The great generation stays around longer

More families stretch to four levels

Amy Altman never knew the great-grandmother for whom she was named. She died before Altman was born. And though her mother shared memories of the family matriarch, Altman, 28, never forged that singular connection that comes from knowing someone firsthand.

But history, in this case, will not repeat itself. Altman's 5-month-old son, Benjamin, will learn family traditions, lore and recipes not from photo albums and makeshift cookbooks, but from the mouths of his great-grandparents, four of whom have rocked him in their arms.

"During the holidays every year, we always make my grandmother's noodle pudding," said Altman, who lives in Los Angeles and plans to visit the children's great-grandparents, ages 74 to 98, in Florida and New York several times a year. "I think it's going to be great that he will get to know the great-grandma whose noodle pudding it is."

There have always been great-grandparents. But because Americans are living longer and are healthier now than in previous generations, demographers say more people are likely to have at least one living great-grandparent, and to have that great-grandparent in their lives longer.

Kenneth W. Wachter, the chairman of the department of demography at the University of California, Berkeley, has estimated that by 2030, more than 70 percent of 8-year-olds will likely have a living great-grandparent. It is a phenomenon that Kevin Kinsella, the head of the Aging Studies branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, has referred to as a great-grandparent boom.

"We know we're living a lot longer than we used to," Kinsella said. "It seems logical if people are living well into their 90s now, and there are centenarians, a lot of people are going to be great-grandparents."

Yet no one seems to be keeping track of the number of great-grandparents. Not the Census Bureau, the National Institute on Aging nor the AARP. Kinsella said the Census Bureau does not even know how many grandparents there are, let alone great-grandparents.

Dr. Merril Silverstein, a professor of gerontology and sociology at the University of Southern California, said only rough estimates exist. "Maybe it's a story that we don't know," he said.

Without official studies, scholars have had to extrapolate figures by examining trends in longevity, fertility and divorce and remarriage. But the main indicator that there are more great-grandparents is growth in the number of the very aged. With life expectancy nearing 78, so many people are older than 65 that in the last few years the Census Bureau created a "100-plus" age category, Kinsella said. In 2000, there were more than 50,000 centenarians, a 35 percent increase from 1990, and the bureau estimates the total will surpass 580,000 by 2040.

The family beanpole

Whatever the number of great-grandparents, demographers agree that American family trees today often resemble a beanpole: thin (with fewer children in each generation) and long (with more living generations).

"I feel very young," said Columbia Barbara Allen, 82, a great-grandmother who lifts weights two to three times a week at a gym, attends watercolor classes and cooks lunch nearly every day for a daughter and a granddaughter who live nearby. She and her husband, Alfred, also 82, of Utica, N.Y., go on picnics and attend movies and car shows with their two great-grandchildren, Ava, 3, and Christian, 9. "We take quite a few trips together," Columbia Barbara Allen said. "It's a wonderful companionship."

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the proliferation of great-grandparents is "a trend that will probably continue" despite some countervailing factors, like delayed marriage and women having children later in life.