TOthey economically give their children, take care of the grandchildren And they are a pillar for families, especially for those in which both parents work full time: it is everyday life for many Italian grandparents, over 12 million According to the latest IPSOS data. An organizational and family model that still works in Italyalthough the number of grandparents is destined to descend, the side effect of the drop in births. According to the latest annual report Istat Related to the year 2023, in fact, today in our country there is one child every six elderly, with a decrease in births of 14 thousand units compared to 2022.
A double role of care
At the base there are above all social, cultural and economic reasons, strictly connected to each other. «Three most significant changes: the postponement of many moments of passage of life, such as marriage and parenting, a fewer number of grandchildren compared to the past and the increase in the probability of not having at all»Explains Professor Carla Facchini, professor of family sociology at the Bicocca University of Milan.
«We also witness one also to one overlapping of family roles, because with the lengthening of life expectations, you are often grandparents and children together. Those who are 60-70 years old, as an adult probably imagined that at this age he would have been grandfather and that he would no longer have had parents, instead today he often finds himself still a child, therefore to manage an unavailable family relationship, which presupposes a role of care, double if there are also grandchildren ».
With her grandchildren you project yourself into the future
Family models, therefore, are undoubtedly changing and not everyone is prepared. “Have positive relationships with grandchildren and children undoubtedly benefits. On the other hand, it can be assumed that for some do not have grandchildren is a negative thing because in some way family life is stopped. Nothing is left behind and one’s history ends. You are happy that you continue with the new generations because Through the grandchildren the elderly are projecting into the futurecan leave traces of themselves, memories and values. In addition, between parents and grandparents, especially in those belonging to the school groups – the latter are the ones that most affected the postponement of parenting – there is also a cultural and value sharing on the educational front “. A decidedly synergistic job in the growth of the childwhich for many elderly is a real investment of hopes, time and commitment.
“It is true that taking care of the little ones presupposes effortHowever, it also means having a life in which they do not dominate solitude and abandonment “adds Professor Marco Trabucchi, president of the Italian Association of Psychogentria. «When hope is disregarded, frustration can be painful and heavy, especially because The pension and entry into the third age are delicate moments. The presence of grandchildren thus becomes a buffer to this new reality, while the frustrated wait of them constitutes a further moment of difficulty in a phase in which “existence must be” readjugated. Many people are really affected by this moment of passage, therefore Seeing the continuity of your family is very useful. Spending both physical and psychic time with the boys is also an incredible school of moments and sharing ».
The importance of being there, but without interfering
Making their closeness to the children feel vital, whatever their life project, therefore It is good to show themselves available to help in case they decide to become parents, but also to understand their choice in opposite eventuality. «We must be careful not to interfere, it would be the worst possible thing, just as it would not be right to share the pain for the absence of grandchildren with them. If the children feel in turn the lack unjustly insist on pain; If they do not like it, however, they could be annoyed by the investigation of the parentrisking to compromise their relationships. Families are undergoing important changes and today only those who accept this change are really good, not those who remain focused on the life of before: nostalgia is the worst enemy of the present “concludes Trabucchi.
Grandparents and the fear of a family to keep
Not all boomers dream of having grandchildren. “Sometimes they pretend to be for social wishes,” reveals Dr. Martina Ferrari, psychologist, individual and group psychotherapist, and researcher. «They tell me:“ I cannot reveal to my friends what I feel when they hope that I will soon become a grandmother. I am worried, but I can’t say it “». What for some is a source of joy for others is equivalent to a further concern. Nothing to do with a discussed Danish advertisement of a few years ago who had as protagonists some potential grandmothers who booked luxury holidays to single children with the hope that they could return to a couple and eager to enlarge the family: “Foul for mom”, he recited the claim pro born.
Many elderly, on the contrary, today nourish anxieties for generations to come. “The expectation of becoming grandparents is often replaced by the concern of having to support not only millennial children in case of emergency, but also the grandchildren” continues the specialist. «There are anguished sixty -year -olds, far from attached to the image of the happy grandparents of advertising. They tell about their children, eager to experience the experience of parenting e they hold because they will not be able to help them economically. They are also agitated because The age in which the millennials think they can have a child got up. It follows that the parents – for those who have them – are elderly and often do not live in the same city as the child because of transfers for the search for work. The “future grandparents” are concerned about the distance and not to be able to offer even practical help with their presence. They pray not to become it, expressing strong anguish on this ».
A serenity put to the test
To affect this I do not desire, even any family and marriage trauma lived. «For some couples or former couples who are today in sixty, The divorce was strongly tiring and traumatic“Continues Dr. Ferrari, underlining how some want to protect themselves from further emotional investments. «For them, the movement of their children at a young age for study reasons could also have been traumatic because the stories of working mobility belonged to their parents and in the 1980s the phenomenon had greatly reduced. The adaptation to the distance of the children has changed an “ideal” family model. They are elderly willing to deal with any grandchildren but are not serene. “Now that I have found my size, here is another anguish relating to parenting,” they say. “My children are far away, I can’t help them, I don’t know how to do it and I would just like to live serenely the years that remain. Yet being parents involves this: tolerating anguish forever“»
Support all choices
The increasingly postponed parenting can also put anxiety about grandparents waiting. It is important to support the daughters in all paths, respecting their wishes. The anxiety of potential grandparents today is also increased by an increasingly medicalized motherhood, a consequence of the postponement of parenting. “They ask how the Medically assisted procreation (PMA), If the treatments are dangerous for the life of the daughters and how to support them, even in the case of cryoprewing of oocytes for precautionary purposes. Not infrequently, in fact, It is mothers who accompany their daughters to the sampling, and they are the ones who in the following days monitor their state of health»Explains Dr. Martina Ferrari. Also in this case, however, conditioning the choices of children mindful of their traumas is inadmissible. The only way is that of unconditional support, in any direction their lives go.
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