多數美國老人不愿與成年子女同住

中國日報網 2012-07-12 08:42

Jackie Merz, center front, and her husband, Bill, right, both 75, laugh with friends, from left, Jean Haglund, and Joe and Rita Frey at Eskaton Village in Roseville.

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In a spirit of gratitude and giving back to the parents who raised them, Bill and Jackie Merz's daughters have extended a generous invitation.

"They both live in Chicago now," said Bill Merz, 75, a retired Sacramento State psychology professor. "One was willing to put an extra floor on her house and install an elevator for us so we could live there. The other wanted to convert her basement for us.

"I told them we'd have somebody shoot us before we did that."

The Merzes, who live in their own home at Eskaton Village Roseville, adore their extended, close-knit family, which also includes two sons in California and 11 grandchildren. But the idea of living with the kids in their older age leaves them cold.

"My first reaction was, 'I don't want you telling me what to do,'" said Jackie Merz, who is also 75 and a retired teacher and counselor.

Most older adults tend to be a bit more euphemistic about it: Typically, they say that they don't want to be a burden to their kids, or that they don't want to impose. But statistics show a plainer truth. In huge numbers, seniors relish their freedom, and they want to live on their own as long as they can.

In the Sacramento region, US census figures show that almost three-fourths of people 65 and older live in same-generation (as opposed to multigenerational) households. National figures are even higher, with nearly 80 percent of older adults living in their own households – more than triple the number from the 1940s.

A recent survey from the research firm Gallup & Robinson highlights that sense of independence. While 53 percent of people below age 65 said they would take in an aging parent who needed their help, only a quarter of people older than 65 said they would accept an invitation to live with their grown children.

Those attitudes fly in the face of a stubborn cultural cliché, in which the grandparents, kids and grandkids grow older together under one roof – a holdover from the days when there was no choice but for the generations to live together, like it or not.

"I think the stereotype exists because we continually look retrospectively," said Bill Merz. "It becomes a museum piece. Look at TV shows and movies about Christmas, the nuclear family they show.

"It hasn't been that way since World War II. GIs didn't come back from the war and move to Mom and Dad's neighborhood. They moved to the suburbs or across the country."

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)

比爾?默茨和杰基?默茨夫婦的女兒們一心想要感謝和回報父母的養育之恩，對他們慷慨相邀。

“她們兩個現在都住在芝加哥，”現年75歲的比爾?默茨說。他曾是薩拉門托州立大學的心理學教授，現已退休。“一個想要在她家的房子里加一層，給我們裝上電梯，這樣我們就能住在那兒了。另一個想把地下室改裝給我們住。”

“我告訴她們如果要這樣，還不如斃了我們。”

默茨夫婦住在他們艾斯卡頓村羅薩維爾區自己的家中，非常熱愛他們緊密團結的大家庭，除了兩個女兒，他們還有兩個住在加利福尼亞的兒子和11個孫子和孫女。但想到自己的晚年要和孩子們住在一起，他們感到很不快。

現年75歲的杰基?默茨說：“我的第一反應是：我不需要你來告訴我怎么做。”她曾是一名輔導教師，現在也已退休。

多數老人對此的態度會委婉一些。通常，他們會說他們不愿成為孩子的負擔，或他們不想強行要求孩子接納他們。但數據卻更直白地反應了真相。有相當多的老人很享受他們當下的自由狀態，想盡可能地自己生活。

在美國薩拉門托州，人口普查數據顯示，65歲以上的老人當中有近四分之三和同代人一起居住，而不是多世同堂。全國范圍內這一比例甚至更高，將近80%的老人住在自己的房子里——比上世紀40年代這一數據的三倍還要高。

蓋洛普暨羅賓遜調查公司最近的一項調查便凸顯了這種自立感。65歲以下的人有53%表示他們愿意與需要他們幫助的年邁父親或母親同住，而65歲以上的人只有四分之一表示會接受其成年子女的邀請與之同住。

這種態度公然挑戰了頑固的傳統文化觀念。在舊觀念里，祖父母，子女，孫子和孫女應該在同一屋檐下生活，成長，老去，這是從遠古時代遺留下來的傳統——那時，無論喜歡還是不喜歡，人們沒有選擇，只能多代同堂。