Seniors living with their children and grandchildren is something I never experienced, but it\u2019s an alternative to moving older family members into an assisted living facility. The question, though, is whether it\u2019s a good alternative.<\/p>\n
My husband had a glimpse of that life through his two friends, Bobby and Flynn, each of whom had grandparents living with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did the grandparents spend their time?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey watched soaps on TV, smoked cigarettes\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDidn\u2019t your friends do\u00a0<\/em>things with their grandparents?\u201d<\/p>\n George recalled that he and Flynn often took Flynn\u2019s grandmother, Emma, to the store.<\/p>\n \u201cTo get groceries?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cTo buy beer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeer?\u201d It took a few seconds before I understood and my jaw dropped. \u201cShe bought beer for you and Flynn because you were underage!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe paid for it,\u201d George offered as justification, but with a smile at my shocked reaction. \u201cAnd we always bought a six-pack for her.\u201d<\/p>\n Turns out, Emma had a taste for Old Milwaukee and kept a supply stashed under her four-poster bed.<\/p>\n That was an aspect of teen-grandparent cohabitation I hadn\u2019t considered\u2014and one that made me wonder if it wasn\u2019t best to keep the generations separate after all.<\/p>\n If I ever move in with one of my children, I don\u2019t plan to let my grandkids use me to buy things they can\u2019t legally buy on their own. Unless, of course, the subterfuge is necessary to keep myself supplied with dark chocolate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seniors living with their children and grandchildren is something I never experienced, but it\u2019s an alternative to moving older family members into an assisted living facility. The question, though, is whether it\u2019s a good alternative. My husband had a glimpse of that life through his two friends, Bobby and Flynn, each of whom had grandparents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}