painting of the culture and kind of where we're at with this stuff. But I just think, you know, you know, as I said, the breakdown of the nuclear family. I think there. I think people that are in my age group, the X generation, I you saw divorce rate skyrocket, yeah, yeah. I think people were more about my kind of, my personal happiness, and if I'm not being fulfilled personally, then I'm out of here. I think that kind of, that mentality, it really took root in the X generation, whereas maybe it was less prominent in older generations, where it was the idea that, you know, we got to stick it through, we have a family to take care of, and those kind of bonds, you know, kind of just transcended generations. And then of course, and of course, social conditions change. And then, of course, now we're in a different dynamic. So it'll be very interesting to see what Gen Z as they get to an age where you know how that's going to play out. I'll be very interested to see how the
Stoney
numbers they're going to be one of the first generations since, like I've said in the past, since George Washington, that won't do better than their parents financially or anything. So they're going to be in a tight boat.
Jason
Well, I guess this is probably a question that I I'm gonna throw out there. Is it a given that you are going to do better than your parents?
Stoney
Used to be a given that you would do better, but now it's not well, that's
Jason
what I'm saying. So my question is, it's just simply worked out that way. Is that a given rule?
Ian
I think, I think it also, I, at least from what it seems like throughout history, is like you would build up wealth, or you would acquire things for yourself and and give your try to give yourself a comfortable enough life as best you can, and then pass it on to your children and then, hopefully grandchildren as well. So that way, like you could retire have a probably some level of wealth enough to where you could survive and pass it down right and then. And so now I feel like we're getting to a point now where, like, not only, and not only from like your economic perspective or like financial perspective, but also from the world, like you're passing down the world, you're passing down heritage and history and all that kind of stuff. And now I feel like in this modern world, not it doesn't like again, that that that dissolving of the middle class, I feel like there's not a whole lot to pass down, or whatever there is, the value doesn't carry over the same way. And so a lot of the people in that Gen Z perspective, and younger, I think, are being handed a world that is not doing so great. And but
Stoney
let's take that to the That's great. Yeah, my generation, you retired at 55 Yeah, maybe 60, right? And then you had all this time and energy to invest in your grandkids and your kids, right? Right? Now, people are working to 65 and 70, yeah, and so all of a sudden they want to retire, and if they have a nest egg, they want to travel. That was the whole point, right? You know, when in my time, oh, your grandparents would go on this little vacation or that little vacation, but they came back and you had a whole bunch of new stuff, and they picked up on their vacation. Yeah, but now, you know, they, they don't want, they don't want that. They want to enjoy the retirement without the responsibilities of, well, I
Jason
could see that, because when you you're able to retire younger, okay, I've you've got more time. You feel like, probably, statistically speaking, your health is still got some energy. Hopefully we still have energy. I mean, you're, if you're retiring and having to, you know, 70 to 75 years old, well, you know, I'm tired. You're tired. You're just not the same anymore. I mean, it's, I mean, rare occasions. Maybe you just have unique parent grandparents. I just, you know, are just very, very good, good gene. Things. And, yeah, it works out that way. But you know, for a lot of people, you're probably dealing with a lot of health issues by that time, and you just don't, you don't have and I think that energy to be able to devote and I think there's also a good delineation between, like, being a grandparent and occasionally taking care of your grandkids and actively having to raise your grandkids, that's a whole different ball. As I'm saying is like, is the parent looking at it as like, you're not stepping up, you're not helping take care of the but it's like, but you're not asking me to be a grandparent. You're asking me to parent your children, right? Not my job. I was a parent. That was you, obviously, right, right? So again, what
Ian
is that delineation? You
Stoney
know, that's something else too, that comes into play right now too. Yeah, that's huge, and that's the cost of childcare, all right, yeah, yeah, you know, before you Hey, Grandma, granny, Can y'all come help with the kids? You know, I got to do this thing right now. You put your kid in childcare, you're talking, you know, money, a lot of money, right? Yes, a lot of money. And and now that the generationally, you know, my generation, seemed to always have a little kitty stash somewhere. It might have been money in the mattress. It might be somewhere, but you had money. And then the later generations have less and less savings. They say 75% of Americans today are one medical or one major auto repair bill away from bankruptcy. I believe it,
Jason
yeah, because people just pay pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck. They have no savings account. They have no emergency fund. It's, it's what I make. It's, I spend it, and there's nothing left by the end of the, you know, I get the bills paid and buy groceries, and that's it, you know, I've got a speaking of that I got. I'm looking at the Pew Research Center here. It's at five facts about American grandparents. They say for most now, this is dated. So this is back in 2015 so a lot of things have happened with 10 years. Yeah, COVID and stuff like that. And I think that kind of trying to change some things. But it says, he says our survey found that among us, grandparents who have helped with childcare in the past 12 months, nearly three in four said they did so only occasionally. About one in five said they provided child care regularly. However, grandparents in Germany and Italy are much more likely than American grandparents to provide regular child care for grandchildren. 46% of German grandparents and 39% of Italian grandparents said they provide regular childcare. Wow.
Stoney
Well, I want to interject there because I've been to Italy quite a number of times, but in Europe, it's not uncommon to have three generations in the same household or down the road from each other, but I'm saying more so in the same house, yeah? And it's a lot easier to do that when you're not moving 234, 500 miles away, right? And that's that's a common thing there in Europe, because you're down the street or in the same house. Go to Spain and look how many families are in these little, I don't want to say compounds, but that's something big in Spain, family's got a piece of property. You put one house here, you put one house here, and it's all the family, right? And it's that's just commonplace, other than in America. Well,
Jason
the study also, you know, kind of maybe provides some key, some understanding of why that statistic exists in Germany and Italy versus the United States. Yeah, so American grandparents are less likely to care for their grandkids. Reasons, older people in the US are more likely to be in the labor force and their counterparts in Germany and Italy, which is true, okay, yeah, yeah, um, also, older Americans have less financial support from the government than Germans and Italians of the same age. Interest, of course, you in those countries, it's a little bit more socialistic in how their governments operate, so they probably have some more help in that regard, whereas in America, it's kind of more on your own. And you know, Stoney mentioned about families moving away and that separation, and then, you know, young people that have, you know, young kids are complaining about, yeah, all that. It's it's just, I think that's an American thing and, and unfortunately, it goes kind of the nature of how our country was formed, and these initial settlers that came here was the idea of going out and blazing the trail, yeah, and I want my own land, and I. Want to kind of plant my own stick, so to speak. And I think that's what makes American culture a little different. So this idea of leaving the home and blazing the trail, I'm going to move to that city over there, even though they may have to do that. But that fire, I think exists more in the American kind of subculture than it does in other parts. I remember,
Ian
I remember growing up in the late 90s and, like, packing up your bags and making it big in New York City was like, was like, the, what felt like the American Dream going to work some sort of corporate thing. Or, like, you know,
Stoney
so yeah. And we replaced that with tick tock, yeah. Way out. Go be
Ian
a go be a content creator. Yeah, that's, that's the American dream. Now, of like, you know, or that's what it feels like, you know.
Stoney
And then I hated that term, content creator. And guess what? We're content creator.
Ian
We're a content creator. Be careful what you wish, what else I wish for, be careful what you talk bad about. That's right, that's funny, yeah, yeah. That's, I remember that as a kid, of like, I, you know, everyone was like, How was had? He was either Los Angeles or New York. I feel like people still feel that way, but it was, it was just such a big thing to talk about, you know, going off. It like running, you know, running away from this small town to go make it big in the city. You know, it's like the
Stoney
young guy talking to the girl, what do you do? Well, I'm a model on Instagram. What do you do? I'm a soldier in Call of Duty.
Oh, that's the world today, right?
Jason
If you can put yourself in a in a frozen capsule and wake up about 100 years from now, just to see what, how the dynamics will have changed.
Ian
And, like, I said, very curious, like I said earlier, it's like, I feel like I was on the cutting edge of all that stuff. Like, I remember when like YouTube first was like a thing. I remember whenever YouTube had the partner program where, like, you could get paid to, like, make content on YouTube. I remember when that happened? Like, you know, back in the early 2000s I remember having a flip phone, like, I remember, you know, it was just like such a different time and to and, and it's interesting to kind of go back to our like, the discussion the grandparents to like, it's so crazy for me to talk to people in those older generations and really think like they're living right now, currently in this time, but like, they have experienced so much change in the world and in this country being, you know, I'm just thinking like, if you were born in like the 40s and 50s or 60s like that, like you have seen some pretty crazy changes in the technology space and just in the world in general. And it's crazy for me to think about that, because when I, when I parallel it to what I've seen, like, I've seen some pretty crazy changes in my life, I feel like, in the past 2030, years. So I can only imagine what, what they've all seen. So it's, it's crazy.
Jason
Well, I still think it. You know, I There are many ethnic groups that still where the grandparents are very much still living under the same roof. And you'll find that, and really in a lot of Asian communities, black communities, Latino communities, you know, all these are still very much the grandparents are there. The idea of, kind of like, you know, I'm going my own, how that's really, that's really more of a white thing, yeah, really? I mean, it really is. And why it's that? I'm sure there are various reasons. Yeah. Why is that? I think, with what, with whites being the majority, yeah, and, and, I think that kind of changes the dynamics, whereas some of these other ethnic groups, there's societal pressures for them to kind of keep a very tight cohesion, because that's how they survive. And, you know, share resources, build up money and stuff like that. Here I'm reading an article by Vox. This one is titled, these adults have unique impact on kids lives. They need more support. This is published I see on May 8 of 2025 but it says longer life expectancy also means kids actually get more years with their grandparents than they used to, even though people are having kids later in life, according to Ashton vertebrae, a sociology at Penn State University, these trends are likely leading to a deeper relationships between grandchildren and grandparents. I This is something I found interesting here that where is it at? I'm reading it here. So still, the idea that grandparents used to provide a lot of childcare isn't necessarily accurate. As Faith Hill reports at the Atlantic. In the early us, people often became grandparents while still raising their own young kids. Because people had children a lot younger, yeah, limiting how much time they actually could spend with grandkids. So because, you know, Grandma is technically still raising the youngest, their own kids and the kids so it just
Stoney
I haven't I have an aunt that's two years older than me. Wow, yeah, I have an aunt that's two years older than me. That's wild, yep.
Jason
Yeah, I said. But today, smaller families and later childbirth mean grandparents are less likely to still be actively parenting while the falling birth rate may be bad news for older adults who want lots of grandkids to spoil, or for those who end up not having grandchildren at all, it also means grandmothers and grandfathers have more Quality time to spend with each child, while white grandfathers born in 1880 had an average of nine grandchildren. Grandpas born in 1960 have fewer than six. The drop for black men have even been steeper, from 11 to around six
Ian
in that same time. Yeah, wow, yeah.
Jason
They said the way grandparents and grandchildren relate to each other also are shifting. Older adults are more active than they once were, making them more able to play with their grandkids. Say. Donna butts, Executive Director of generations united, a nonprofit that works to connect children and older people. So, I mean, you know, as I said, I think, you know, people living longer their health. I think the role, whereas grandma and grandpa in the past were more stoic figures, yeah, you know, Grandma cooked, you know, you kind of saw grandma do her thing, she did laundry or whatever the case may be. Grandpa was probably out in the yard somewhere, working in a garden or fishing, fishing, or whatever they did. And you know, whereas now you have a lot of grandparents that are play tennis or play golf or whatever sport you know within reason. I mean, they're not, you know, playing tackle football, probably
Ian
pickleball,
Jason
baseball or something like that. I mean, it's so, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's an interesting case to see how much it's changed since, you know, my my view of of my grandparents and what they were, how I saw them as I was little. Yeah, they worked hard and never stopped. Yeah, you know, so. But I mean, everybody's circumstances are different, right now. I mean, some some people have terrible experiences with their grandparents, right? Well,
Stoney
a lot of that, I think, comes with just certain expectations, like in the UK, 56% of Gen Z adults feel that financial gifts from their parents come with conditions such as requiring business plans or cohabitation agreements. The New York Post did a survey that said 70% of Gen Z or seek parental help during job services searches, and 25% bring parents to interviews, raising concerns about perceived professionalism and independence. I mean, they're still there. They're still helping, apparently,
Jason
yeah, well, says here, uh, Vice President JD Vance has suggested that grandparents could help out a little bit more as a way of addressing the high cost of daycare, yeah, but we should not be foisting our childcare challenges on an older generation. I'll try to said grandparents want to help out, but they want it to be a choice, not goes back to us, not the only way that their daughters are going to be able to pay work to for pay. Well,
Stoney
a Bank of America report came out and highlighted that half of the 18 to 27 year olds rely on their parents just to survive. I
Jason
can believe that, yeah, yeah. I can believe that.
Ian
Wow. It goes back to I was saying before, but again, no, am I be am I being able to Am I being a grandparent to my grandchild, or am I having to parent your children? Is what it feels like.
Stoney
Well, you got to look at it like this. How do parents and grandparents perceive the expectations placed on them by younger family members? Yeah, you know, I. Like Jason said, early, hey, I raised mine. Now it's your turn. Okay? Now you're expecting me to raise your kids like I didn't do a good enough job to get you ready to do it yourself. Now I got to do it again, right? You know, how are they, you know? How are they looking at these expectations that are being placed on them? It is my time, in my golden years, to go travel and go do what I want and say no if I want to say no, right? Because when I was raising you, I couldn't say no. I had to raise your ass. Right? Now it's my time to shine, and now you want me to come raise your kids for you, yeah,
Jason
and unfortunately, there are far too many grandparents today that are in that boat. Yes, there are a lot of what I would call a lot of dysfunctional families that are just, they're just, I hate to say they were no business being parents. They probably should have never even had children, right? Yeah, I hate to say that, but, I mean, the fact of the matter is, you know, I know you'd mentioned about families, families should be planned and but I know sometimes children are a blessing. I don't know whatever put out the idea that children are the blessing. But I think a lot of people, if they would have more of that kind of foresight and thinking about their behaviors and what they choose to do, yeah, to put themselves in positions that things could happen. You know, I think you have to kind of look at that and go, you know, maybe some of this is tied into the, what I would call the loosening of the societal constraints that society kind of, you know, the term morals, yeah, you know, in certain behaviors were frowned upon and not encouraged or not celebrated, right? And I think, I think, unfortunately, we're living with kind of the fruits, I'd say it, of the sexual revolution. I think the loosening of sexual more norms and what is acceptable and what is acceptable, or, you know, don't judge me, type of mentality that is kind of rooted now in modern society, because, you know, God forbid, there is no objective truth to anything. It's just what I think it is. Well,
Stoney
in a society so full of lies, the truth becomes revolutionary, you know, and you can't tell people the truth anymore because they don't want to hear it, and they get offended, and their their butt feelings get hurt. So, you know, the truth is still the truth. You need to care about things a little bit more. And you know, the set you're right. The sexual revolution changed so much. It is free love, you know, it changed so much. And now people have sex that just at a whim, and in my time that, you know, yes, it still happened, but it meant more. And now everybody's shaking their ass on Tiktok and Instagram and doing this, and they don't value who they are as people anymore, and that's sad. But then you have the look of social media and the narcissism and the Me, me, me of today's societies is more than the me generation of my time.
Jason
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you. And this, I'm reading this, this us, News and World Report, deal talking about how there's been a reduction in, in, in some of this stuff. But they say it is the opioid crisis is leading to a leading reason grandparents are finding themselves grandchildren. And the reason I this brings Wow, something to my
Stoney
that kind of makes sense, though, frame wise to
Jason
my because of a real world situation that I know at my church there's an elderly couple, but I'm talking about elderly that are having to basically care for a child that came from their daughter who's so wigged out on drugs that they can't even and these people are old, yeah? I mean, they're old. No business, right? Trying to do, trying to do this, and it cry. I mean, it's sad to try to see them that, you know, their daughter got wigged out on drugs and got pregnant by some god knows what, and she ends up having this child. And child's got all kind of problems. And it's just, and you've got these elderly parents that are trying to grandparents that are trying, you know, bring them to church and trying to provide some structure, and just, it's just, it's sad. I've watched it over the years, and it's sad because, you know, the child's got, he's. Shoes and just goes off on a deep end, and it's just sad. But, you know, daughters and whoever the father is completely out the picture. And I think that's what's driving a lot of this stuff. You know,
Stoney
I got some the census in 2020 that comes every 10 years, right? Every team, okay, so the last census in 2020 there are approximately 6 million multi generational households in the United States, comprising of 4.7 of all households. These households include three or more generations living under one roof, such as children, parents and grandparents. In total, these multi generational households encompass around 26, million individually, individuals representing 8.1% of the US population. And additionally, data from 2020, indicates that 6.1 million children under the age of 18 lived at their grandparents homes. Wow, accounting for 8.4% of all children in that group. And these figures, you know, highlight the prevalence of multi generational living arrangements in the US right now, I mean, and it's all you know, reflecting various cultural, economic and social factors like we've been talking about in these family situations now, yeah, I mean, you can't put down on one thing. There's just so many factors. And the grandparents are just, you know, taking it to bear and doing what they can, right? Yeah,
Jason
we it's, it's, uh, as I said, I think there's a lot of forces right now at play when it comes to, you know, grandparents being, you know, the primary caretakers of their grandchildren because of whatever reason, whether it's drug relation, you know, drug related issues of mental health, yeah, which is a biggie, right? You know, God forbid, an unfortunate death of the parents you know could be from anything you know now that's left to the grandparents. And, you know, it's grandparents are getting older, and right? You know, they're here. They are. It probably in their 60s and 70s, are trying to, you know, raise a 15 year old. I mean, it's just, it's sometimes it's quite a tragedy to see some of this stuff.
Stoney
I do have some statistics on the sandwich generation that's primarily includes adults in their 30s and 40s, with 66% falling into this age range. Women constitute a slight majority at 58% and men 42% and it's kind of regional too. California has 39% Texas, 33% Nevada, 31% which are kind of higher proportions of the sandwich generation adults caregiving hours. Members of the sand sandwich generation report spending an average of 22 hours per week caring for parents and 28 hours per week caring for their children. And nearly 47% have experienced periods where their household couldn't meet essential expenses due to these caregiving costs. I mean, that's, yeah, that's a burden. That's a significant burden. You know, significant. 90% have made lifestyle changes or financial changes, such as reducing experience expenses, dipping into savings or occurring debt because of their dual caregiver roles, yeah.
Ian
Man, this is,
Jason
well, you know, I think it's kind of one of these topics. It's probably, this is a, really, an under studied phenomenon of grandparents. I mean, there is some data out here, and you know, it's, I still think a lot needs to be done. I think it's going to change even more. As I said, I think people are going to be living longer. Technology is going to advance even more. I mean, just here, some interesting things here that's kind of just thrown out here. It says fewer than 50% of adolescents in 1900 had two or more grandparents alive by 1976 that figure had grown to almost 90% Wow. So that's I'm saying longer life parents are living your grandparents are living longer. Today, an American at birth is expected to live 76 years compared to 47 years in 1900 cool. Wow. An additional 29 years. That's a long time. Yeah. And most of today's grandchildren will have most or all of their grandparents survive at least during part of their childhood and adolescence, and many will have surviving grandparents well into their adult years. At age 30, 75% of people will have at least one surviving grandparent.
Ian
That's all crazy. That's true. Yeah,
Jason
yeah. Since 1900s the percentage of Americans 65 years and older has more than tripled, four 4.1% in 1900 to 12.7% in 1999 in 1900 there were 3.1 million people 65 years and older. In 1999 that number had risen to 34 point 5 million.
Stoney
Man, geez,
Ian
that's something. Yeah, yeah,
Jason
my man, just showing you that how grandparents are now. You know, are just around longer, and they have a I could see why their role in the past, they just didn't make it, and they had children. If the median age of your dying is at, you know, 49 you know, 50 years old, you were dead. I mean, well, it didn't leave you a whole lot of time. I mean, to really enjoy your Yeah, and that's an average I mean, so, I mean, some of them were dying before that. You know, they get sick and they had no medicine, and, you know, pneumonia, the flu, right? You know, yellow fever, whatever the case may be, depending on where you live.
Ian
Man, you're right, though, I do think it's interesting. To think about this from like, what is, how is this going to change in the future? We always talk about pendulum swinging and stuff like that, and like, well,
Stoney
we won't need grandparents to raise our kids. AI is going to do that for us now?
Jason
I think, no, you say that. I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think, you know, the advance of robotics and robotic nannies and stuff like that. Yeah, I can definitely see how that.
Stoney
I would really, really like for Ian on his other podcast, to watch Bicentennial Man I Williams. I've you need to watch that, because this kind of fits into all of this right now. Yeah, and it's, it's great movie, yeah.
Ian
I think also, again, I don't want to, I don't want to brush past the fact that also, like we talked about earlier, that Mother's Day just passed. And I do think that this is also a great time to whether or not you have a good relation, or even have your mother or grandmother like this is also, I think, a great time to also appreciate just the those, those matriarchs in your life, those those those great motherly women in your life, when they may be and just go, appreciate them, appreciate your grandparents, appreciate you Know, because some great people out there that I think really have shaped me, and I think that it's moment like this that I really get to think about that, and it's a chance for me just to go and share some love with them and with
Stoney
what Jason just said, don't, don't, Karen, don't you take tomorrow for granted. You're right. Don't take tomorrow for granted, because it might not be there.
Ian
Yep. Well, thank you so much for listening, everybody. If you want to try and reach out to us and let us know what you think about all these subjects and or, or let us know what you've been thinking about these cool new intros. Jason's been coming up. We had some cool ideas and some cool stuff. I've been dusting off some editing chops, so it's been
Jason
wait till next week.
Ian
Little teaser. Good topic for next week. Yeah, so just let let us know at get offended together@gmail.com, where you can give us your more long form responses, or you can comment in the little comment sections of the different platforms that they're
Stoney
on. Website, respect, podcast.com correct, get us up on that
Ian
till next week. Thank you so much for
Jason
listening. Bye, bye, goodbye everyone and God bless
Stoney
as we reflect on today's conversation, let's not forget the women at the center of it all, our mothers and grandmothers, whether they stood beside us or shaped us from afar, their influence echoes through generations. This week, don't just thank them. Listen to them. Honor their story as much as you share your own. Thanks for hanging out with us today. You're the best. Peace.