Average Rating: 0
- Connect
- Living
Inside Living
Featured Living Article
Lyn Potter - Holiday Baking with the Grandkids
"Treats from Little and Friday" a recipe book in which Kim Evans shares all her delicious baking secrets is out just in time for the school holidays. Read more...
- Travel
- Health
Inside Health
Featured Health Article
Ron Tustin - Rethinking Retirement
"I never stopped doing anything when I retired; I stopped getting paid for it." - Bill Chavanne Read more...
- Money
- Retirement Living
- News
- Games
- Directories & Classifieds
- Offers
- Contact & Help
- Notices
-
WIN a Globus California Classics Tour for Two!
This year you could be taking a $9400 trip for two to California
Soothe Worry & Tension
...while enhancing your libido (men and women)
Sports & Travel Survey
Complete the survey and be in to win a $100 Westfield voucher
Let's Chat Over Lunch
Have a Free Lunch with Metlifecare
Feel All-Bran New
New Ways to Get Fibre Into Your Day
Win a return journey across Cook Strait
See more of New Zealand with Bluebridge
See the Difference
Eyesight Advice from Visique Optometrists
2degrees Offer
Making the CDMA switchover easy
Optometry & Eyewear Survey
We'd like to find out a little more about your optometry & eyewear preferences
CDMA Phone Network close down 31 July
Move now & get $79 credit with every Prepaid mobile
List your Classified
House Sitters, Employment, For Sale, Property & Personals
Live Chat
With fellow GrownUps in our multi-room chatCompare & Purchase Insurance products
Disclaimer: Grown Ups is not an Insurance Broker. We provide product information from recognised Insurance companies. We are not making recommendations and we accept no responsibility for decisions made as a result of using the information provided.'
R50 Sexual Health
Check out the new section available to everyone.
Recipes
Find some delicious recipes by clicking here.
Guide to Retirement Living
Get your own copy for free, here.
Join around 100,000 monthly visitors and 72,000 members: daily games, discussions, contribute articles, make new friendships, GrownUps-only offers & more...
Regular Columnists on GrownUps
Related GrownUps Specials
Category sponsor
Can Extended Families be Healthier Than Nuclear Families?
According to some studies, Italian parents like to live with their grown children far more than most people do in the rest of western society. Grown children successfully living with their parents, and those parents making a welcoming home for their children, where everyone is encouraged to be an adult and appreciated for what they have to offer, is an art form. Most of us in New Zealand have run away from doing this, believing that it was unhealthy, both for the parents and for the children, to permit young adults to stay at home beyond a certain age.
We tend to believe that there is something pathological about grown sons who choose to stay at home with their mothers. While it is true that these men do take longer to establish homes of their own, we also know that many men take longer to mature emotionally, than many women do, and letting them have a few more years to grow up might not be such a bad thing. Personally, I found that each of my children were far more capable of carrying on an adult conversation when they were in their mid-thirties, than they had been when they were younger. It takes that long for hormones to settle down and experience to accumulate.However, many of us as parents, and as mothers especially, do a dance with our sons that is part longing to be able to enjoy them as adults, and part rejection, as we believe that unless we pull out of their lives, they will not be able to form healthy relationships with their wives. The result would appear to be generations of men who are incapable of talking about their feelings to anyone, men who live with rage embedded in their souls that cannot always be controlled, and cannot always be suppressed.
This writer firmly believes that living in extended family situations can be healthier emotionally for everyone involved, including the children who are born into those families. And, families survive better when they help each other, sharing their resources with one another.
But, in order to do this successfully, you have to believe that the benefits of an extended family are far greater than the benefits of living alone. It is also interesting to note that very little has been written about this sort of family that is complementary to it. Women at home alone with their small children, day-after-day, can develop pathologic symptoms akin to those experienced by explorers in the far north, who had to remain for months at a time in lonely outposts, seeing no one, with only their records to keep and their machines to tend. We call it cabin fever. Let’s face it; young mothers with cabin fever are not much fun for their children.
Young mothers who enter the work force, having to leave their children at home with babysitters or in day-care centres are often denounced for depriving their children of their loving presence, and themselves for missing their children growing up. Yet, in our world, especially in Auckland it is nearly impossible for one income to keep a family fed, clothed and housed. Both parents must work and must depend on the kindness of others to care for their children.
A loving extended family can solve some of these problems, though for all of us, learning how to change gears and value all the members of our family enough that we are willing to help support them in whatever ways we can is perhaps the hardest thing to learn. But, it may be one of the most necessary things we learn, so that we can all survive through the twenty-first century as healthy and loving human beings.
Advertisement
Advertisement
- Article Information
- Explore This Topic
-
This article is part of the Family topic. Click here to read articles, join discussions and more on this topic. Below are the latest articles in this topic.
- Discuss This
-
Click here to start a discussion on this or Click here to read other discussions.
- Forced adoption in NZ,Close Up programme
Latest comment at 16:04 01 Apr 2012 by rebe72609 - FAMILY FEUDS
Latest comment at 11:05 29 Nov 2010 by Snooky - Im looking for my dad Michael Jones do you know him?...
Latest comment at 07:45 25 Mar 2010 by JanelleLuscombe - Babysitting / housesitting / petsitting website planned
Latest comment at 20:04 13 Nov 2009 by Lu5 - Lost Brother
Latest comment at 09:33 21 Oct 2009 by Rotors - Adoption, Should The Parties Make Contact With Each Other
Latest comment at 20:01 26 Oct 2008 by Chris21-4 - Adoption, Should The Parties Make Contact With Each Other
Latest comment at 13:43 06 Jun 2010 by Going-Grey - Split marriages
Latest comment at 09:05 30 May 2009 by ambrad - Gambling
Latest comment at 14:04 06 Jun 2010 by Going-Grey - Growing, inspiration Young children to Young Adults. Stories.
Latest comment at 18:38 29 May 2009 by Moggy79 - Expected New Born Child
Latest comment at 11:52 29 Oct 2008 by Stryder - The Last Fledgling Leaves the Nest
Latest comment at 11:40 28 Oct 2009 by TheSnipe
- Forced adoption in NZ,Close Up programme
- Contribute
-
Click here to create an article on this topic, or view contributions made by your fellow GrownUps members
All contributions are entered into our regular prize draws!Below are a selection of User Contributed Article related to Family.
By becoming a GrownUps member and part of the Community, you gain access to:
- Enter Competitions
- Go into regular prize draws
- Play daily games
- Join Discussion Groups
- Find like-minded individuals and create lasting friendships
- Receive special GrownUps offers and
- Add you own articles of interest, recipes, pictures for fellow members to read and view.
site links
Learn how to take care of your mental health
Avalon Waterways European River cruising - 2013 Earlybird savings out now!
Get yourself super healthy and energised fast, live healthy - be healthy with Bev Bentley from Herbalife
Drive Europe from only $46 per day with Renault Eurodrive - click here to find out more.
Cycling New Zealand with the Geriatrix Cycle Touring Group.
Find out what the latest trends are in curtains for your home with the experts.
For endless views of endless plains, the best way to see Queensland's outback is by train. Now with exclusive GrownUps bonus 20% discount in First Class on Spirit of The Outback.
Wanting to remain independent and at home? Check out the range of home help services Geneva Care can provide to assist with this.
