“It takes a village to raise a child” goes the African proverb, and yet an entire generation raised their kids with barely a neighbor’s nod.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, especially after watching my mother-in-law with my kids.
She hovers anxiously, jumping to fix every minor discomfort, while simultaneously keeping an emotional distance that feels almost rehearsed.
It’s like she’s following a script she wrote decades ago when she was raising my husband alone most days while my father-in-law worked twelve-hour shifts.
The boomer generation did something unprecedented in human history.
They raised children in isolated nuclear units, often with one parent working long hours and the other managing everything at home without extended family nearby or community support.
Now, as grandparents, many are displaying emotional patterns that psychologists are just beginning to understand as the long-term effects of parenting in isolation.
They hover while keeping their distance
Ever notice how some grandparents can be physically present yet emotionally somewhere else? My own mother was like this.
She’d make everything from scratch, keep the house spotless, attend every school event, but there was always this underlying anxiety, this sense that she was performing motherhood rather than inhabiting it.
Now I watch her with my kids, and it’s the same dance—close enough to intervene, far enough to avoid real connection.
This makes sense when you consider what American SPCC found: “Children may struggle with forming relationships, expressing vulnerability, or trusting others.”
But here’s the twist: They were describing what happens when parents themselves never had the village, never learned to trust others with their kids, never experienced the relief of shared responsibility.
They struggle with asking for or accepting help
Last month, my mother offered to watch the kids while Matt and I went to a wedding.
Halfway through dinner, she called because Milo wanted a different bedtime story than the one she’d picked.
Could she read the other one? Was that okay? The anxiety in her voice over such a small decision broke my heart a little.
When you’ve raised kids without backup, every decision feels monumental because it was.
There was no grandmother down the street to call, no aunt to swing by when you were at your wit’s end.
You figured it out alone, and that becomes your only mode.
Now, even when help is available, accepting it feels foreign, almost dangerous.
I get this tendency because I fight it myself.
Despite being part of a babysitting co-op with three other families, I still catch myself trying to handle everything solo.
The difference is, I’m learning to recognize it and push against it.
Many boomer grandparents never had that chance.
They show love through worry and control
My friend’s mother visits twice a year and spends the entire time reorganizing their kitchen and commenting on their parenting choices.
Sound familiar? It’s love filtered through decades of hypervigilance.
When you’ve been the sole guardian against all of life’s dangers for your children, that vigilance doesn’t just switch off when they become adults.
It morphs into different expressions: the constant suggestions, the subtle (and not-so-subtle) corrections, the inability to watch your grandchild climb a tree without listing every possible injury.
They have trouble with emotional vulnerability
Here’s something I’ve noticed at the park: Millennial parents talking openly about their struggles, their therapy, their parenting fears.
Meanwhile, our parents’ generation often responds with either dismissive “we managed just fine” comments or complete silence.
But did they manage just fine? Corinne M Plesko et al. found that “Social isolation has been linked to numerous health risks, including depression and mortality.”
Imagine carrying that isolation while raising young children, then carrying it for decades after.
The emotional armor becomes so thick, taking it off feels impossible.
My own mother, who made everything from scratch and kept our house running like clockwork while my father worked his long hours, still can’t tell me what those years were really like for her.
The loneliness, the pressure, and the weight of being everything to everyone with no village to lean on? It’s all locked away.
They overcompensate with material things or activities
The number of toys at my in-laws’ house could stock a small daycare.
Every visit involves a new gift, a planned outing, a special treat.
It’s sweet, but it’s also exhausting (for them and for us).
This is about trying to create the abundance they wished they’d had, not materially, but emotionally and socially.
When you raised kids without a village, every moment had to count because there were no casual interactions, no regular presence of extended family and community.
As grandparents, they’re still operating from that scarcity mindset, trying to pack all the grandparenting into visits instead of trusting in the simple power of presence.
They either overstep boundaries or maintain rigid ones
The Heritage Foundation noted that “Children raised by never-married mothers have significantly higher levels of all of the above behavior problems when compared to children raised by both biological parents.”
However, what about the two-parent families where one parent was essentially absent due to work and the other was drowning in isolation? The emotional patterns are surprisingly similar.
Some boomer grandparents, having had no boundaries when they were parents (because who was there to have boundaries with?), don’t understand them now.
Others, having built fortress-like walls to survive those isolating years, can’t let them down even for their grandchildren.
Finding compassion and breaking the cycle
Understanding these patterns doesn’t mean we have to repeat them.
When I feel myself slipping into that isolated parent mode—and I do, more often than I’d like—I force myself to text the babysitting co-op group.
When I catch myself hovering anxiously over Ellie at the playground while maintaining emotional distance (yes, it’s possible to do both simultaneously), I take a breath and either step back physically or step forward emotionally.
The village isn’t just for raising children; it’s for maintaining the sanity and emotional health of the adults raising them.
Our parents’ generation missed that: They white-knuckled through parenthood in isolation, and now those patterns are emerging in their grandparenting.
Yet, here’s what gives me hope: Awareness creates choice.
When we understand why Grandma can’t just relax and enjoy story time, why Grandpa shows love through worry, or why they struggle to be present without controlling, we can respond with compassion instead of frustration.
Maybe, just maybe, we can show them what we’re learning: that it’s never too late to build your village, to let others in, to put down the weight of doing it all alone.
If there’s one thing I’m determined about, it’s that my kids won’t watch me grandparent from a place of isolation-induced anxiety.
They’ll see me leaning on my village, asking for help, and trusting that raising children—and being a grandparent—was never meant to be a solo act.
