Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I heard for the best part of my adolescence and childhood that 'sitting in-front of a computer will not put food on your plate'. To be fair to your grandparents, large amount of screen time is not good for children and teenagers. And let's face it, if you were like a typical teenager, your screen time was largely devoted to gaming or other non-academic endeavors. I suspect when you have children of your own, you'll…
I think he meant he was working/studying CompSci and his grand-parents didn't understand what he was doing.
Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
51–60 of 62 posts
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#52In an old house there is always listening, and more is heard than is spoken. And what is spoken remains in the room, waiting for the future to hear it. And whatever happened begins in in the past, and presses hard on the future. The agony in the curtained bedroom, whether of birth or of dying, gathers into itself all the voices of the past, and projects them into the future.
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> every civilization has done things so far. For lack of better conditions. You are arbitrarily picking this as an example of being right because it was done this way in the past. We changed so much for the better despite those things being done like that for generations. If you want a more technical analogy, this isn't about having a dedicated connection but about proper QoS. You can live in a mansion with family be…
> You are arbitrarily picking this as an example of being right because it was done this way in the past. Off topic: the opposite fallacy is called "chronological snobbery"[0]. I guess this could be called "historical snobbery"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_snobbery
As someone who lived in those conditions, surrounded by people in the same situation, I can say nobody wanted to live with 3 generations under the same roof. The lack of privacy, of space, the conflicts you can typically get from so many views cramped together, and all the social dynamics within that group are definitely not something to romanticize unless you've never actually lived it like most people did.
It's easy to assume living in your parents' 6 bedroom house (or with the in-laws in the guest house of a 3000sqft main house, and the parents a mile away like one commenter though is a similar enough situation to the topic) is how "every civilization has done it" so far. Perhaps those insisting it's great (or that they're always right) might want to try it for themselves, the way those civilizations were actually doing it.
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't romanticize what, living near your immediate family? Why? It's how literally every civilization has done things so far. This modern American ideal of forced to be on your own at 18 to find yourself has only been around for 70 years at most, and while we've achieved unthinkable progress in that time as a society, it's wrecked havoc over the family unit.
I wonder why do you get downvote. Most of asian families are like this except for ones adopt western mindset, or the 1% down to upper middle class, they move wherever because they don't have to worry about family, money solves a lot of problem.
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#55I lament the pressure for US nuclear families to fissure apart. It may not be overt pressure but it's consistent, delivered in countless expectations (do job|college and move out|away) and assumptions (gone yet?) My parents died when I was 14 & 21 respectively. Decades before, my dad moved my mom away so we grew up w/o any extended family nearby. When my first child was born, my wife and I were on our own - which wou…
The demographic bomb of a huge mass of people entering high-cost-healthcare old age and not being supported by enough young people being born (aka the entitlements pyramid scheme) seems to be exacerbated by the elderly potential grandparents not offering their services to make raising of grandchildren easier, especially in modern two-income cultures. While obvious I was not around for previous generations of childrea…
I don't see how we can - liability. While older means wiser, it doesn't necessarily mean safer. We can offset the risk a lot by mandating minimum 2, non-related caregivers. In families, however, the vetting is so much more complete.
Regardless, I genuinely like and appreciate that line of thinking.
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#56It is impressive to see "where am I from" based on actual people names.
And, it is hard to think of a life investment as good as being good to your family.
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been thinking about doing the same thing. Do you have any advice before I start?
You don't have to put your tree in Ancestry and pay monthly, especially if you have hosting somewhere. Webtrees is good software. If you are associated with a university, you may have access to an Ancestry subscription for free through the library. Set up a system for digital files and naming conventions on your local machine to back up any documentation you add to an online tree. Family tree software should all oper…
What software tools did you use to organize your archive?
How did you add the metadata?
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the "about us"[0]: Plough is the publishing house of the Bruderhof, an international movement of Christian communities whose members are called to follow Jesus together in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the first church in Jerusalem, sharing all our talents, income, and possessions (Acts 2 and 4). Bruderhof communities, which include both families and single people from a wide range of backgrounds,…
Ah they are anabaptist. Thought that 'about us' sounded somewhat fringe. They hold some pretty extreme views on which relationships are okay/allowed, and how those relationships can be lived (no divorce or remarriage, only hetero, etc.). They are the last people anyone should listen to on the subject of modern relationships and families life.
Like, I get this whiff of parochialism, like people have never been outside North America or Western Europe.
A concern with ancestors and descendants is baked deeply into many "pre-" monotheistic religions, whether aboriginal, Shinto, "pagan" from e.g. Europe (e.g. origins of All Souls Day), etc. In a way these "different" religions all share much in common. I'm sort-of trying to break down the mental walls we put between these categories. I'm saying these are the normal beliefs people have had since forever.
Likewise, taboos against divorce are ubiquitous. That's like the whole point of marriage. You might not ban divorce outright, but it's supposed to be the exception.
Heteronormativity (which you mentioned) varies more across cultures, but even here I think 2020 leftish culture is now an outlier. Yes, the conservative American culture it was born in reaction against was, in global terms, not among the most tolerant. But while a larger degree of toleration (e.g. via various "third gender" concepts) exists elsewhere, I think this is done in more of a pluralistic/subculture way than by really changing prevailing dominant norms. More of a "oh yeah, some people are different, which is ok, they're called _______." There's also more "you're probably going to form a heterosexual marriage and have kids, but maybe you also had a same-sex lover (especially when you were younger)", like the ancient Greeks. Like, Zeus took male lovers but was married to Hera and seems pretty culturally "straight". I'm saying there may be more tolerance but it still fits into a traditional and somewhat heteronormative framework.
Back on the ancestors/descendants thing -- I find the conflict between leftish and conservative-Christian values funny, because it was Christianity (and monotheism more generally) that did a lot of the work of reducing emphasis on family, lineage, and kin. You could call this the transition from "these are my people" to "we are all children of God". Now we have a leftish monotheism-without-God.
It's hard for me to explain what I'm trying to get across. It's like -- most of the world, and most of history, is conservative/traditional in a way that The Culture (in the Ian Banks sense) isn't. It's focused on kinship and rooted in biological interest. And even when those cultures seem "more tolerant" it's still within some traditional framework that keeps an emphasis on the heterosexual reproductive union.
All of which is to widen the frame and make us reconsider what is "extreme".
I'm also saying that this word "modern" just, with a sweep of the hand, dismisses the traditional beliefs of ... basically anyone who immigrates to America. It's a cultural erasure. Which I think many people will come to regret.
[1] "western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic" -- a term from psychology
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#59Keeping connection with the older generations and learning from them is important. But I don't think, nuclear families are about denying that. It's more about having enough space and freedom to see each other when you want it, but keeping off each other's backs and not letting the differences between the generations ruin your relations. I've grown up in a typical 3-generational Russian family sharing a rather small a…
> That was one of the main reasons why I decided to move to the West where having enough private space was considered to be a basic and unquestionable necessity. I thought the reason these societies lived together was lack of financial means. It's not very different from where I currently live, but anybody that has enough funds to go on his own does indeed do it. It's not, in my opinion, about culture but rather it's…
The West is doing it in a more subtle way though. There is no National Bureau of Square Foot Planning, but the educated, financially independent suburban family with savings, that is trying to pass their ways to the kids, is no longer the role model. Instead, if your parents nagged your head inside out to do homework + extracurriculars + do STEM or GTFO, instead of watching TV and eating chips, you are privileged and must be ashamed of yourself. And if you represent a culture where packed multi-generational living is OK, you get visibility and a pat on the back to keep your ways, rather than strong pressure to raise your bar and shoot for the stars.
Re: Not Just Nuclear: Families are elders long buried and generations yet unborn
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to put your tree in Ancestry and pay monthly, especially if you have hosting somewhere. Webtrees is good software. If you are associated with a university, you may have access to an Ancestry subscription for free through the library. Set up a system for digital files and naming conventions on your local machine to back up any documentation you add to an online tree. Family tree software should all oper…
I have some questions for you too. I have a goal of digitizing photo albums, photo slides, VHS, camcorder tapes, and 8mm tape reels that had been kept by my grandmother. What software tools did you use to organize your archive? How did you add the metadata?
Get Info in Photos and add all the metadata you need.
For myself I try to set the date for the photo — at least get close to the correct year. I set the day/month/time to something like January 1, 12:00 AM as a sort of indication that I have no idea when during the year. And if I am not even sure about the year I indicate as much in the description for the photo.
I enter a description (on export this will populate either one of the EXIF or IPTC properties or both). I describe what was written on the back and/or front (if any). Describe who I think the photo is of, maybe where the photo came from, etc.
I add keywords. Keywords for each person I recognize in the photo, keywords for the collection the photo came from, keyword "Family Photo" so I can differentiate from all other photos in my library.....
Any decent photo editing app should have a means to set the date, enter a description, add keywords. And all of these are exportable — are part of the EXIF and/or IPTC spec. And, again, a decent photo editing app will preserve these on export.
The beauty of course is that you can then create "smart albums" to show your family photos chronologically where: keyword = "Family Photo", sort by date. Or find all photos of "Faye Coble".