United States make regular trips back to home
countries to visit relatives and friends. Conversely,
more financially comfortable older parents living in
home countries may come and stay with their chil-
dren in the United States for extended periods of
time. Not unusually, older parents, more often
mothers, will care for grandchildren on a regular
basis, either living in the same home or not far
away, so that the mother can work or attend
university.
A small minority of elderly Muslims live in sen-
ior facilities and nursing homes, especially those
without families, or those who need constant care
and whose children are working. Muslims place
high value on caring for parents within the home
and, when circumstances force them to seek care
facilities for their parents, they feel emotionally dis-
tressed. Slowly Muslim communities are beginning
to establish clubs, centers, and day care or activity
centers for seniors. Because Muslim men tend to
marry younger women, and also because of women’s
greater longevity, women are widowed more com-
monly than men. Further, widowed or divorced
men more often tend to remarry, or to live with one
of their children or another relative, or at least264 household forms and composition
receive care from a daughter who may come regu-
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