For many families in Hawaii, life is like the Chicago White Sox.
Adam LaRoche, a White Sox first baseman, from a $13听million dollar contract because he was no longer allowed to bring his son into the team鈥檚 clubhouse.
To LaRoche this was about family, an emotionally based relationship 鈥 产濒辞辞诲.听To management, it was about team, an instrumental relationship 鈥 winning ball games.
Hawaii鈥檚 families, particularly ones with grandparents close by or in the same household, have become more like a team.听Relatives likely听have strong emotional connections, but the most important thing is to get the job done.
These families are task-oriented, and the task is survival, which requires a well-oiled machine with assigned chores.
The subtler, less defined, more emotional parts of grandparenting 鈥 let鈥檚 call them just being a grandparent 鈥 play second fiddle.
Here are some typical examples of what many grandparents do here:听One couple travels from Mililani to town during rush hour twice a day to take care of their grandchildren. Another makes the trip from Kapolei.听A grandmother picks up her grandchildren from three different schools.
Grandparents cook and clean for the whole family, and they are available to take care of the kids when Mom and Dad go out.
Think of Hawaii鈥檚 families as Netflix employees. In its instructions to wokers, 鈥淲e鈥檙e a team, not a family.鈥
Pretty hard assed for a new media kind of company.听But that鈥檚 Netflix鈥檚 point: The touchy-feely stuff should go only so far when there is so much to do.
Grandma and Grandpa, get to work!
When Grandparents Were Off The Clock
When I was growing up in the 1950s, all my friends lived either with or very close to their grandparents. My parents shared a small up-and-down duplex with my grandparents.听They had bought it together.
My grandparents were an important part of our lives, but what I remember the most is how little the family actually relied on them to do.
They were grandparents, not providers. Grandma and Grandpa had no assigned tasks.听They did not cook for the family except on special occasions. Usually they cooked for themselves.
They were vigorous people, but did not need to use that energy for family logistics.听They were not responsible for getting us to any of the places we had to go.听We got there on our own.
We were a family linked by emotional connections, most of which were so unself-conscious that we never even thought about them.听Close, but then who knew?
For sure we had our share of family friction, but even if there was trouble, it was not a big deal because the consequences were not serious.听There would be an argument, maybe some yelling (often in Yiddish), then everyone moved on.
Was this family model efficient?听Who the hell knew?听No one thought in those terms.听No one needed to assess.听
I don鈥檛 want to romanticize this arrangement.听It succeeded only because it met the needs of the times.听
We were barely middle class.听My dad drove a truck.听But that was enough to avoid money stress.听My mother worked part time but not until the youngest of the three of us kids was already in school.听
For Some, A Matter Of Survival
Team-oriented grandparenting in Hawaii also works because it meets the nature of the times.听
Child care is expensive.听Parents often want their children to go to schools out of their neighborhood.
And, of course, the biggest need: simple survival. It is impossible for most families to survive unless both parents work.听And even then, with housing prices as they are, Grandma and Grandpa鈥檚 home becomes a very tempting family haven.
But we should not romanticize this family arrangement either.听It is another example of the uneasy confrontation between older values like ohana and modern life in this place.听
So what are the possible costs?听When task and organizations 鈥 teamwork 鈥 dominate a family, relationships can change. They become more about how you contribute 鈥 your output. Tutu as chauffeur rather than tutu as tutu.
The criterion becomes, “We value you for what you do, with a very narrow, task-oriented definition of ‘do.'”
This kind of ohana work starts to take precedence over the more subtle, free-flowing relationships that bring a family pleasure and love.
It becomes harder to be just Grandma and Grandpa.听Or for them to take at least a few precious moments away from being Grandma and Grandpa at all.
As I was sitting at a Starbucks trying to finish this piece, a friend stopped to ask what I was writing.听 She is a retired schoolteacher and administrator who has a very busy life 鈥 traveling, teaching a college course, yoga.
I haven鈥檛 seen her at the gym as much recently because she now has to spend more time taking care of some of her grandchildren.
When I told her what I was writing about, she smiled and said, 鈥淥h, I can tell you stories.鈥
But she couldn鈥檛 stay to tell them.听 She had to be somewhere.
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About the Author
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Neal Milner is a former political science professor at the University of 贬补飞补颈驶颈 where he taught for 40 years. He is a political analyst for KITV and is a regular contributor to Hawaii Public Radio's His most recent book is Opinions are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Civil Beat's views.