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When parents have to work at daytime or out of town, kids are usually lo

游客2023-11-25  7
问题         When parents have to work at daytime or out of town, kids are usually looked after by their grandparents. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages of this practice. The following are two excerpts about this issue.
        Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
        1. summarize the advantages and disadvantages revealed in both excerpts, and then
        2. express your own opinion on this practice.
Excerpt 1
        In a Grandparents.com survey of 10,000 grandparents across the country, 61 percent of those polled said they take care of their grandkids on a regular basis.
        For some grandparents such as Jacqueline Rafla, a grandmother of 12, caring for grandchildren keeps them going. "It’s life, it’s youth," she said. "You’re reliving your own children through these little children."
        This trend toward grandparent care is in part because of the recession. According to National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, 40 percent of grandparents now living within an hour’s drive of their grandchildren provide regular child care—and just eight percent of grandparents receive any pay.
        Dr. Georgia Witkin, senior editor and grandparenting expert for Grandparents.com, said 92 percent of grandparents don’t want to be paid for watching their grandchildren, they just want to be appreciated for what they do for the family.
        "A lot of us are busy working and so forth, but this is part of what we’ve done before, we’d do it again, and we’re doing it for the family in hard economic times," Witkin said. "The family comes together. If you’re helping your son or daughter work, it’s good for you. It’s good for your grandchildren. Instead of leaving them the money... help out now and get appreciation."
        Witkin added the benefits are also present for the children with grandparent care, including a low adult-child ratio, which she said, is much better than at daycare. In addition, she said the food is better and the children are getting unconditional love.
        Another benefit or grandparent care, she added, is that several studies have suggested children who have a great grandparent presence have less delinquency and less drug abuse.
Excerpt 2
        Anyone with children can tell you that raising them is a challenge. Grandparents have already met that challenge once with their own children. But now many grandparents are called upon to meet it again with the next generation.
        According to the U.S. Census, 4.5 million children are living in grandparent-headed homes. Most grandparents raising grandchildren are between 55 and 64. Almost 25 percent are over 65. Also, a growing number are far more likely to be persons of color who are living in poverty. For these and other reasons, parenting a second time can be even harder. The grandparents are older than the first time they parented and may have less energy. Also, the reasons for having to parent a grandchild often involve traumatic events.
        Grandmothers caring for or raising grandchildren suffer more stress and depression than grandmothers who aren’t caregivers. These are older women who may have health needs of their own. So caring for a grandchild who may have health problems, developmental challenges, or an increased need for care creates more stress for these grandmothers.
        The age of the grandchildren can be a factor, too. Younger children are more physically demanding. But, older children are often more emotionally and mentally demanding. You may be willing, and even eager, to raise your grandchildren. But no matter how much you love them, your life will change.
选项
答案                                                                 Grandparents Won’t Make Good Parents
        With the increasing pace of modern society, many young parents find it difficult to take care of their children when they have families to support and career goals to pursue. Therefore, grandparents are sometimes asked to look after their grandchildren. People strongly support it in that raising grandchildren can give grandparents the feeling of youth and appreciation. Besides, children may also benefit from their grandparents’ care mentally as well as physically. While others worry that this may bring great pressure to those grandparents since looking after children requires large amounts of energy. While the excerpts consider the issue from grandparents’ point of view, I put emphasis on the impact exerted to the grandchildren, believing that this may make the children spoiled and cause domestic conflicts.
        To start with, grandparents are very likely to spoil their grandchildren. Unlike parents who are more aware of the discipline of their children, grandparents usually present very intense love for their grandchildren. They tend to do everything for their grandchildren from dressing to cooking and cleaning, instead of letting those kids do it on their own. When grandchildren get used to being served and loved, they would lose the initiatives of doing things with their own strength, and they tend to ask for anything they like without thinking. This is apparently harmful to the education of the kids.
        Secondly, different parenting skills and different attitudes towards a child between the two generations will easily cause discords in a family. Once a child gets used to the overindulgence of his grandparents, he may develop spoiled behaviors, which will be unacceptable to his parents. The child will naturally seek help from his grandparents when being scolded by their parents and a family clash may be unavoidable. This kind of clash will intensify if the grandparents, with their seniority, argue and try to protect their grandchildren.
        To sum up, asking grandparents to take care of their grandchildren may seem a convenient option at the first sight, but it may cause problems if both the grandparents and the parents fail to communicate well.
解析         两段材料分别罗列了对“祖父母照顾孙辈”这一做法的正反观点。
        选段一表示支持。当前有过半数的祖父母帮忙照看他们的孙子，原因有二，首先照顾孙辈让老人的生活有动力（keeps them going）。其次，他们只想在经济不景气（recession）时尽可能帮到儿女（help out now），希望他们为家里所做的能得到认可（get appreciation）。而且，与日托中心相比，专家指出了祖父母照看小孩大有裨益。
        选段二持反对意见。材料指出，照看孩子本身就有挑战性（challenge），祖父母因为年纪大，精力不足（less energy），照看孩子会让他们受更多苦、压力更大（suffer more stress and depression）。而小孩子处于不同的年齡段，需要的照顾也不同。不管怎样，照看孩子都会改变祖父母的生活。
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