The conference speaker told about his wife providing help for an 84-year-old woman hospitalized after a heart attack. His wife still considers the older woman a member of her extended family, though she is only the mother of her first husband from whom she was divorced 34 years ago!

Such is the continuing power of family ties, suggests Vern Bengston, a professor at the University of Southern California and a researcher well known in the field of social gerontology. In March he served as one of many distinguished presenters at a Boston College conference entitled “Public Policy and Responsibility Across the Generations.”

Bengston took another example of tenacious family ties from his own experience with his mother. Over her last decade, she lived in a nursing home that took some four or five hours for him to reach by car. Yet he made it a point to make this trip every few weeks even though, in her last two years, his mother could no longer recognize him.

This California researcher also cited the changing roles of grandmothers within so-called broken families. He told of one such situation in which a grandmother is raising eleven children. Several of the parents have had trouble with the law and at least two are currently doing time in prison. This qualifies as what Bengston calls “one of the strongest examples of unplanned parenthood.”

Another extension of parenthood, admittedly less dramatic and less uncommon, is taking place now within Bengston’s own family. His adult children, among them a 31-year-old daughter, have come back home to live with their parents.

Yet a further example of continuing strong multi-generational bonds, cited by Bengston, is that 40 percent of his college students have grandparents contributing to the cost of their education. He and his wife have put aside money for their own grandchildren’s schooling.

From these examples and his research findings he concludes that the nuclear family will prove to be lasting. Twenty-five years from now it will remain vital and members will be less isolated than they are currently. He does not envisage a future conflict between generations, despite pressures that may be created by changes in Social Security.

These conclusions come as a surprise, however, in view of the sweeping changes that the same researcher foresees. He admits the growth of many new stresses on family life, among them the shakiness of so many marriages, the complex challenges involved in balancing work and family life, and the difficulty of finding caregivers for the elderly.

Despite what he calls “the astounding changes” that have taken place in a single generation, he finds remarkable staying power in family ties. Members of the so-called “Generation X”, compared with the Baby Boomer group, display surprisingly similar feelings.

Bengston displayed a graph showing that, over a 26-year generation gap,  young people feel as much solidarity with their mothers as mothers now middle-aged felt with theirs. Feelings of connection with their fathers remain almost as great.

Some other professionals at the conference, however, did not buy into Bengston’s rosy scenario. Philosopher Harry R. Moody responded by questioning what he called Bengston’s “relentless optimism.” “What if massive trends are undermining the system?”he asked.

Moody sees little to celebrate about a grandmother needing to take care of 11 children, some of whose parents are in prison. He also worries about a global culture increasingly inhospitable to family life.

Jack Cornman, a consultant with wide experience in the field of aging, sees the basic question as “to what extent society should help cope with pressures on families.” He criticizes social policies that “consist of throwing more choices at people.”

A researcher from Harvard’s School of Public Health, Norman Daniels, also made a sober judgment about the larger picture. “Looked at globally, the family situation is very threatening,” he warned.

Unless people like me, nested in our middle 70s, break the 100 mark, some of these issues may have no immediate practical impact on us. They will perhaps remain questions for the social policy wonks to cope with. Meantime, I hope we can enjoy two-way communication with and support from younger members of our extended families.

As you can judge from the snatches of the discussion relayed here, the Boston College conference provided no one dominant view on family issues. But it did raise questions that will remain central as our society continues to face changes that will help shape the future of family life in America.

Incidentally, it struck me forcibly that a conference for which professionals came from various parts of the country to Newton in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, not a single presenter said anything about the impact that the legalization of gay marriage might have on family care.

I will not soon forget the photo last month of a lesbian couple, Del Martin 83 and Phyllis Lyon 79, who have been partners for 51 years and, at San Francisco city hall, joyfully presented themselves to get married. What effect would or will the legal blessing on this and other monosexual unions have on elder care within their families?

Richard Griffin