Marriage and Family in the Later Years

I have covered many challenges that come to marriages and families, but I have mostly focused on early marriage and family. Today I want to focus on some things that are unique to life later in marriage and family. 

Custodial Grandparents

One challenge I mentioned briefly in my last post was that of grandparents raising their While this can be quite a burden on an aging adult, it can also pose an opportunity for the grandparent to be involved in their grandchild's life. The number of grandparents who have custodial care of their grandchildren has increased in the recent years to about 2.4 million in the United States. This situation often comes as a result of the parents losing their rights as parents. While this is not an ideal situation, children who are raised by their grandparents do better academically and behaviorally than if they were left in the care of their poorly functioning parents. 

If you are a grandparent raising your grandchildren it is important to be aware of how taxing it can be. Grandparents in this situation are more likely to suffer depression and have health problems. Although it is stressful to be raising children again, it is important to some of the grandparents because they believe that they were at least partially responsible for the failings of their own children. They see their chance to raise their grandchildren as an opportunity to redeem themselves in a way through providing the quality of care that they can to their grandchildren. 

The graduation of the youngest child is the beginning of the empty nest.

Empty Nest

An empty nest would be the opposite of becoming a custodial parent, but it poses some unique challenges as well. Sometimes as parents successfully launch all of their children from their home, they may find a new struggle to find what drives them when it is no longer their children. Parents in this stage that find their home empty and quiet may think if their lives are no longer driven by the activities and daily needs of their children, what is their purpose? There is suddenly much more free time and an interruption to the identity they have known for themselves for at least two decades. The time of an empty nest has proven to be more often challenging for women. 

It is important that couples nurture their relationship throughout their time raising children, so that when they get to the point of the empty nest they still have a relationship to enjoy together. When all the children are moved out of the home is the time that couples can rekindle the romance. This can be an exciting time to reestablish what their relationship means to them and to even redefine themselves as individuals. 

Retirement

While the empty nest tends to be more of a challenge for women, the time of retirement proves more difficult for the men. Perhaps it is because often men develop a sense of their identity through the work that they do in their career. Men dedicate their lives to providing for their family, and they do this through earning a living at their job. Men that are wonderful providers sometimes forget to develop their own personal skills or hobbies. When the time comes to retire from working, men find themselves somewhat lost in how to move forward with their lives. This situation poses a challenge for a men, such as role transition. A retired man must reestablish what their role is in their marriage and family. 

Both of these times later in life, the empty nest and retirement, can be really stressful and depressing times if we let them. However, we can also choose to make the most of these situations. Both of these stages can be exciting for an aging couple as they now find more time to enjoy each other's company, or to pursue hobbies they have had on hold for so long while raising a family. It is also during this time that a couple may start to enjoy having grandchildren. All these transitions can be surprisingly difficult for individuals and married couples, but they can also be an exciting time of exploration. Marriage and family is always what we choose to make of it whether it be early on or in the later years. 

The Importance of Fathers and Mothers

Fathers

While there is no way to guarantee the success of a child, the presence of a father greatly contributes to it. There have been many studies done on this topic that have found the effects of an absent father to be quite negative. The two most common contributors to fathers being absent from a child's life stem from having children outside of marriage and getting a divorce. When we look at the children who do not have a father present in their life and compare them to those that do have a father in their lives, generally speaking the children without a father present score lower academically, are more likely to drop out of school and display behavioral problems. As they age, these are more likely to use illegal substances, become sexually active at a younger age and to experience psychological problems as adults. These kids will also grow to be adults that are more likely to struggle to establish healthy and long-lasting relationships with other adults.

What Does it Mean to be Present?

To be present means to be cognitively and emotionally available to your child. Fathers need to notice when their child is bidding for their attention and to make an effort to put down their cell phones and to look away from the t.v. so they can show their children that they are present and available when they need them. Children are smarter than we give them credit for and notice when we are not willing to give them the attention they are craving. Some fathers are not home as often as they would like to be. This can be hard for a family, but it still has potential to be a healthy situation for the child if when the father is home he is really present with his children. As long as children know that their father is available and able to respond to their needs in a timely manner, they will be more likely to develop a healthy attachment in the relationship which will lead to healthier relationships in their future. 

Mothers

Just like with fathers, mothers play an important role in establishing a healthy pattern for their children's future relationships. When a child cries or makes an attempted request for a need that they have, and the mother is unresponsive just one time, the effect is not likely to be long-lasting. Imagine a small child with a mother who is frequently unavailable because of a preoccupation with other things such as drugs, alcohol or surfing the Internet. When this happens time and time again, day after day, the child will develop some coping mechanisms. The child will eventually learn that their primary caregiver is not a reliable source of nurturing or caring. The child will become distant, anxious, or maybe even angry. This is what social scientists call an insecure attachment pattern. Mothers have the main source of influence on the attachment style that their child develops and maintains throughout their lifetime. The way that a mother interacts with her child is the strongest consistent predictor of a child's social, emotional and developmental behavior. It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance a mother or a father in the life of a child. 

Individual Circumstances

It is important to realize that we are all unique with individual circumstances that may require different ways of doing things in our families. Many mothers work outside of the home, many fathers must work long hours. There are increasing numbers of single-parent homes. Sometimes grandparents are the ones raising the children. Whatever your circumstances are, the most important thing is that you are striving to give your child the physical and emotional tools that they need to feel secure. When a child feels a sense of security in their home and family life, it is from this place that they feel safe to explore their world.