Full text: Staudinger, Ursula M.: Manual for the assessment of wisdom-related knowledge

82 
Practice Protocol 3: High Rating on each of the Five Wisdom-Related Criteria 
1. Is he the only child? 2. Is the son able to remarry and to have a second relationship? Or is he 
himself, through appropriate means - hired help or with a new partner - able to care for the 
children. This is important. But the most important is, does the son want to? Since he has such 
an ambitious and diligent mother, does the son want to be together with her and does the son 
want the children to be brought up by the mother? 
Does the mother still have energy, at age 60, still want to care for the children? One does 
not know whether Joyce is going to keep her health. If she herself would fall ill for a longer 
period of time, someone else would have to be found to look after the children. Is there the 
possibilty for her to not only support the children financially, but also to take them into her 
home? Won't there immediately be confusion, when Joyce wants to take the children into her 
home? Because she has build up her own life, in which a family with small children does not fit 
in. She also could have a new partner in life, who then should be asked, too. It is unpredictable 
what their daily life would look like. It might be unbearable or could also run smoothly. And 
one's own business is always something distracting when taking care of small children. I would 
actually like to know how young the children are? Well, I can imagine that very intelligent and 
business-minded women are definitley capable of raising small children until about ten years old, 
in addition to running a business. Is it an open business or is it an independent office floor 
which she has? She also cannot tell how her business will fair financially. A business is always 
combined with a risk. So, if she has a degree in business, then she probably is involved in 
office work in which there is enough time, perhaps, to look after the children. But is the 60- 
year-old, independent woman still compatible with the son, perhaps the two have grown too far 
apart from one another? 
This cannot be predicted with certainty. That is why she should try it out first for one to 
two weeks, and then decide whether living together and caring for the children is a possiblity for 
her. The daughter-in-law probably is not dead, but there has been a divorce or a permanent 
separation. But it could be that the son would like to start another relationship. At his age, there 
is a large likelihood that he will not stay alone forever. And if he also has the children, then he 
probably is less at fault for the separation and has a positive attitude towards family and child 
rearing, because otherwise the son wouldn’t have gotten the children? And if there remains 
enough time, which depends also on his professional situation, the help probably is not needed 
to such an extent, that the independent Mrs. Joyce has to do the whole child rearing, she could 
share it with her son. Or they could look for and find hired help. 
But whether she has these interests at all, or whether taking care of the family was always 
important for her, is a deciding factor in whether she is willing to take over looking after the 
children. Women from this generation used to be family oriented, today this has changed. 
Today, a large number of young women work. Even if I think that Joyce should fulfill her duty 
as a grandmother, I think that she also has the right to finally follow her own goals and interests.
	        
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