Family Relationships in the Soviet Union


I. The Soviet propaganda told us, "Before the revolution women were dependent on men; after the Soviet revolution women became free and they had the same rights as men".

In the Soviet Union, both parents had to work because they each had low income. Usually, in the morning, the mother took the children to kindergarten or school. After work, she took the children home from kindergarten or school. (Practically nobody had a private car.) Then she went shopping (it was difficult and very time consuming in the Soviet Union) and made dinner.

The wife would say to the husband, "I worked the same as you, but then you watched TV and I had to work after my work".


II. In the Soviet Union, parents and grandparents often lived together. (In Leningrad a family usually had one or two children.) If the grandmothers (grandfathers) were pensioners, they were also the homemakers and baby-sitters in their families. They were free during work time; that was good for shopping. They had to stay in long lines. (After work, when the parents came home it was hard to buy anything in the shops.)

Those families had fewer problems than families without grandparents. But grandparents argued with their children about the upbringing of their grandchildren.

III. When grandparents died very quickly that was good. Otherwise when they could not help their families and children it was hard for the children to take care of them. Then the children sent them to a nursing home, where they usually died very soon. The Soviet Union nursing homes were much worse then in America, and the Soviet Union did not have special apartment buildings for the elderly.

I have to tell you that there were special nursing homes for theater and movie artists, old bolshiviks (who comprised a large part of the Communisr Party membership), KGB, etc. They had good treatment and special provisions.

They had to stay in long lines. (After work, when the parents came home it was hard to buy anything in the shops.)

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