Medcalf: Gens X and Z take radically different approaches to family ties

“You turned out good.”

That’s what an older relative of mine told me when she saw me at my parents’ 50th anniversary celebration last weekend in Milwaukee.

Maybe she had her doubts at one point? In my youth, every parent-teacher conference began with praise and ended with, “But if he could just cut down on the chit-chat … ” Perhaps that relative figured that the talkative, energetic kid she once knew would have followed a different path. But she seemed pleased with the result thus far when I saw her for the first time in years at the party.

Yet, her words also offered a sobering reminder: My daughters may never know what it’s like for their eldest family members to watch them grow up, at least not in the way that I experienced that joy in childhood, because we do not live near them.

In Minnesota, I’ve achieved my greatest goals. I graduated from college here. I scored a pair of dream jobs. And I’ve raised my three daughters here. I’ve also met some of my greatest friends and had the most amazing experiences of my life in this state. Minnesota, 24 years after I left Milwaukee to attend Minnesota State University in Mankato and never looked back, is my home now.

But a trip back to Milwaukee, my hometown, also compelled me to mourn what I’d lost. Like the abundance of transplants who live in this community, I’ve also affected my children’s opportunity to form a stronger bond with their extended family members — a bond that bolstered my identity and my understanding of my heritage.

As my relatives all sprinkled into the building for the anniversary celebration over the weekend, I remembered all of those moments with cherished family members that had altered my life.

My Aunt Marva would let my cousin Walter and I watch Eddie Murphy’s standup videos during sleepovers. My parents still don’t know. She would bake a loaf of banana bread and we’d sit on a sofa bed well past midnight, munching and reciting lines that no 10-year-olds had any business repeating. Again, don’t tell my parents.

My Aunt Eddie Marie was always nice to me. I actually can’t ever recall a moment when she disciplined my siblings or me when we visited her. It wasn’t her style. But I do remember the time we all went to the movies to see “Home Alone” and she pulled popcorn, sodas and candy from an oversized purse midway through the flick. She wasn’t going to pay those theater prices for snacks. No chance.

I used to watch the big boxing matches at my Uncle Oscar’s house on Saturday nights, and my Aunt Berda’s family – she was my day care provider – owned a convenience store. I can’t explain what it felt like to walk through the doors, grab a handful of candy, smirk at the other kids in the store and leave without paying, as if I owned the place, too.

I love that those people all watched me grow. My connections to them occupy whole chapters of my life.

But that’s not the same experience that my daughters have had. Their grandparents, on my side, live more than 300 miles away, and their aunts and uncles are spread across three states and two countries.

I’m grateful, however, that my daughters have that closeness — literally and emotionally — to extended family on the maternal side.

Americans prefer to live closer to their relatives, believe it or not. A 2022 Pew Research study showed that 55% of Americans live less than an hour from extended family members, and 36% view living near family members as “very important.”

As a transplant in Minnesota, you can know everybody and still feel distant from a larger, tight-knit community of folks. I know many in the same situation who’ve felt the same way. That’s why the trips back home, like the one we took last weekend, mean so much to me.

This latest trek also helped me realize that I might have an antiquated view of familial connection.

When I was a kid, I usually talked to my uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents only when we saw one another. But my girls have DMs, group chats and FaceTime exchanges with their extended family members, some of whom live thousands of miles away.

I didn’t have the technology to send my aunt an instant picture after a basketball game, or leave a voice memo for my grandmother when I was their age. But those tools help them all connect today.

When we went to Milwaukee for my parents’ anniversary, my daughters — per the norm — treated their extended family members as if they all lived across the street from one another. There were hugs, inside jokes, high-fives and, more importantly, comfort. They all know each other.

As they all laughed with those relatives they had not seen in nearly a year, I had a reckoning. No, my daughters won’t have the same experiences I did, but they have built relationships with their extended family members in their own way.

And that means, when they’re my age, one of those relatives who’ve watched them age and mature and grow over the years might look at them and say, “You turned out good.”