Some quotes from a book entitled The Secrets of Happy Families By Laura Carstensen Holidays bring out the best and the worst in most of us. For those of us who are grandparents, holidays are special in a way different from when we were raising our children. Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity has research to back up her statement, "Older people are happier." Between 1993 and 2005, Carstensen and several colleagues tracked 180 Americans between the ages of eighteen and ninety-four. Every five years, participants carried pagers for a week. Whenever those pagers buzzed, participants were asked to respond to a series of questions about how happy, sad, or frustrated they were. The results were dramatic. As they aged, these people reported having fewer negative emotions. The study found a number of factors that contribute to this increased happiness. First, older people phase out people they're friendly with, but they not particularly close to (like the parents of their kids' friends) and concentrate on the people they actually care about, like family. This reduced circle is usually 5 individuals, a far cry from the 150 people Robin Dunbar found is the maximum number a person can maintain social relations with. "When we're young, we tend to make choices that will expand our horizons," Carstensen told me. "We go to parties; we join clubs; we accept blind dates. As we age, we have less tolerance for hassles. Older people don't go on blind dates!" The second major reason older people are happier, she found, is that while younger adults experience more anxiety and disappointment over their career goals, finding a soul mate, and making money, older people have typically made peace with their accomplishments and failures. This lets them take more enjoyment out of life. As we get older, we're more aware of mortality; so when we experience wonderful things, they often come with the realization that life is fragile and will come to an end. Having a tear in the eye while you're watching the grandchild play with the puppy outside is special. You know this is not going to go on forever. You know that little girl is going to be an old woman. You know you probably won't see her become an old woman. All these influences come into that experience, making it richer and more complex. Carstensen believes this population of more emotionally balanced older people is an extraordinary, untapped resource. "In modern society we've never had extended families before," she said. "We have this image that back on the family farm, you had your grandparents, your great-grandparents. But that's not true. They were dead. Only a hundred years ago, life expectancy was so short people didn't even have both biological parents. Twenty percent of kids had been orphaned by eighteen. Orphaned!" Today, by contrast, grandparents and great-grandparents are becoming increasingly common. She noted that even with some parents having children when they are older, in their mid- or late thirties, demographers predict that by 2030 the vast majority of American children will have not only both biological parents present, but the full complement of grandparents and great-grandparents. So how can these older, happy family members help make the families around them even happier? Carstensen gave three suggestions: 1. Offload siblings. A friend of mine was the editor of Grandparents.com, and he shared a memorable detail about their readership: Parents are more interested in websites that cater to the problems of newborns up to three-year-olds, while grandparents are more interested in issues related to five- to nine-year-olds. Carstensen's research backs this up. "What happens is when the first child is born, grandparents don't have a lot to do. Sure they can help around the margins, but the parents still take the brunt. It's when the second child arrives, you see a spike in their involvement." Carstensen has an eight-year-old grandson, Evan, and a five-year-old granddaughter, Jane. "I remember when Jane was born," she said. "I just felt this incredible connection to Evan. I was worried about him. Here he's been the total attention of his family, now there is this interloper. I felt my role was to protect him and show him that he was still loved. One way my husband and I did that was to offload him from his parents when things got stressful." 2. Be an escape valve. All families have difficult times, and it's during those times that older people can be especially helpful. "There have been times when my son and his wife are fighting and Evan or Jane would slide up to me on the sofa and say, 'Sometimes my daddy yells,' or 'Mommy is sad.' And I say, 'Yes, sometimes mommies and daddies fight' or 'Yes, we all get sad.' And that's all I have to say. They squeeze close to me, and it's okay. What I'm getting at is it would be really great for families if grandparents could provide the stability that sometimes parents can't. It's just too hard to be a parent. You can't always be calm. You can't avoid fighting. But grandparents have almost conflict-free relationships with kids. I said to Evan recently, 'Do daddies get angry?' He said, 'Yes!' 'Does your mommy ever get angry?' 'Yeah!' 'Does Grandma ever get angry?' He stopped and went, 'Noooo!' What a joke. Grandma would never get angry." 3. Hover. "Parents these days are told not to hover, especially as their children grow older. But grandparents should hover," Carstensen said. There's a lot of research that predicts how well teenagers do if there's an adult in their life, aside from their parents, who is crazy about them. "I think questions like 'Did you do your homework?' 'Did you get a report card?' 'Are you being responsible?' help to show you care." Parents may not always like grandparents to be so involved. "There's going to come a moment, when you want to say, 'Keep your hands off my kid!' But you have to take the perspective that there are many ways to raise children." If you have grandchildren, give them an extra big hug this holiday season! |