Malaga Plaza
I've written about the Spanish before and how the older generation appears to view wealth. This may be changing with the times, but during the Franco regime, poverty was rampant and Spaniards developed a particular view of family obligations. They understood that when the chips are down, family taking care of family was sometimes all they had.
When I first encountered Spaniards, I couldn't help but compare the attitude they had toward extended family to that of my American cultural expectations.
That was over sixteen years ago, but I immediately recognized a difference. Now that I've had the privilege of wintering in Spain all these years, I no doubt have a more realistic impression of the challenges Spanish families face. As one elderly gentleman once told me, "Señora, we have our problems, too." I don't doubt that. Yet, the fact remains that Spanish family members are expected to give as much if not more than they take from one another.
There were two things that stood out to me when I first started going to Spain sixteen years ago.
Families hung on to property. If grandma owned a little house in the village, when she passed away, the family didn't sell it, they kept it. They understood that a roof over your head, especially one that was owned free and clear, was priceless. Someone in the family would live in the house eventually. Most families had a little house in the village but also owned a plot of land right outside the town where they could raise a garden to supplement their family food or sell the produce for an additional income.
If a family owned a small business, many of the employees were family members.
They took care of their family before hiring an outsider to work for them. Children didn't move too far away from home. They stayed and helped the family survive, even prosper in some cases, often working in the family business. There did come a time when young people were forced to migrate to other countries to find jobs, but they often sent money home to the family.
The extended family in Spain is the most important social unit.
Nobody thinks it's strange if a grownup lives with their parents. In fact, until a person marries, they most often do live with their parents. I've met many bachelors who never moved out, but stayed until their parents passed away, helping them out as needed.
Sunday is a national family day.
You see multi generations walking, dining out, spending the entire afternoon together. From babies to grandmas and grandpas, the family relaxes. And, the elderly are very visible. They may help with the little ones but in turn they are also included in the daily lives of the family and the entire village. Until COVID, Spaniards had the longest lifespans in the world. That may be one reason COVID hit Spain so hard. I think part of their longevity was because of their social structure, in particular, the strength of the extended family unit as an expected support system.
I believe it's possible that anxiety and depression levels are so high in America because of our attitude that every man, woman and child of eighteen is considered solely responsible for their own well-being.
There's an underlying belief that the need for a support system is a sign of weakness. Yet, there's a hole in that philosophy. Even though we are seen as a wealthy nation, most Americans have little to no cash. Once you subtract what they owe, they're penniless. Most don't own their homes either. When times get rough, they lose their homes. There's a huge cultural push to acquire as much stuff as possible in order to present to the public a picture of success, but underneath that facade is a nation of debtors who have little security and no one that has their backs.
I know that I'm comparing two completely different cultures.
I also understand that there are pros and cons for both, but when I look at the statistics on how many Americans are medicated in order to get through a life of high anxiety and depression, I look for a cause. It seems likely that an underlying cause of so much angst in the richest country in the world is the feeling that we could lose it tomorrow and there'd be no one to help us out. That we could end up on the streets like so many and that terrifies us. We sense that nothing we have purchased actually belongs to us, including our homes and cars. We know that if we lost our jobs tomorrow, which is common in modern American life, that we have little to nothing laid back to see us through hards times.
To have to live our lives with such a stark reality relentlessly picking at our brains raises our anxiety levels, messes with our sleep habits, haunts our plans for the future, and destroys our confidence in our ability to maneuver such a tricky economic environment.
We see the homeless on the side of the road and we look away because deep down inside we know that but for the grace of God there go I, you, us. The poor are despised in American culture, because poverty is viewed as a sign of weakness, a failure to make it on our own. No one has our backs and we know it.
As I ponder the future, I wonder how long we can stand alone, burdened with debt.
Will life force Americans to reshape their view of the individual? Will we need to think less about our selves and more about cooperating with one another? Can competition without cooperation sustain a culture over the long haul? Survival is at the heart of social networks. We're attempting to survive, beat the odds, outwit Mother Nature. It's a primordial instinct. Which route guarantees that more of us will survive? If we go it alone, the spoils are ours alone, but if we share the spoils, do we better protect one another? I wonder.
I will continue to return to Spain if and when COVID is under control.
Yet, I know that everything eventually changes, even the Spanish. I've begun to see a difference already. As the oldest generation passes on, what will the new emerging culture involve? Will they become more like us or will we become more like them? Or maybe there's a third option that I haven't thought of yet. Maybe the redefining of what it means to be a family will result in an entirely different way of providing for our elderly, young, and poor. And, if it's not a better way, then maybe we'll have better pills to help us cope with the angst created by the cultures we inherited through the accident of birth.
