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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Before modern times, the grandparents fulfilled much of the role of watching the kids while the moms worked. In fact, some have posited that this is why humans live long enough to be grandparents - it's an evolutionary advantage.

But in modern society, we tend to cast off our grandparents.

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Or we move 3,000 miles away to somewhere more economically prosperous (and also, more expensive) so the grandparent's couldn't financially make it viable to come with.

All of my parents grew up and lived in the same state as their siblings. All of my siblings live in different states, and none of us live in the same state as our parents.

My siblings and I don't have any kids yet, but their family life and amount of time they spend with extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) will look dramatically different than my experience, and it's only been ~25 or so years.

> Or we move 3,000 miles away to somewhere more economically prosperous (and also, more expensive) so the grandparent's couldn't financially make it viable to come with

Judging from my neighborhood at least, the answer to that seems to be the grandparents get a class A RV [1] or a large travel trailer [2] and move to their kid's lawn for a few months to help with the grandkids.

Probably only can reasonably work, though, if the kids wait until they have a home and decent sizes lawn to have kids of their own.

[1] https://www.fleetwoodrv.com/models/pace-arrow-1

[2] https://www.rvusa.com/rv-guide/specs-by-model-2019-heartland...

This also only works if your grandparents are in good enough shape to live in a trailer, and, also, you have a lawn, which many people living in multi-family housing do not have exclusive access to.

People live longer and are expected to work outside of their homes longer. Two generations ago when my grandmother was raising my mom, her mother was not working and could and actually did much of the childcare; but my mom can't watch over my kids much because she's obviously working full time and most likely will do so until my kids are nearly adults.

This might be different for people who have kids much later; however, in modern society there IMHO still is no gap where the grandparents already can look after kids because they've retired and still can look after kids because they're physically and mentally able to do so, because most non-rich people tend to work as long as they can, and when they stop working, they themselvelves need caregivers instead of being able to be caregivers for the extended family.

I wonder how much the feeling is one-sided. I visit my grandparents more often than they visit me (even generously discounting for physical ability, income, and the one-to-many relationship).

I think the way to measure this might be grandparents moving out of state of family (think Arizona and Florida).

Obviously the stigma of aging should get the bulk of the responsibility here.

Any got any advice on how to re-norm grandparents? I'm hesitating on moving out of state during my kids early childhood.

> Any got any advice on how to re-norm grandparents? I'm hesitating on moving out of state during my kids early childhood.

Living in the same neighborhood as your grandparents would be best. I know families that do that, and the payoff is great for the kids, the parents, and the grandparents. The kids love their grandparents, the grandparents love taking care of the kids, and the parents get safe, reliable, and free help. It's a win all around.

It's the way things ought to be.

Sometimes it can go the other way too. My Grandparents had little interest in "babysitting" or living nearby us when we were young.

Not necessarily cast off, but we’re so mobile now that we move too far away from our grandparents to be able to lean on them for childcare (my wife’s parents live in a different country…)

After my mom passed, my dad decided to move to Seattle, which turned out great for both of us. I greatly enjoyed having the old man around.

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