Through the living room window you can look out onto colorful flower beds and finely laid out paths.
So far it was only this garden that separated Ursula Schack-Elbertse, 79, and her granddaughter Ivana Smit, 24, from each other.
Grandma, daughter and granddaughters all live in Frankfurt-Fechenheim, in three houses, but still together.
Now the youngest is starting her own life: this year she started a new job at a bank and bought a house in the country with her boyfriend, which she plans to move into soon.
Reason for a conversation between grandma and granddaughter - about lessons from life, difficult future decisions and about moving out.
Ms. Schack-Elbertse, how did you look at your life when you were as old as your granddaughter?
Schack-Elbertse
: Totally different from how it came then
(laughs)
.
Why?
Schack-Elbertse
: I had my first child
when
I was 23, it used to be like that.
Well, and then I thought: When I have children, I am primarily a mother and a housewife.
You actually plan to stay with the man you marry until the end of your life.
When I was 38, my husband and I divorced.
A new life began.
I first had to take care of the two children and I also had to concentrate more on my job.
I had to live on something.
They had already learned a trade. As a woman it was something special back then.
Schack-Elbertse
: Yes, that wasn't as natural as it is today.
My father was a graduate engineer, civil engineering, he helped build the autobahn in the Spessart.
I was there when I was a little kid, I always loved the tunnels and bridges.
Our whole family is crazy about building.
After school I did an apprenticeship in social housing.
At that time, my degree was called “Property and Housing Management Merchant”, today it is really called “Merchant”
(laughs)
.
I always said to my daughters: The most important thing is to have a decent job, then you can do what you want.
Smit
: Today the man would no longer be able to feed the whole family on his own, as in the past.
Schack-Elbertse
: Maybe the man didn't really want the woman to have a job, then she would have been his equal.
That was this patriarchal thinking: women are subordinate.
But I've worked all my life, I'm still working today.
I rent and manage houses in Fechenheim, and I have a lot to do with craftsmen.
Ms. Smit, you are in a phase of life today in which you have to make big life decisions - at work and in your family. Which do you find the hardest?
Smit
: That was probably the question of what I want to study.
After graduating from high school, I started with “General Management”, a kind of business administration with additional modules in “Leadership” and “Soft Skills”.
I actually knew that this was not my dream.
Schack-Elbertse
: But you did a good job.
Smit
: At that time you also said: I'll never see you there.
Schack-Elbertse
: You remember that.
Smit
: Of course. I always wanted to be a veterinarian. But my NC wasn't enough, I should have studied abroad. I even went to a university in Budapest and really thought to myself: do I want to study there? I decided against it. I have my own horse here, I didn't want to leave it alone. I am now in the process of doing a distance learning as an animal healer out of interest at the weekend in addition to work. Later on, I want to add a degree in animal osteopathy, who knows, maybe one day I'll switch to the field. I am a person who plans a lot, and if I have something I plan to do, I will go through with it.
Schack-Elbertse
: Yes, you've always been like that - very structured, organized, determined.
I think it's great how you manage and pull through all of this.
When you hear how haphazard other young people are.
.
.
Smit
: That's just how I am, but I don't want to be a benchmark at all.
You don't have to know how to spend the rest of your life at 24.
People say: it always turns out differently than planned anyway. Can you confirm that from your life, Ms. Schack-Elbertse?