Poles close to grandparents

A CBOS poll has shown that 72% of Poles feel they owe something to their grandparents. Amongst the top values conveyed by Polish grandparents are moral principles and religious faith.

86% said they have close relations with their grandparents.

Anyone know for comparative studies in other countries? Do any other countries have a grandparents' day? It would seem that Poles have stronger ties with their grandparents than Western countries which are more peer-group-obsessed than family-minded.

That and the flat.

First time I seen grandparents day in my life I like it so much, and I read about first poland did this after bulgaria,brazil,usa,france,russia celebrate this day, today grandmothers day and other day also grandfather day and Canada,usa also celebrate this day. I dont like this special days like mother,father,St. Valentine's day,I think this days for capitalist system feed.And many people have no parents ,when people celebrate parents who doesnt have feel sad. I belive special days must to be social message like chilren rights day,aids day,peace day. Any way I congratulate poles they remmeber old people and make them happy.

" It would seem that Poles have stronger ties with their grandparents than Westrern countries"
Really? So why don't they say "Granny! There's no need to be counting out your one grosze coins at the shop: just sell your flat and love on the proceeds!"?

How strange that you are promoting a Communist invention. I thought you were supposed to be Solidarity, Kaczynski, RCC, PiS, Gazeta Polska, Smolensk 2010 until you die?


Indeed, you'd think that if they really had grandma's best interests at heart, they'd sell her flat and get her to retire to a comfortable residence for the rest of her days.

Polish grandmothers often take care of their grandchildren. That's why kids have very strong ties with them.
I remember spending so much time with both of my grandmothers when I was child and teen, and I have so beautiful memories of those days. Visiting grandma means fun for kids. I remember where my grandmothers were keeping sweets and the stories of old times they were telling me. They had always time for me, and unlike parents they could listening too.

I believe almost everyone in Poland have warm memories of their grandparents.

I'm also very suprised to see that it's different in other countries. When I was child I couldn't understand why in so many foreign movies kids acts as if visiting their grandparents was a punishment... That's definitely a cultural thing. Isn't that Americans call a caring grandma an "Italian grandma" as if that was some alien concept for them?

delphiandomine
Harry

I find your statements here very inapt. Of course some pathologies happens but generally, in healthy families, grandkids feel a genuine love towards they grandparents and care about them.


What?! Are you kidding? Sending grandma to a retire house (or however you call such institutions) is considered as not caring about elders. You live in Poland and don't know such basic things? Besides that no older person would like to move out a flat/house they had been living in for the last 50 years!!! Again I see you have very limited constact with elder people, don't you? How many times do you see your grandparents?


What is a "communistic invention"? Grandparents?! Moderator should look at this statement as a personal attack or a provocation. How long provocating other users to make them outburst will be tolerated on this forum?

No surprise as grandparents help raise their grand kids. The comment about the flat is also true though.

I'm glad my babcie i dziadki aren't alive today to see the mass westernization, followed by corruption, taking place in their beautiful old slavic country. And worst yet, how the young Poles today are completely endursing it.

Sadly, it's true. If they loved and cared about them, they'd sell the flat and use the money to make sure that their grandparents live the rest of their days in comfortable surroundings. Let's say a typical flat in a city, worth around 300-400k. That's more than enough money to buy a smaller, modern flat and the rest of the money used to equip it with all sorts of things to make an elderly person's life better. And when they get too old, enough money left to make sure that they are always looked after.

But it doesn't happen. Why?


Yes, sadly, it's seen as not caring. It then leads to elderly people being trapped in their wholly unsuitable flats, because the children are just far too busy to look after the mother - and anyway, the grandkids are grown up now and don't need looked after. And as for them not wanting to move out - really, how much is "not want to" and how much is some sort of social pressure to leave the flat to the grandkids?


This "Grandfather day" and "grandmother day". Communist invention, and hilariously used by people nowadays. It's actually shocking to see how much of the Communist mythology seeped into the Polish public consciousness - people know to oppose May 1st, but they seem to be totally clueless about these days and many other Communist inventions, such as "Women's day".


There's the door.


What's interesting is that you can actually see a lot of problems in Polish society caused by children who are raised by the grandparents - one psychologist I know actually advocates the grandparents taking no part in the actual caring of children. I'm sure we've all seen the maniacal Babcia who wraps the child in ten million layers on a boiling hot day.


Corruption?

They must have never left the farm if they didn't see the vast amounts of corruption in the PRL!

No it's real "don't want". My grandma didn't want a new color tv because she was so used to her old black and white. She claimed her eyes pain when she watches the color one so she used the balck and white until it's comepletely broken up. It's the same with everything: places, objects, style of a life. There is even a famous saying "starych drzew się nie przesadza" (the old trees shouldn't be moved).

How many times have you heard a story of an elder person who didn't want to move out of his flat in an old, falling into pieces tenement house? I hear it many times on tv.

Stories which begins like "a social workers are offering a 8x-years old tenant a better conditioned flat but an elder person doesn't want to move because has been living there since the pre war etc." I heard about such and similiar case so many times!

If you don't know that (or just pretend to don't know that) it means that despite being for years in Poland you don't know Polish culture well yet.


They don't want anybody to sell their flat. They are owners of their flat so if they wanted to sell they would do it on their own, young man. As I said above, elder people rarely want to move out from the places which are sentimental to them. That's why they don't sell their houses to move to better ones.


If someone lived in a flat in a city for most of his life then such person would be deeply unhappy to move to a house with a garden in some village. The same with opposite situation. My late grandma who lived for whole her life in a village (where she was born) was always saying she couldn't live like my parents in a flat in a city. The water smelled for here chlorine, one couldn't go outside so easly, no forests, etc. She didn't like the city.

Besides that you forgot about one more important thing. Elder people have friends too! They are within some social circles which they don't always want to leave. And you want to uproot them, bereave the life and people they knew for so many years!

Honestly you act like you had no grandparents or maybe these are cultural things, I don't know.



It's easy to judge people isn't it? Is your wife's grandma living with you?


So you say because it's a communist invention it shouldn't be celebrated? lol


I want it to be celebrated. And I want a flower in that day.
By the way it's world-widely celebrated not only in former communist bloc.


Then you would have a generation of people who have no respect for elders (just the same like some of the foreigners on this forum, who thinks that an elder needs to earn respect first!)


None of my grandma did it. You see the world only through seterotypes, don't you?


Won't your grandparents be shocked to see the tone of piercing on your face?

Honoring one's grandparents is never "hilarious" not matter what government instituted an official holiday to do so. This is just common sense amongst humans who naturally love their grandparents. Those who don't respect their elders and who have the sick mentality that even leads them to insult their elders, or the elders of a country in whom they are guests, are examples of inhumanity and they are despicable.

That's quite normal - people, especially when they're getting older, don't always want change.

This Grandpa/Grandma's Day however is (in the US at least) entirely for the benefit of card shops and florists. Oddly enough, in Poland I've never come across anyone actually celebrating it.

I've found that it does seem to correlate with educational status and background - those of lower classes seem to embrace it more. It is entirely consistent with the passive brainwashing of them during Communism - just like the myth of "Western Betrayal" so often spouted by them.


It is absolutely hilarious to do so on a day that was instituted by the hated regime. There are 363 other days to honour grandparents - and anyone with any knowledge of history would be well advised to do it on a different day.

i don't think young children these days are or were influenced by 'passive brainwashing'. for those who actually remember the day it is simply to say thanks and pass on a small gift.

" for those who actually remember the day it is simply to say thanks and pass on a small gift.
Poland managed without such a day until the communist era.

Does anybody know why the communists introduced such a day? I'd be guessing it had something to do with getting working age women back to work as soon as possible after giving birth. But that's just a guess. Any other suggestions?

Of course they are - the grandparents, brainwashed by the Communists, are the ones who expect/demand such a tradition.

It's one of the more notable examples where the Communists managed to thoroughly infiltrate people's minds.


Could just be a way of introducing different traditions - destroy the old by introducing the new.

Because mostly children are celebrating it by giving their grandparents a self made card. Most adults have no grandparents alive so no wonder they don't celebrate it.


That's interesting. How far will you move in provoking?
Grandma & grandpa days are widely celebrated. By celebration I mean visiting grandparenst on that day or at least if someone can not visit them - phone them and make wishes (złożyć życzenia). Small children give babcias and dziadeks laurkas (a self made cards with wishes).

This year Cantrum Nauki Kopernik was offering all grandparents entrance for free. Every tv station talks about grandparents in those special days so it is widely celebrated. No connections with communism in the mind of Polish society.

If you delphiandomine generally inform on daily basis foreigners so unreliablely about Polish customs and attitude of Poles to those customs then I implore you to stop misleading people.

Grandma day a communist holiday? That's hilarious! What else will you made up?


My grandma was given a box of chocolates by me :)

It's interesting, and true. You'll find these myths are stronger among the uneducated - because they bought into the (subtle at times) communist propoganda unintentionally. You know the old saying about 'say something enough times and it will become true' - well, it certainly applies here.


And it is a Communist invention, and anyone with an ounce of sense should reject such celebrations.


Of course not - that's because the Communists did a fantastic job of making it part of the accepted mainstream. Just like 'Western Betrayal', the 'Recovered Territories' and more - all myths, but the product of thorough brainwashing.


Let's see...

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzie%C5%84_Babci


One defining feature of Communism was to introduce new celebrations and holidays to make people forget the old. And it looks like they did a great job here - likewise with the "Women's day" (which, incidentally, is boycotted by quite a few anti-Communist women I know - they refuse to accept any sort of greetings/presents) and other random celebrations.

Even if it's passed into the Polish minds as being something harmless, it doesn't excuse the origin. Anyone claiming to be "anti-Communist" should have nothing to do with such nonsense.

You made up that it's viewed as communistic holiday in Poland and that there is a social division in society for lower class who celebrate it and higher class who don't celebrate it. Wow! I've never heard such a load of rubbish!


The link you have given also says that there is a Garndparents day also in the UK (in October). Is that an invention of British communists?


Then it means we don't have too many anti-Communiasts is Poland.


It's beautiful tradition and it doesn't matter in what period of Poland's history it appeared. Grandparents surely deserve for their own day... we have Mother's Day, Father's Day, Children's Day, so what is wrong with having a Grandma's Day and a Grandpa's Day?!

I don't have time to play in your games, delphiandomine. I know you will never acknolegde that someone is right even if you know that the person is right. But it's your problem.

The fact remains that it is a holiday made up by the communists.


It has been celebrated then since 2008 and was first created in 1990.

I can show you first hand evidence of this if you want to come to Poznan :) The way in which it's 'celebrated' is very much dependent on social class. And we're talking about old class, not new classes based on wealth (we all know that many rich people in Poland are still peasants inside).

As for "making up that it's viewed as a communist holiday" - I never said it was. It is a communist celebration that's somehow passed into the public consciousness as being "good". Although - those who know their history will reject it.


Hah, that's probably an invention of the card shops. There might be a 'day', but no-one cares about it.


Sure it matters. It is funny though - the ones screaming loudest about communists are the ones who also place the most emphasis on this. Absolutely hilarious.


Not many real ones, no. Plenty of people claim to be, but only about 10% genuinely reject it and the mythology that they brought - I'd say.

One of the stranger things about PiS was their inability to reject such things. Could it be because their electorate are also the ones who demand tribute from their grandchildren on this day, and with it, are the ones who scream loudest about 'Western Betrayal" and so on?

Sorry, but nothing you say changes the fact that the 'holiday' has its origins in Communism - and should be rejected by anyone who knows their history. Poland has many beautiful traditions from before Communism - why embrace their ones?

My family is educated middle class, both of my parents holds university degree and they were always encouraging us to celebrate Grandmother's Day. In general in my family we had and have strong bonds with grandparents. So I can give you a first hand evidence from my side that you're talking rubbish :)


Almost no one reject it, unless they are weirdos or don't care about their grandparents.


Becuase it is good. Why only parents deserve flowers for some invented holidays if grandparents are also a huge element of family lives and grandchildren owes them so much?


You can contunue your rows with Polonius in private way. Why to drag other people into this? Especially when you're starting to spread some made up by yourself myths, just to needle Polonius (or other users who you dislike).

Of British greetings card importers. Nobody celebrates it.


Actually Mothers' Day goes back centuries.

You are making from yourself a political inquisitionist. A good idea is always a good idea regardless what political option or circumstances it came.
By such stance as you're presenting now, you starting to resemble a PiS electorate or an American republican - are you a supporter of any of these?


Such as?


That's sad.


So what? What is te difference between Mother's Day And Grandma's Day? For mother's day delphian could also say that it's a holiday invented to


mothers. They do such a hard work for amost all their lives and only one day in a year for them? It should be 365 days for them! :)

One's an Anglican religious festival (that by the way probably predates Christianity) and the other is a 1960's construct designed to take people's minds off state imposed repression and food queues.

We don't have any religious holiday for mothers and in Poland Anglicanism was not very popular either... Should Poles stop celebrating Mother's Day too? lol


Now are different times, so we can solely focus on our loving Grandparents without polictics hidden beneath :)

Actually there are several religious celebrations of motherhood in Poland - so why have Mothers' Day on an arbitrary PRL era date - and why have the peripheral things like Grandmothers' Day - a communist copy of an American commercial thing - at all?

There is no Grandmother's Day in America and as the eloquent and logical a.k., the Polish heroine of this thread, has pointed out: There is nothing communist about celebrating a day to honor one's grandparents.

first Sunday after 'labor day' (whatever that is) is the day on which they officially celebrate Grandparents' Day.


There is if you do it on one of the old PRL pseudoświęty.

Technically not Busia day. That would be a "Busia and Ja-ja" day.

Labor Day is a holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 3 in 2012) that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. Pretty strange that a capitalist bastion like the US of A would celebrate a day dedicated to workers. Sounds pretty socialistic to me. In Canada we have something similar, but we call it Labour Day.