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Date Posted: Sat, 02/ 1/03 5:34pm
Author: tash"ana
Subject: Re: What's it like, having older parents?
In reply to: CaseynGeneva 's message, "Re: What's it like, having older parents?" on Fri, 01/31/03 8:34am

Funny you said that about being blamed for your mom's illness. I got some of that too. Hard growing up with someone who hates you, ain't it?

Anyway, I decided I will go ahead and tell some about having older parents, because maybe it will help a little if kangi does end up having a kid. As a precursor, I will say that both of my parents were screwed up and abusive, and the way they dealt with concerns was not healthy for anyone. As an example: I had five older siblings (all of us unwanted, we were told) and my parents were worried that as the youngest, I would get too much attention paid to me and become spoiled. So they held a family conference, as I was informed afterward, and decided the best way to deal with this worry was to ignore me. And this was for my own good. And that's what they did, and they stuck with it, and it is still that way to this day. I remember very clearly one day when the neighborhood bullies chased me into the house, shoved me to the living room floor where my father was sitting and reading the newspaper, and proceeded to beat me while I screamed for help from my dad. His shoe was right next to my face, I remember looking at it as I was beaten. Afterward, I crawled off my bedroom ~ I had one at the time, at other times I had to sleep on the hallway floor or in the bathtub, to remind me that it was their house and not mine ~ anyway, it went on long enough I think he might have made it through the sports section before the bullies left the house and I could crawl out of the living room.

So, I'm saying that to make clear that I don't think you can draw conclusions about how someone will turn out, based on what they came from. It's how a person reacts to their situation that makes them or breaks them, and I don't think you can say that having older parents will produce a certain type of person. So I'm going to just state some general things about being born to older parents that I do think reflect what that experience is like for kids, and I'm being careful not to tie them to the crazy aspects of my upbringing, because I think there is a clear difference between the issues of child/older parent and child/older abusive parent.

Probably I didn't explain that very well. What I mean to say is, my comments about growing up with older parents, which follow, don't actually have that much to do with my particular family situation, but they do have to do with the age gap situation. So I'm gonna get all analytical an' list 'em by number. And I'm going to state them as fact, not as opinion, because it's quicker that way and I'm lazy today. ;-) Oh yeah - my mom was somewhere between 47 and 49 when she had me, my dad was somewhere around that age too I guess ~ can't say for sure, since they didn't talk to me and I'm just going by my sibling's account of when my parents were born.

1) Children are perceptive, and they are always trying to figure out about life by comparing themselves to their friends. So even if your kid doesn't really notice that you are way older than other parents, their friends will point it out to them, over and over. And kids are very direct. It was pointed out to me over and over that my parents were going to die before my friends' parents did. Being intelligent, I did some thinking and figuring on it and came to the conclusion that my parents would probably die while I was in my 30s. (This was true with my dad, my mom is still living.) But then again, who knows? So I spent my childhood with the awareness that my parents would be moving on pretty quick, and worrying all the time about what would happen if they died before I was all the way grown up, and how would I take care of myself.

2) If the kid has older siblings, the child's friends will also point out that the siblings are going to die before the child does. It's kind of hard when you are informed that everyone you know will be croaking and leaving, and again you wonder how you will take care of yourself.

3) If the siblings are quite a lot older (one sister of mine was 16 years older) then it gets weird about are they your brother or sister, or some kind of mini-parent. They know a lot more than you do, they seem to think that they are partially in charge of you, and you can't talk to them as a peer. After all, everything you have to say about school or what you have been doing, they have already done all that, and they aren't really interested in your six or ten or twelve year old life in the same way that a brother or sister of a closer age is. So, even if you have brothers and sisters, you still feel like an only child, except that you've got a passel of people who think they are in charge of you instead of just your parents.

3) Because you are so young, and your siblings so old, and some of them might have kids, so you have nieces and nephews that are close to your age.... you get thrown in with the nieces and nephews to play with at family gatherings, and you look over there at your brothers and sisters and you wonder why you don't get invited to sit with your brothers and sisters, is something wrong with you? Are you that boring? Do they really not like you?

4) Your parents are out of touch with your friends' parents. There's not a lot of mixing and mingling and genuine friendship happening between families. The age gap is a problem there. Your parents are talking about getting ready for retirement, or their bursitis, and your friends' parents want to talk about buying their first house. Your parents take the advisor role instead of the friend role with your friends' parents, and pretty soon your friends resent the fact that your folks are always telling their folks how everything should be.

5) Your parents don't teach you baseball because they are sore and tired at the end of the day and just want to take Tylenol and watch tv.

6) Your parents have gotten too old to really remember what it is like to be a small child, and they can't follow how your mind works and you are keenly aware that they think you are either stupid or weird.

7) Other kids have grandparents and you don't, or yours are sick and on their last legs, and so you miss the sense of extended family. And if you have the older siblings thing going on, then it's like the older kids and the grandparents were all one in family of their own, and there you are hanging out their on your own, kind of an only child, only kind of not. Again, confusing. There is some kind of dividing line in your family but you don't understand it.

8) Your older siblings lord it over you because they like giving you guidance, but your parents perceive this as "attention" and don't realize that you might like to have one day in your life where not everybody knows more than you do.

9) While well-meaning, your folks send you out the door in clothes that look weird to everyone at your school, and you get branded a head case. Your parents are just one generation too far out there to realize that it's not only the style of clothing that has changed, it's the clothing fabric, and a million other details that they are just not interested in, because they've been there/done that/dressed all the other kids, and somehow the other kids turned out all right, so they don't think it's any big deal and they dismiss the fact that their child has to live through every freaking minute of looking like a head case.

10) You can't really talk to your parents, because they think that all your trials and tribulations will work themselves out, and they have gotten so old that they've forgotten one adult week = two years kid time. They think your troubles have lasted seven days, but in your body, you've lived with those troubles for two years. Funny how that time/space continuum thing speeds up when you get around 40.

Anyway I could go on, but the main things are that it's hard for the kids to have a "normal" relationship with older siblings, and the kid knows that things with their siblings aren't "normal" but isn't emotionally savvy enough to realize it's not their fault.

And the parents have gotten worn down just enough that even if they do try to do physical activities with the kid, the kid can tell it's a bit of a burden on the parent, and feels bad.

And relations between the parents and the friends' parents aren't peer relationships, and so again there is the feeling in the air that something is out of whack.

And the parents just naturally act more like advisors than participants in the child's life, so it's kind of lonely.

And the child is hyper-aware that you will be leaving them, and worries a lot about either having to figure out where to get food and shelter if you die before they are grown, or else they think about that they might have to take care of you right away as soon as they are grown, and how will they have their own time to find a mate and enjoy themselves a little. And with that around you all the time, it's kind of hard to think of anyone in your life as permanent.

So those are the things to watch out for. If you think you can deal with them and work around them, then go for it.

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