American Behavioral History: An Introduction

4 “If They Have Any Orders, I Am Theirs to Command”: Indulgent Middle-Class Grandparents in American Society

4 “If They Have Any Orders, I Am Theirs to Command” Indulgent Middle-Class Grandparents in American Society Linda W. Rosenzweig When Helen Lehman Buttenwieser celebrated her eightieth birthday in 1985, she received a book of letters from family members, including her nine grandchildren, in honor of the occasion. Mrs. Buttenwieser’s twentyyear -old grandson thanked her “for letting me be a part of your life these past 20 years.” He remembered that she always let him choose between three different bedrooms when he visited, and that she served “vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce.” Her twenty-four-year-old granddaughter recalled “how you let me order escargot and milk together in Paris.” This same young woman hoped to be able to emulate her grandmother: “I realize how lucky I am to have you, to look up to and set my standards by,” she wrote. Another adult granddaughter noted that during visits to her grandparents , “I felt that grandparents were people who loved and delighted in their grandchildren, and were more forgiving of the children’s shortcomings than the parents. I was sure that being a grandparent was a lot of fun. I knew that being a grandchild was a lot of fun—and still is!” A younger granddaughter wrote, “You are always very generous, and you spoil me rotten whenever I visit (Who wouldn’t love that?!).” She too aspired to be like her grandmother and hoped that she had “picked up” some of her “traits” in her genes.1 These letters describe happy memories and express love, admiration, and appreciation for a generous, capable, and accomplished woman. They also highlight a key component of grandparental behavior in contempo-  rary American society. If Mrs. Buttenwieser indulged her grandchildren and made them feel that they were important and special, she was far from unusual in the late 20th century. The image of grandparents as affectionate , indulgent companions represents a familiar aspect of contemporary middle-class family life. We are not surprised when grandparents claim the right to “spoil” their grandchildren—indeed, we expect this behavior , and we tend to view it as a phenomenon unique to the current cultural moment. Recent empirical research focusing on various aspects of grandparenting over the past fifty years appears to support the argument that indulgence represents a major change from earlier patterns of intergenerational interactions. For example, the results of the first national survey of American grandparenting, published in 1986, suggest that contemporary grandparenthood differs significantly from that of earlier periods. More than half of the 510 survey participants reported strong emotional bonds with their grandchildren and described their grandparental roles as those of affectionate, indulgent companions, often contrasting their own behavior with that of the distant, authoritarian figures they remembered from their own childhoods. “It’s different,” one woman stated, “My grandma never gave us any love . . . never took us anyplace, just sat there and yelled at you all the time.” Another grandparent offered a similar response: “Things are different today. Grandparents are more indulgent because they don’t want to lose their grandchildren’s love.”2 Personal documents and popular periodicals and advice literature also highlight the prevalence of grandparental permissiveness in the second half of the 20th century. Letters, diaries, and memoirs indicate that both grandparents and grandchildren considered indulgent behavior as fundamental to the grandparental role. At the same time, a critical tone in the periodical and prescriptive literature during this period identified grandparental indulgence as an area of cultural concern and implied that it represented something new in family relationships. It would be easy to conclude, then, that grandparental indulgence was a novel phenomenon that epitomized the sort of behavior that would naturally emerge in the milieu of an affluent, consumer society—though also a society unusually anxious about the stability of family ties—like that of post–World War II America. Indeed, the experience of grandparenthood in American history reflects the influence of a variety of changing social, economic, and cultural factors situated in particular historical contexts. Such factors include demographic variables; social and economic struc- “Theirs to Command”  tures and norms; cultural attitudes about the family and about aging; gender , class, ethnicity, and location. Like all other aspects of family life, however, grandparenthood also involves emotional experiences. Research in emotions history has documented change over time in emotional standards and in emotional expression ; some studies also...