So you thought it would be clear sailing from here on out? The kids may be adults now, but the parenting isn't over. It has, however, changed. That's why I'll be writing, worrying and blogging about the new set of operating instructions.
This is an addenda to my post a few months ago, "Backing off when we don't like their choice of romantic partner." We don't always understand why our grown children choose the love interest they bring home for us to meet. Somehow, the new love doesn't measure up to our vision of who would be a good match for them.
It isn't easy to come to terms with a person--a possible son- or daughter-in-law--who seems, well, less educated or less sophisticated or just not as classy or too old or too young as you had hoped. Sometimes, we don't even wait to meet them--we don't like them based on description alone.
That was the case in the Social Q's (Philip Galanes, New York Times) answer to a woman worried about her 23-year-old graduate-student son's relationship with a 28 year old woman he met at school. Not only has the mom not met the woman her son is bringing home for a weekend visit, she has received a request from him that she dish out vegan foods (quinioa, seitan and tempeh) for himself and his guest--he no longer eats meat, fish or fowl and neither does his guest. After Galanes tells the mom how to deal with the challenge of the cooking request ("Reply to your son, "When you get home, we'll go shopping for groceries together."), he addresses her real concern: that her son "is living the louche life with an old cougar when he should be holed up in the library."
"Let me be clear Mama Bear," he advises. "You have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, in going to war with them.... Time will tell whether this gal is a distraction or enhancement to your son's academic career.... In the meantime, try to be happy for him and his falling cholesterol levels."
And there's the hitch for all of us--trying to be happy when we think we see an unwise relationship in the bud. But we can't nip it. It's their life now. The control button is no longer at our fingertips. Unless we see signs of abuse, all we can do is swallow hard, smile and hope nature takes the best course.
We've brought up our children to be independent. And many of them have grown up to be just that. Certainly, my friends Pam and Don have two such children. One of them--a daughter--lives in apartment near them. She's married with two small children. Pam and Don play an active part in their daughter's family life--picking the kids up from pre-school two days a week; babysitting on Friday evenings so the young parents can enjoy a date night. That's the kind of support they've been giving since the grandkids were born.
For the past year, though, support has turned financial as well. Their son-in-law lost his job last year; then their daughter did. Neither held high-paying positions but they were able to make ends meet on the two salaries. Though they are out of work, rent has to paid, food has to be purchased, the pre-schoolers need to be clothed and fed. Pam and Don have stepped up. Don had been a successful businessman and though he is now retired, there is a hefty nest egg in place. They can afford to use some of it to help their daughter and her family. Better now, they reason, then later when their daughter might have no need of a financial legacy.
They sat down with their daughter and son-in-law, figured out what they needed financially to get by on a no-frills budget, and Pam and Don started supporting them. "These are decent kids. They haven't done anything wrong," Don says.
"They've worked hard, applied themselves. But they got hit by this
downturn."
Both young parents have been job hunting for
more than a year now and looking into entrepreneurial opportunities. But as the weeks and months tick by, Pam and Don
are wondering when the joblessness will end, how much longer they can afford to do
this and what they will do if it gets to the point where the drain on
their resources will mean a change in their life style and a real threat to their financial well-being.
These are close friends, and we've gnawed over "the situation" with them and wondered what we would do in their place. They are, of course, fortunate that they can afford to help out right now and probably for another year. But should they suggest their daughter and family move into their home--the daughter's old room is still available as is the guest room/home office. Should they insist that their son-in-law, who spends his day on various aspects of job hunting, take a Starbucks-McDonald's type job just to bring in some cash. Or that their daughter do the same. Pam can't imagine what some of these choices would do to their relationship--the too-closeness of living together; the feeling that they were asking their daughter and SIL to throw in the towel on their future careers. "People talk about tough love," Pam says. "That may be something that applies when your kids are coming out of college, but when they've got a family and they're trying as hard as they can--well, it's different."
"The groping accident of life" Thomas Wolfe called it. There's so much risk out there--unexpected incidents that happen despite our best intentions and careful precautions. When our grown children are groping along the detritus of an accident, shouldn't we be there for them? Financial counselors will advise you, Don't pauperize yourself helping out your grown children. But sometimes they aren't the only ones in the accident.
The first morning of our weekend visit to Uber Son and family, we got up early: Soccer, soccer, soccer was the all-day plan. Paterfamilias was off to the four-game tournament the oldest Grand was playing in. PF was over-the-top excited about watching his grandson on the soccer pitch. All day: Couldn't be a better plan. This is why he wanted to come for a visit.
I tagged along with my daughter-in-law to watch the youngest grand--she just turned five--at her game. Magnet ball is more like it as all those wee people scrum around the ball, their tiny legs jutting out to try to kick the ball. This was a 9 a.m. game; five-year-olds aren't asked to remain on the pitch for very long. We were back at the house within an hour. But all of a sudden I felt light-headed and nauseated. Heat sick? But it was only 10:00.
So I crept to my room--the guest room--plopped down on the bed and waiting for it to pass. When I came back downstairs, preparations were being made to get everyone into the van and join 'the guys' in time to see the third and fourth game of the soccer tournament--in 95 degree weather. Yes, it was a hot summery weekend. I apologized for disappearing --especially since a lunch had to be packed, small soccer players needed help removing shin guards, umbrellas and chairs needed to be stowed in the car and other preparations made. Of course, my DIL was on top of things and getting it all done. But one feels an explanation is needed for not being there to help. I told her I had needed a lie-down. She looked concerned but we agreed that, as she put it, I was feeling 'off.'
What do you do when you're feeling 'off' when you're visiting your grown children? You don't want to disrupt the carefully planned day or miss seeing what you came to see--or cause your children to worry about you or spread your germs should the "off" be something more unpleasant. You're there to help not be helped. So, I soldiered on 'cheerfully' through the soccer games and kept the feeling lousy feeling to myself.
But then we're back at the house and I am not doing my usual helping out--I am letting my DIL and Uber son cook dinner without so much as a helping hand from me. It feels downright strange to sit there and not bustle around--if not helping in the kitchen or folding laundry then reading to a Grand or doing something else with one or all of the Grands.
Behind it all was this question: How to be polite and loving but cut the visit short and go home? The fear of being a burden is just below the surface--even though I was hardly feeling really ill. I just longed for my own home and own bed--to pull the covers up and sleep off whatever bug was bugging me.
What is it that compels some of us to mount a drive to get away--away from letting our grown children or Grands see us as ill or infirm or even just mildly 'off?' PF and I have been fortunate--to be physically well and able to go bicycle riding with our grown children and our grands, to kick the soccer ball with them and go on hikes--to say nothing of being part of a family touch-football game. Feeling Off reminds me of how lucky I am but how lousy I feel at this moment about being there. Have I put too much in store in my persona as a can-do parent and grandparent. Am i too busy hiding vulnerabilities to enjoy the togetherness just because I feel off?
When we finally got home--we did leave early; thunderstorms were predicted for later in the day and the thought of canceled flights tipped me over to an earlier flight--my DIL texted me to see if I was feeling better. I wasn't. But I couldn't bring myself to tell her so. Off is off, but even from a distance, one can't press the burden button--or rather, the fear of being a burden. Why is that?
The assumption has always been that a college education is the ticket to a good job--a career that will lead to financial independence and middle or upper middle class solidity. Then came 2008 and the great Recession. Kids who graduated from college since then have struggled to gain a foothold in career jobs. Friends whose kids have been entering or trying to enter the workforce since 2008 --well, those kids bear the marks of trauma. They are saving their money more carefully. They are not as free spirited, not as blithe about taking a post-grad year or two off to be a ski bum or bar tend their way across the country as a lark. A serious job outlook calls for a serious mien.
Today, only 45 percent of young Americans in that age group have a job,
almost 6 percentage points less than when the recession started in
December 2007. This trauma has raised the question about whether college--which can cost upwards of $200,000--is worth it. Is it worth it for our kids to take out loans to finance an education or for us to invest our savings--or income--in paying for four years of college? Some studies during the Great Recession and the slow-as-molasses recovery suggested it was a close call. But now there's this.
Writing on the New York TImes' online Economix, Catherine Rampell notes that "despite all the questions about whether college is worth it or not,
college graduates have gotten through the recession and lackluster
recovery with remarkable resilience."
The unemployment rate for college graduates in April was 3.9
percent, compared to 7.5 percent for everyone else. Moreover, among all
segments of workers and their educational attainment, college graduates
are the only group that has more people employed today than when the
recession started.
Here’s the graph the TImes ran to show how employment has changed.
And here's another chart that shows that the number of college-educated workers with jobs has risen by 9.1
percent since the beginning of the recession. Meanwhile, those with a high school
diploma and no further education are the near mirror image, with
employment down 9 percent on net.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics. Data refer to workers age 25 and older.
"In other words," Rampell writes, "college-educated workers have gobbled up all of the
net job gains. In fact there are now more employed college graduates
than there are employed high school graduates and high school dropouts put together." Even young college graduates are finding
jobs.
So congratulations to all you college grads out there--my nephew among them. (Yay Ray!)
For them and their parents, it's a brighter picture out there than it was a year or two ago. It was worth the time and effort--and money it took to get that degree. So props to you and an old fashioned pat on the back, too. Now, can you pick up the tab for dinner?
The subject is a tricky one: Generosity guilt. If we share the wealth with our grown children in the here and now, do we risk doing them more harm than good? Do we do more harm than good by indulging them--and ourselves--in making life easier for them?
It's a question we were hashing out with friends where we were house-guests at their home on a lake in a development where the neighbors tend expansive lawns and mind lush rose gardens. Both our friends are recently divorced from their previous spouses. Paying the bills for the lakeside house--its dock, two boats, swimming pool, six bedrooms and huge windows overlooking the lake--is not a problem for either of them. Moreover, they have the money to travel--for pleasure and to visit their grown children who live in various cities throughout the country.
His three children are recent college grads feeling their way career-wise. He is mum on how he does or doesn't help them. Not so her. She bubbles over with fears that she is overindulging her two daughters who are in their late 20s and early 30s and not living anywhere near the level their parents eventually achieved.
"I feel guilty," she says of her willingness to give her daughters (both of whom have small children and husbands) money, treats and other indulgences whenever they ask or she feels they need them. "I'm a terrible patsy," she says, while her current partner nods in emphatic agreement. "I'm an endless stream of money for them." At the same time, she confesses to worrying about their psychological health. "I feel guilty that I enable them to be dependent on me. I don't make them stand on their own two feet. It wouldn't hurt them to be self reliant, but it gets complicated."
One of her daughters has what the mom calls "a black cloud that follows her"--a child needed surgery and there were medical bills over and above insurance; a mistake was made when starting a business and it required cash to rectify. "She's under a lot of stress," says my friend. "I worry about her mental state. If I can relieve her stress by helping her financially, I want to do it." That said, she would like her daughters to distinguish between I need and I want. And to feel less "entitled." When shopping with one of her daughters, the two of them saw necklaces the daughter liked. "She wanted two of them," the mother says, adding that she put her foot down, sort of. "I told her no, just one."
Her desire to indulge her children is mixed with few rules over how far the giving should go. The indulgence argument is simple: She has more than enough money to take care of herself. "I get to do everything I want. I have not said 'no' to myself on anything," she says. "Why make my children miserable for lack of money when they're going to get it anyway?"
Being guilty about being generous is awkward--a conflict in competing values, a feeling of ambivalence about which value should take precedence. This lack of clarity is a point Gretchen Rubin makes in a post on PsychCentral when she writes about wanting to do one thing but wanting something else that conflicts with it. Two of her examples: I want to eat healthfully; it’s wrong to waste any food. I want leisure time when I come home from work; I want to live in a house that’s clean and well-run. "These days," Rubin writes, "when I’m trying to get myself to pursue some course of
action, I work hard to make sure I know exactly what I expect from
myself, and why, and what value I’m choosing to serve."
Generosity guilt is certainly a push and pull between two values--and which one wins out depends on a whole lot of other values: does a grown child need support because he or she is doing work that helps others but doesn't pay very well? If we value such work, we might chose to enable our child to continue doing it and not suffer the consequence of living within low-income means. A similar reasoning applies to paying college bills or support during graduate school. And if a grandchild needs medical care not covered by insurance, doesn't it make sense to cover those bills that would otherwise stress the parent, our child? On the other hand, two necklaces versus one or even none is a different value.
There's another way to look at the guilt side of generosity guilt: As a manifestation of helicopter parenting.
The question Eli Finkel and Grainne Fitzsimons
pose in a New York Times story,
"When Helping Hurts" is on point for those of us who help our grown children financially.
"How can we help our children achieve their goals without undermining
their sense of personal accountability and motivation to achieve them?"
Their answer, based on research they have reviewed, is a pretty
solid guide to those of us like my friend who worry about the complications of generosity guilt:
"...Our help has to be responsive to
the recipient’s circumstances: it must balance their need for support
with their need for competence. We should restrain our urge to help
unless the recipient truly needs it, and even then, we should calibrate
it to complement rather than substitute for the recipient’s efforts."
A friend and i have this conversation almost every time we meet for coffee. We are both still working--me part time, she full time. We have other projects we'd like to attack but work pressures get in the way. We both admit that part of why we continue to toil away is the money. Not that we need the cash to survive or even live well: we've both got adequate retirement nest eggs and pensions. Rather, we like the extra money so we can spend it on our grown kids.
It is a luxury to be able to do things to help them out--she likes paying the daycare tab for her grandtwins to make sure they are going to the best possible facility. I like sensing a need and providing for it--be it summer camp for a grandchild or a cleaning lady. [My story on Great Gifts for Grown Kids is on nextave.org.] Our paycheck feels like a windfall that we're free to share--no questions asked by our spouses or household partners.
At least this is what we tell each other--and possibly ourselves. It is, of course, more complicated than that and we're hardly alone in staying on the job past the "normal" retirement year. In 2005, 20 percent of all middle-aged parents were the primary source
of financial support for a grown child. Now, 27 percent of parents fit
that description, according to a recent Pew Research report:
As I've noted in previous posts, the recession/sluggish recovery is part of the reason we are helping out our kids--it has taken a huge toll out of the earnings of young adults. In 2010, according to the U.S. Census, the share of young adults who were employed was
the lowest it had been since the government started collecting these
data in 1948. Moreover, from 2007 to 2011 those young adults who were
employed full time experienced a greater drop in average weekly earnings
than any other age group.
So we soldier on. But supporting our kids--whether as an indulgence or to carry them through hard time--is only part of the reason we're still on the job. A lot of us are in better health than our counterparts a couple of decades earlier--and we may live longer. In which case, we like the idea of piling up the resources--or letting the piled-up resources lie there untouched while we use the still-on-the-job earnings for spending sprees. We don't want to outlive our nest eggs and be a burden to those whose loads we've just helped lighten. Or is that part of the indulgence factor?
There's a lot of griping about us out there. Grown children writing in to the Carolyn Hax's, Ask Amy's and Social Q's of this world, whining about the way we behave or the unkind or ungracious things we say. Sometimes, we may mean one thing, but it gets taken another way. The world is full of mis-cues.
I was struck by this one, described by a grown son complaining about the way his mother talks to his wife. The issue: The Mother keeps making critical remarks about the son's wife, who is a pediatrician and the mother of small children. The Mother is critical about such things as the Halloween costumes (They're store bought!), help being hired to clean the house ("It is a real shame that people can't take the time to clean their own home anymore.") and dinners not made from scratch ("It isn't a homemade dinner if the chicken came precooked from a store.")
Who would like to have those kinds of comments rain down on your head when you're working full time and raising children? Or even if you're not working outside the home. Carolyn Hax suggests the son have a conversation with his Mother that lets her know that when she makes these comments she denigrates his life choices and that when she compares his family life to the one she created as a young mother, she's "entering cats in a dog show." Hax also points out that the Mom might be defensive about the way she lived her life--that she may feel like an anachronism--and may need reassurance.
All true and all helpful. I see an additional point. Many of us may take to the snark attack when we feel left out--unconsulted, tuned out, useless. There are better ways to work out those feelings. I'm not sure what they are--but giving in to attacks isn't helpful. Nonetheless, the Mother has some of my sympathy. We're there but we're not; we understand the pressure of their family-raising lives but good luck getting that understanding across. We're not as out-of-it as they may think. But when we impose our own Good Housekeeping Rules--well, see notes to self [in the column to the left]: Our ideas about how to do things "the right way"are better left unspoken. Who really cares who made the Halloween costume, anyway? My kids had to pull together their own looks. As for the store-rotisseried chicken--we'd starve at my house if those were eliminated. My mother, however, would be aghast. And she would probably let me know it. Cue up another mis-cue.
I had lunch with a friend who was worried sick about her
college-senior son. Her complaint: He is directionless and unable to take action to
get a job. Not only hasn't he signed up with his college's job-search office or applied to opportunities his mother has suggested or unearthed. He hasn't even written a resume--no less let his parents review it for him.
His post-grad plans, such as they are, include living in an apartment with his current roommate--a chemical engineering major--who landed a high-paying job with a corporation. How will he pay the rent? his mother asked. "He told me his roommate might help him out for a few months," the mom says, clucking her tongue and getting angry all over again.
It's scary. College days--and the comparative irresponsibility of those years--are coming to an end. Reality needs to be faced. When she was his age, this mom says, "I knew no help would be coming from my parents. I was on my own. You can bet I had a job by the time I graduated."
These years when our
children are "emerging adults" are tricky ones. A lot of "tough love" v. "helping hand" decisions are suddenly upon us. Job hunting is no one's idea of a good time. My friends older son, who graduated from a top liberal arts college, is still struggling to find a "career" job. He's taking himself off to graduate school next year--he sees that as the only way to get ahead in his field. His younger brother can't help but know how tough it's going to be out there. A good athlete and student, he seems almost unnerved by having to try his wings in an arena where he doesn't know if he'll be "good" or not.
Mother and son are barely speaking at this point. The dad's job has
taken him out of the country for long stretches so she feels she is on
her own in guiding this talented but un-ambitious son.
I try to
reassure her that he will grow out of his lackadaisical style, that he will figure things out. [I've written this post on the outgrowing phenomenon.] That's what a growing body of
literature suggests will happen. For my friend in the eye of the storm, it's hard to keep any perspective about eventual growth and growing up. Not when so many of her son's friends have done so already.
I was obsessed with the Boston Marathon-Watertown attacks. Followed the hour-to-hour headlines the first few days. When the action moved to Watertown on Thursday night and lock-down Friday, that changed. I became a live-action addict as police cars were spotted moving toward some sort of end game. Me and millions of others.
I had an additional reason for my addiction: A grown child--Alpha daughter and her family--lives on a street that's on the Watertown border. Her emails were, as Uber son put it on his Facebook posting, "like a postcard from the edge of civilization."
The first one on Friday morning: "A minute ago, Tao started barking her alarm bark,
and we looked out the window ... to see a lone man crossing Mt. Auburn St.
(Belmont Ave.) wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. ... Kind of weird. Weird
that anyone would wear that right now. We decided he was bigger than the fugitive.
However Tao is on alert by the window. Our neighbor, who just graduated from Rindge, was
on the wrestling team with the guy (the younger brother) and said he was really
nice, everybody liked him. Madness..."
Her brother called her to say that if she could find a way to do it, she
should bundle the family in the car and drive to his house--2.5 hours
to the west. She couldn't, of course. A few hours later on Facebook she posted this:
"Police helicopter hovering over the house &
police lining the street at the end of the block, swat team in church -- we
live on the Watertown line. Not sure when dog walking will be possible."
I was filled with nervous energy all day. There she was in a house that, it turned out, was nine streets away from the boat where Dzhokhar was shocked and awed out of his hiding. The town diner where swat teams assembled and police hung out--an easy walk from her house, one we take all the time when we visit.
We were all flooded with relief when the end finally came. For the country, for Boston, for Watertown--and on a more personal level, for my own little family. When our children are in the slightest bit of danger, our tiger-bear fur ruffles up. But the cubs are grown up, living their lives, managing this difficult experience without our help. It's their experience, not ours. They were under seige, not us.
And yet I still feel the need to vent, to bore friends with the "close call," such as it was. To show them the maps and point out where Alpha daughter lives, where the shootout was, where the boat was housed in a backyard--so close to her house and yet far enough away. I don't want to inflict my worries on my daughter--even in hindsight. But that doesn't make them go away. So I'm unloading on friends and on my blog. Does no harm. My silver lining: how bro and sis reached out to each other in a time of stress--and not with a heavy hand.
There's at least one person I know who shares my unease. A co-worker says his daughter, a graduate student in Boston, was
walking from Brookline toward the Marathon finish line when the bombs went off. "She was too far off to see anything, but it was a close call nonetheless," he tells me. I understand. So far and yet so near.
We've all read or heard stories--or experienced the real thing--about college grads (or even older kids) moving back home. Thank you Great Recession and the Oh-So-Slow Recovery.
But that's only part of the re-nesting story. As I've written in a previous post, having our adult children live on their own after college is a socio-economic and cultural phenomenon. In many other countries (first world and otherwise), it's accepted as the norm that the kids will live at home until they marry. And for good reason: When they have a job, they can save money for their future connubial adventure or to invest in an entrepreneurial dream.
All of this is the long way around reporting about a formula I came across recently: How much a stay with mom and dad is worth. The logarithm factors in the usual stuff--rent and food, as well as the other perks of living at home, such as having an Internet connection and cellphone paid by the parents and having laundry done by the host (usually, the hostess.)The findings? I'll let The Calculator tell it:
"I wish I’d lived in my parents’ basement the last four years. I’d be $85,000 richer. That would put me in down payment [on a condo] territory already.... Instead, I wasted all my money on rent, food, and TV."
Our hero kept a detailed spreadsheet of everything he spent in his four post-college-grad years living at home and used that journal to create, as he puts it, "a breakdown of the money I washed away."
Want to know what you're host-home is worth to your grown kid? You can go to the “living with your parents”
calculator and plug in rent and other expenses (or use The Calculator's estimates of his spending habits) and see how much your grown child would save in four years of living in his or her old room at your house. Hint: The Calculator assumes you'll pay for car insurance and put him or her on your health insurance and that the money saved from living at home would be invested to earn a return.
Bottom line: Re-nesting is worth a sizable nest egg for them. For us, it's a less monetary formula: A chance to experience quality and quantity time with them. Fortune and fortunate tied up in one small bedroom.
In the annals of family gift-giving, I scored a home run recently: I
gave my daughter—a grown child who already has 1 husband, 1 child, 1 dog, 1
highly competitive job and 1 small house -- the gift of once-a-fortnight housecleaning
service.
Not that I barged in with the present virtually wrapped in
cheery gift paper. I was, in fact, wary
of presenting her with a gift that she might take as criticism of her and her
spouse’s housekeeping skills. So I asked before I gave and I framed it this
way: Given all the demands on her time, I didn’t see why she should use
precious energy vacuuming, dusting and scouring her house when help was
available—help that I could make happen.
Reader, she did not take umbrage—she was thrilled. She had
been thinking about it herself and trying to figure out a way to stretch her
tight budget to cover the cost.
Score
one for parents looking for gifts that can delight as well as help their grown
children—whether that child is struggling financially or could use the boost of
a little indulgence.
I stumbled into my unusual present, but others have
given gift-giving more thought and come up with presents that their grown children have really appreciated. The seven brilliant ideas of others are listed in my article on NextAvenue, the PBS Web site for baby boomers--everything the 50+ set is dealing with.
You can check them out there: "8 Gifts Your Grown Children Will Truly Appreciate." They range from paying off some of their debts--as in, a year's worth of monthly car payments--to providing meals when a new-born baby arrives to opening a Roth IRA retirement account for them.
One of my children--he shall go nameless--was a mess as an adolescent: a mess in the sense that his clothes (clean and dirty) littered the floor; his school papers (due and past due) lay in disarray on his desk [this was the pre-computer era] and his organizational skills were low to none.
None of that is true today. Was it something we the parents did? Not to hear Carl Pickhardt, the psychologist who specializes in adolescence, tell it. "It never ceases to amaze parents, who have long since given
up urging adolescent reform, to see that young person go through a
positive growth reversal, often in young adulthood, and suddenly give up
bad habits or correct wayward ways," he writes in a blog post, "Positive Adolescent Growth Reversals in Young Adulthood."
So the good news for us as our children come through the Emerging Adult stage is that much of the adolescence annoyances will fade and be replaced by their opposite: careless to careful, messy to neat, disorganized to orderly, scattered to focused, and--my favorite on Pickhardt's list--aimless to directed.
What accounts for this breath of fresh air--and feeling we've done a good enough parenting job that our child is set up to succeed at living an independent life? Pickhardt's take: onset of maturity, loss of the need to rebel,
life-course correction, and actualizing a parental imprint. (So we had a role, after all.)
It is not a one-way street--this reversal thing. When our kids reach their 30s, Pickhardt tells us, they describe growth reversals in their parents. They find we've mellowed
out, don’t worry so much and are not so easily upset. They report we're more
patient and less controlling, even laid back. We're fun to be around! We are not, in short, like we were when they were growing up. "It’s amazing," Pickhardt observes, "how the shedding of parental responsibility, with all its attendant
stress and worries, can relax older folks around adult children who now
have children of their own."
We worry about them. We get angry at them. Our grown children sometimes do things that disappoint, exorcise or frustrate us. And then, all of a sudden, they're there when we need them. They're the caring, mature, responsible people we always knew--hoped--they would be.
Two friends just went through difficult experiences. What struck me was how incredibly helpful, caring and mature their grown children were when it really, really counted.
Here's what happened to Lucy. She and her 30-something son were hiking in Yosemite Park in California--a four day hike with overnight stays at refuges. Lucy's in great shape, though she worried that she hadn't done a big hike like this for nearly 20 years, when she'd done it with her husband. Her husband died recently so she and her son were hiking to a meadow in Yosemite to sprinkle his ashes. A hike with a purpose. Day one, 9 miles to the tent campsite. Day two, even longer and hillier. Day three was a "rest day" since day four would be the longest and most challenging part of the hike--and the spot where the ashes would be scattered. Lucy and her son decided to pack their books and spend the "rest" day at a lake that was a 3-mile climb from the refuge hut. When they got there, Lucy stepped out on a rock to get a better view. The rock was surprisingly--shockingly--slippery. Black ice slippery. Lucy fell and couldn't get up. Everytime she tried she was overwhelmed by dizziness and nausea---and pain. When her son and another hiker were finally able to help her to a rock where she could sit, the pain subsided. But walking down was not possible--the pain was too intense whenever she moved. Her son went down to the refuge to get help. By the time he got back, a helicopter was hovering nearby. EMTs carried Lucy by stretcher. But her son couldn't come with her. Moreover, he had to complete the hike back to the rental car.
Lucy was helicoptered down, transferred to an ambulance and taken to a hospital. Not only was she worried about the pain in her leg and hip, she was worried about her son making the long hike by himself without a cell phone--they had left their phones in the car. A nurse at the hospital called her son's cell phone to let him know where his mother was. When mother and son were finally reunited, the doctors at the hospital had figured out what was wrong: The femur was broken. Lucy needed surgery to put it back together again--either in California or at home on the east coast.
That's where Lucy's other grown chidlren come in. Her son called his sister, who is a doctor, who talked to the doctor at the hospital about what they planned to do, why and where it should be done (in California or at home). He then called his other sister who lived in Hong Kong to let her know what was happening. The sister knows a lot about travel--she does a lot of it for her job. She knew exactly how she could help: She used her frequent flyer miles to have Lucy's travel status upgraded to first class for her post-surgery flight home. As to Lucy's son, he stayed with her, taking his meals at the hospital with her and watching TV with her --the summer Olympics were on--for the four days until she could leave. When he finally got her home, Lucy says, "I'm sure he was glad to be rid of me." True or not, he had been there when it counted, and so were her other children--doing whatever they could do to make things go smoother and better for their mother.
LInda's experience was more mundane. Her husband, Dave, was about to undergo open heart surgery. With no warning--he had simply changed doctors and the new doctor insisted on a cardiogram for all new patients--he went from a man who seemed to be slowing down naturally to one who had a life-threatening situation hanging over him. Linda's son --her husband's stepson -- started researching and adding to the information Linda and Dave were gathering about doctors, types of surgery [robotic or hands-on], which hospitals were best. It was a comfort to have his suggestions and informed opinions at a time when it's difficult to think straight--and you absolutely need to. Dave's son [Linda's stepson] flew in for the surgery, to be with his father and keep Linda company. When Dave was finally home from the hospital, Linda was feeling depressed and shut in--Dave couldn't be left alone; progress was measured by the one or two minutes he could sit up in bed. Her son had a suggestion: send out an email to the rest of the family and friends who live nearby and ask for an hour of their time so she could get out each day. Worked like a charm. Linda would probably have thought of a similar approach for a friend, but when we're in the midst of a crisis, it helps to have someone else thinking about solutions to the day-to-day problems. And who better than her son.
My friend Cathy's middle son graduates from a local college in May but he has a lease on an apartment that runs through August 1--at a cost of $1,000 a month for his share of the rent. Cathy has made it clear that he should find a sublet for his room and move back home to save the family the $2,000 in rent. Her son has countered that he doesn't want to live at home. She told him that was too bad but "we can't afford the rent and neither can you." He repeated his argument: "I don't want to live at home."
It's at this point in her "he said/she said" story that she tells me, "He'll probably tap his dad for the money. [The dad] can't afford it either but his pride will kick in and he'll do it."
Cathy does not say this with admiration for her husband. All through their child-rearing years this has been the pattern: She takes a tough stand on financial matters and he's a soft touch. It drives Cathy crazy.
She might find comfort in a recent Ameriprise survey, Money Across Generations II that reflects her family's dynamics: It found that mothers are more likely to chat with their grown kids about money, but the dad is more likely to dole out the cash--for certain things. The "certain things?" Anything having to do with a car.
Here are the numbers: Of the 93 percent of baby boomers who say they’ve provided financial
support to their adult children, 58 percent of fathers (versus 48 percent of mothers) have helped by putting up cash for a car; 51 percent of dads (versus 43 percent of moms) have
paid for their grown kid’s car insurance; and 37 percent of fathers (versus 29 percent of mothers) helped with car payments.
There was one outlier: 42 percent of dads (versus 32 percent of moms) co-signed a loan or lease agreement.
Cold comfort, but there you have it: Dad's are likely to pony up the cash, especially if it has anything to do with a car or their adult child's ability to live on their own. The mom: She gets to talk about why she's saying No.
On our way home from a recent visit with Uber son--his is a family of five that lives some 350 miles away from us--Paterfamilias and I were in accord: The 2-day visit had been bittersweet.
The sweetness was in the welcome when we arrived; in observing how grand our three Grands are, each in their own way; in seeing the closeness and strength of our son's marriage; in marveling at the way he's built his career and in our daughter-in-law's ability to build a warm home around challenging demands.
We spent almost all of our "Blitzkrieg visit" (in one day; out the next) at indoor soccer games (a Saturday night tournament, no less) and hanging around the house. When the sun shone, we were outside with one or all of our Grands, the wee-est one riding her trike, the biggest heaving a football to his dad or Gramps and the three Grands building a snowman with the remains of an early-Spring snowfall. All of that comes under the general category heading of "Sweet."
So what was bitter? Maybe bitter is too harsh a word. But what had us feeling a good deal less than warm and fuzzy about the visit was the feeling of being excluded--of being on the outside looking in. It was likely not intentional, just the reality of not being part of the in-group of a very tightly knit family.
A few days after we got home, Uber son posted on his Facebook page a description of a game he and his family had just taken up: Sardines. It's a variation on the theme of hide and seek. They go down into the basement. One person turns off
the light and hides. Everyone else tries to find him/her and when they
do, they hide with him/her. The last person left still looking is "it" next
time. Uber son noted happily that "My three kids ALL love it and how many things can keep an 11 year old
and a four year old happy? All of them would choose it right now over a
movie pretty much hands down."
It struck me that Sardines was the perfect metaphor for what we experienced. They huddle together and we can't really find a way to be part of them.
We are not alone in feeling this way. I know that--from friends who've experienced similar visits to their grown children and from therapists who offer advice to those parents of grown children who are feeling their way through the unhappiness of exclusion. Dr. Kathleen McCoy, a psychotherapist who blogs on midlife and beyond, noted that some parents complain that they feel they are "on a socially accepted ice floe when it comes to their adult offspring." or that they are "bit players in the lives of their adult offspring."
McCoy suggests that we reframe the feelings of being on the side lines. "Instead of feeling
diminished and left out, one can get in tune with the rhythm of life. We can
reframe being a "bit player" to "having a front row seat"
or "cheering them on." Letting the pleasure of generativity
flow over you as you marvel at the accomplishments of your children and grandchildren
can be life-changing."
She admits there
may be times when you miss being central to your children's daily lives.
"My Aunt Molly used
to say that, as you age, 'you're welcome at the party, but the party isn't
for you.' " McCoy adds, "participating in
the party, minus the burden of being the central focus, can be even more
satisfying."
Intellectually I know she's right but it doesn't feel that way when we're in the moment. Her Aunt Molly's line is a zinger that reminds us of our deepest feeling: Most of us don't necessarily want to be the life of the party but we do want to be part of it. And when we feel somehow pushed away--however unintentional it may be--it's bittersweet. And a reminder that we did the same thing to our parents. So much for the pleasures (and guilt trip) of generativity.
There it is as one of my Notes to Self, running down the left hand column of this blog: "Be enthusiastic. It beats being critical."
Easier said than done, of course. But it raises the question of praise
versus criticism and the role the tension between the two play in our
relationship with our independent and grown children.
If we're always saying something is wonderful, that someone is terrific, that this is the best of all possible worlds, then how can we be taken seriously? But if we're critical scolds, who wants to hear from us no less be around us--no matter how right we may be? (See Note to Self: "It's better to be liked than right.")
So there should be a balance somewhere between the two. A recent post on the Harvard Business School blog has not only found the ratio but put some numbers on it: 5:1. That is, to bring out the best in a business work team, the most effective balance is five instances of praise or positive feedback to one negative comment. Here it is in chart form (a favorite means of HBS communication):
The blog's authors also addresses research on what the praise-criticism ratio
looks like in successful marriages versus unsuccessful
[separation and divorce] ones.The balance is about the same: roughly 5:1. So, if that ratio works in the work place and in marriage, why not in our relationships with our grown children.
Here's some of the thinking the praise-to-criticism blogger offers in the post:
--"Negative feedback is
important when we're heading over a cliff to warn us that we'd really better
stop doing something horrible or start doing something we're not doing right
away. But even the most well-intentioned criticism can rupture
relationships and undermine self-confidence and initiative. It can change
behavior, certainly, but it doesn't cause people to put forth their best efforts.
--"[In] John Gottman's analysis of wedded
couples' likelihood of getting divorced or remaining married ...once again,
the single biggest determinant is the ratio of positive to negative comments
the partners make to one another." For those who ended up
divorced, the ratio went upside down to something like three positive comments
for every four negative ones.
--The key in negative feedback is to "keep the opposing viewpoint rational,
objective, and calm — and above all not to engage in any personal attack (under
the disingenuous guise of being "constructive").
I read that last line and remember my mother always using a variation on the "I want to be constructive" theme before prefacing a critique, be it of my housekeeping or my children. I am so sensitive to it--just seeing the printed word makes the hair on my neck stand at mock attention--that I can only assume (hope) I don't visit that particular approach to negative commentary on those I care about--or work with. I'm just putting it out there as another Note to Self--beware the tides of constructive commentary when we go negative, as sometimes we must. That's what the ratio says!
"Why do we do it?" This is the question I pose my walking buddy. Why do we invite, look forward to, and lay elaborate plans to have our grown children--and their children--join us for a vacation? I'm asking her because she, like me, admits to having pre-trip anxiety.
Some of those anxieties revolve around the relationship between our children. Like me, her son and daughter do not live near each other. They see each other at various family events--and only occasionally plan a visit to each other's homes. Her daughter, she says, doesn't have much in commonwith her sister-in-law; ditto son and son-in-law. Though there's good will between the two young families, there isn't a strong bond pulling the families together. The reasons for that can become all-too-clear when everyone's on vacation in a big house on a small lake in an aging town in Vermont.
My friend talks about one regular sore point. Her daughter is not a morning person. That is, mornings don't mean a march out to the mountain for a vigorous hike. They mean an extra hour or so at the breakfast table, flipping through magazines, having a second cup of coffee, letting the kids amuse themselves. Her husband takes himself off to the golf course.
Her son and hjis wife are early risers who see the morning as the best time to get out into the fresh air and hike, row the boat around the lake, play tennis and ride bikes with their kids.
My friend says she can feel the tension between the two families--feelings not exactly of disdain but of, well, mutual non-admiration. She can feel her daughter feeling guilty but unrepentent about lingering over coffee and wondering why her brother and family are in such a hurry in the morning. It's vacation, isn't it?
She can also sense her daughter-in-law's disregard for her daughter's morning routine. There's so much to do, so much energy to expend--time is awasting. How could anyone sit around when the air is so fresh and the outdoor activity so inviting? Shouldn't her niece and nephew be paddling a canoe or playing tennis or doing something invigorating outside?
It's not a big thing. It's a little nagging worry that my friend has that her daughter might feel resentful; that her son may look down at his sister's "laziness;" that the two of them are never going to be buddies. By extension, does that also mean they won't lean on each other in times of emotional stress? The week together only emphasizes the differences, even as it builds family traditions and mutual experiences.
As she sits and watches it, my friend feels her inner aggravation rising--even though there's no one to be angry at or disillusioned with. It's just the reality of the family dynamic. Not bad. Just not all that she could wish it could be. I have a different set of specifics but a similar dynamic. I second the emotion.
What has the grandparenting life come to? We had to make an appointment to telephone Happy Birthday wishes to a 10-year-old grandchild. Okay, it wasn't like a business apppointment but we did have to txt and e-chat to find a moment when the phone would be answerable and the appropriate child available to hear good wishes sent her way.
There is a back story. Of course there is.Our grandchildren have aged out of toddler-hood and preschool--those were the days when we sent balloon bouquets to great huzzahs of excitement on their part. They are now primary and middle-schoolers. There are soccer practices, piano lessons, gymnastic classes, play dates, homework and who knows what else. In the case of Uber son, whose family lives in a city far from ours, those activities--and the coordination of said lessons, practices and playdates--are multiplied times three children and would take an excel sheet to map and execute if my daughter-in-law didn't manage it all in her head.
The busyness is understandable. Therefore, so is setting a time when there's a break in the child's day and she or he can come to the phone. It's when we finally get through--appointment kept!--that we find the conversation not very satisfying. It is the end of a long day. The Grand is tired. She has a date with her dad to read a book together before bedtime. She's very polite but we can sense how--well, what a drag this call might be. It was so much easier when air-blow ups of Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty were an option.
So why do we persist with the telephone call? I have been thinking a lot about this. First off, we love our grandchildren. We want to remind them that, though in our case we don't live nearby, we are another set of adults who care deeply about them, that they are very special to us and very special. In short, it's a reminder that we are there for them.
But there's another part: I think we do it to remind our grown children, whose lives are even busier than their children's are (and certainly than ours are, now that the child rearing is done and our careers are winding down), that we are part of the family--the part that shares the deep and constant love for the most precious aspect of their lives, their children.
That's as good a reason as any to make the appointment, if that's what it takes to send the message.
Almost every parent of a recent college grad (or of a kid now in college) I talk to is worried: It's been so hard for recent college grads--recent being the past five years--to find career jobs. The parents I am talking to have kids who've attended good colleges and
who graduated in the requisite four years with respectable or better
grades. There have been lots of internships--some paid, though at a very low rate--but those only last a year and few of them have led to future employment. Some of the college grads have taken waitering, receptionist or babysitting jobs to earn money, but the struggle to find a foothold in the type of job for which they were educated has been elusive--not non-existent but few and far between. A recent New York Times article's headline said it all: It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk.
So it's tough out there--for the young adults and their parents as well. (We also suffer who sit, watch and wait.) But the New York Times Economix blog has another take on the situation--with lots of graphs and charts to give worried parents some insights into the job potential for their college-educated kids and the ultimate value of that college degree.
Here are some of the high points.
According to a recent report
published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the job prospects of new
college graduates, the
graduates of the class of 2011 had an unemployment rate of 14 percent as of October 2011. But
that number refers to joblessness just a few months after graduation.
The unemployment rate drops sharply for all recent college graduates in their 20s. It is especially sharp when
compared with the jobless rate for all high school graduates in the same
age group.
Sources: October School Enrollment Supplement, Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics; Thomas Luke Spreen.
The next chart looks at comparable numbers for
the employment-population ratio, or the share of people within each
population who have a job (as opposed to being unemployed or not looking
for work at all).
Sources: October School Enrollment Supplement, Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics; Thomas Luke Spreen.
So, while many of our college-educated kids are getting jobs well below their education-skill level, they are at least finding work, unlike their less-educated peers.
"As the economy continues to improve," Catherine Rampell, the NYTimes economic reporter who penned the piece, writes, "those recent college graduates
will be better situated to find promotions to jobs that do use their
higher skills and pay better wages."
From her mouth to the Corporate-God-Who-Hires ear.
When my friend Cathy got angry at her renested post-college son--for sins like not emptying the dishwasher; not taking the job search seriously--she kicked down his bedroom door. Not that she meant to. She was just kicking his closed door to make a point
and Boom, her foot went right through it. It's a moment her son may
remember--not, at this point in time, in a good way, tho it likely will be a funny anecdote some time down the line.
We may have thought that all the anger-inducing struggles with our adolescent kids were a thing of the past--now that they are adults. But they can still press our emotional buttons and make us really, really angry. Especially when they move back home for a while and fail to behave like the independent adults we thought they'd become.
Not that there's anything wrong with getting angry at them. Anger has an important function. It's part of our "affective awareness system," that is, psychologist Carl Pickhardt points out, it lets us "identify when something significant is happening in our internal or extermal world of experience, something that feels like it deserves our attention."
So anger isn't the issue. It's the lashing out that's a problem--with especially long-term consequences now that our children are grown and no longer dependents under our control. As Pickhardt points out, "in the heat of the moment it
can obscure loving feelings causing unloving words or actions to occur."
Pickhardt recommends that we--as well as our grown kids--learn to, in effect, take a "time out" to cool down, and then talk
further "when we can choose our words thoughtfully, and
not emotionally.”
He lists characteristics of people who are anger prone to the point of popping off in an unhelpful way:
--They are highly judgmental and need to be right.
--They feel strongly entitled and expect to get their way.
--They take events personally that are not personally meant.
--They use fresh offenses to revive memories of old grievances.
--They attack what’s wrong with anger by blaming others when problems arise.
These apply to both our kids and to us. For us, at this stage of parenting, there's a lot more at stake than there was when our kids were younger. My friend Cathy certainly expected to get her own way when her son was living under her roof again. And, of course, she didn't mean that tap on his door to be a surprising invasion of his privacy. But that little kick probably had a lot of lash-out fueling its power.
These have been rough economic times and they aren't over yet. Young adults (recent college grads in particular) are having a much harder time than we did in latching onto a career job--harder even than their older brothers and sisters. There are economic stats and charts ad nausea that support the discouraging outlook.
All of which brings up the question: Should we help support our struggling young adults and if so, for how long?
The question is discussed in a recent column by Carl Pickhardt who writes about adolescence but often about the upper end of a still-turbulent age--the 18 to 23 year olds. Here are some his observations about extending their financial dependence on us:
--Some of us may "enjoy parenting and don’t want to
quit or don’t know when to quit or believe a period of older adolescent
struggle is no time to quit or that a good parent never quits or they
have an older son or daughter who doesn’t want them to quit."
--"Just
as parenthood doesn’t come with a set of directions for how to get
started, there is no fixed schedule for financial letting go. Thus many
parents continue their parenting by offering extended help, often of the
financial kind, until a firm hold on young adult independence is
finally gained."
--"What age should young people be expected to live
dependently at home before leaving and beginning their actual
independence? There is so much cultural variation. In the United States,
we seem to have a common parental expectation that after high school
graduation age, young people should be ready to move off more on their
own. ...The
point is: there is no universally fixed schedule for when the departure
from home and the undertaking of full financial independence should
begin."
--"In one sense, the young
person who claims the inability to “afford” to live independently on the
little money they can make may not exactly be speaking the truth which
is that they can’t live as comfortably as when living with parents. In
fact, electing comfort they may be missing out on learning some pretty
powerful survival skills such as doing without, scraping by on less,
prioritizing fundamental needs, buying cheap, sticking to a budget,
making ends meet, living within one’s modest means, and maybe working
more than one job to get from one week to the next to support a fragile
independence. So if your son or daughter is up to the hardship, don’t
automatically jump in and try to spare them the challenge."
--"You want parental help to foster self-help,
not discourage it. This is why the helping contract must be
conditional: 'Before we help you, we need to see efforts (actions, not
words) of self-help from you first; and once we start helping you, we
need to see evidence that you are gathering more power of
independence as you grow.'”
--"[P]arenting
is a lasting commitment -- to be there for your children whatever their
age, not only in constant love, but in times of need. Life is an
unpredictable journey, what Thomas Wolf called “the groping accident of
life,” where happenstance for good and ill plays a huge role in the
challenges that arise and must be met. It is a source of security to
know that membership in family is life-long."
To end this post on a more mundane note, here's a chart reflecting a study by Pew Research Center on the change since 2005 of the percent of us who are helping to support our young adults.
Gotta face the truth: We will never understand--or accept--all the subtleties of social media. There is a generation gap. Not that we don't have Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. StumbleUpon, anyone?
The gap comes in the way we use those sites and the way our adult children--and their children--do. I'm not talking about the teen-like behavior of letting it all hang out there on the ether--the stupid pranks played on friends, the rowdy behavior at beer parties, the unfortunate experiments with illegal substances, all the stuff we know shouldn't be up there for future employers (or even us) to read. Stuff we may even warn our emerging adults or grandchildren about.
What I'm talking about are subtle offenses as we stay in touch via the Internet. To judge by the advice columns, a lot of us get really upset over our adult children or their children sending us an email thank you note instead of penning one on paper. Personally, I think we just have to get over it and be glad we got any acknowledgement at all. What's the big difference between pen/paper and a txt message or an email--or even a Facebook acknowledgement? A thanks is a thanks.
But breaches of etiquette can be trickier than a thank you note. A recent writer to Philip Galanes Social qs in the New York Times wrote about a young man in his early 20s who posted his father's death on his Facebook page and announced it via Twitter to his friends and followers. The young man's mother--who was the father's ex wife--was appalled. So, how serious a breach of etiquette was it?
Galanes agreed that Facebook and Twitter are "too chilly for sharing tragedies with
our nearest and dearest. Not to mention that these posts would be
sandwiched between gags by Jimmy Fallon and clips of Honey Boo Boo." Social media, he suggests, is better suited to spreading the word to
workaday pals.
That said, Galanes faces reality. "It’s only natural that he would
turn to his comfort zone in a time of grief. For you and me and others
north of 32, that would almost certainly involve a telephone. But for your son, who probably picks up the phone to speak rarely, if
ever, his impulse would be to text and tweet and post his sad news on
Facebook. There is little use in bemoaning our changing times. I just
hope we all find what we need in our dark hours."
Just to put the "changing times" in perspective. A recent Pew survey on the use of social media in political life, found 60 percent of American adults use either
social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter; 66 percent of those social media users--or 39 percent of all American adults--have used social media to post their
thoughts about civic and political issues, react to others' postings,
press friends to act on issues and vote, follow candidates, ‘like' and
link to others' content, and belong to groups formed on social
networking sites.
That being the case, is it any wonder that young adults who grew up on Twitter and Facebook would use it not just for civic statements but to express other near-to-their-heart sentiments and a thanks to their parents or gramps.
A friend I haven't seen in a while has moved back to my city. Her daughter and family live here. So she and her husband have a built in welcoming committee. At least, that is how we outsiders whose children live elsewhere see it.
As she and I are talking--we are trying to make plans to have lunch--I suggest we meet onThursday or Friday of the next week.
She is hesitant. She and her daughter are planning to have lunch on one
of those days, but the daughter hasn't let her know which one yet. "It's
a difficult situation," my friend says. My answer: "Let me know which
one your daughter doesn't want and we'll have lunch on that day."
I don't need to know the specifics about "difficult." I just know we are all on eggshells and in touchy situations when we deal day-to-day with our grown children. We want to do things together--have lunch with a daughter, invite a son over for dinner--but some of us are wary of intruding on their time and in their lives. And they seem to be equally wary about being intruded upon.
Whatever difficulty my friend and her daughter are having, I figure I can at least be willing to help. We may have to be flexible when it comes to our grown children--adaptable in finding graceful ways to accommodate their needs--but when it comes to friends we can just be flexible, as in plain old flexible.
"Only connect." That's the guiding principle of E. M Forster's Howard's End. And it applies to our lives as they revolve in and around our grown children and their progeny. We're always looking for that special way to connect--to say something meaningful or just amusing that hopefully they'll remember us by or think of us fondly by.
All of which is a long way around saying that in that regard, I Hit a Home Run. At least I think I did. Both my grown children and their families live in cities impacted by the mountain of snow that fell in early February. [Does that storm have a name yet? If so, I missed it.] In any case, when a friend sent a series of snow humor cartoons my way, I clipped two that I thought would inspire the young "build stuff in the snow" set and sent them to my Grands via their parents' email.
This was one
This was the other
I got the ultimate compliment, given the limits of email correspondence: I quote my daughter-in-law's message in full: "Kids got a kick out of this." Short but sweet. In my mind's ear, I can hear them chuckling over the clips.
Warms the heart. Makes all that downloading and dragging of images (some of the images were not appropriate for the younger set)--and the pleasure you anticipate the Grands will get--worth the effort.
In case you're wondering what sort of snow humor would not be quite right for toddlers and pre-teens, here's one I'm still giggling over.
Our kids coming out of college have been struggling--it's hard to find a job, no less one that is a stepping stone to a career. A lot of us are supporting those kids, either by hosting them rent free at home (goodbye emtpy nest) or giving them a monthly stipend while they job hunt. When times are tough, tough love doesn't quite seem the right answer. But when does the helping hand stop? Even if we can afford it, is there a point at which we have to tell our kids to sink or swim?
That was a question Carolyn Hax dealt with in a recent column. A mom, whose 26 year old daughter had had an assortment of odd jobs, finally landed a job at an art gallery--a job in her career arc. The mom has continued to give her daughter a $2,500 a month stipend to help cover living expenses. But she would like to break the habit. "I feel she should shoulder more of her own expenses, given what she earns. There always seems to be some unexpected expense that crops up, though, preventing me from cutting back my support." The latest unexpected expense: the daughter wants to quit the job and open up her own art gallery with a co-worker, who would provide the financial banking--but not a living wage for the daughter.
The mom wants to retire but her retirement income isn't big enough to continue to support her daughter at the $2,500 a month level. There is a nagging reason why this mom keeps shelling out money: If her daughter fails at her endeavor, she might be destitute and "then she might have to move back in with me, which would be an intolerable situation."
It's easy enough to say, as Hax does, "Cut this parasite off." When the daughter worked odd jobs, Hax says, the mom was an enabler laboring under the fig leaf of need. But now, "you have proof that you're not preempting poverty, you're insulating her from the cost of her choices."
The fear for many of us is just this: if we don't help out, our children will slip into living in a way that we can't tolerate--and it will happen to them (guilt-inducing music in the background, please) while we have a comfortable place to live and more than enough food to eat. I hear friends raise the question of whether we owe it to our children--and to ourselves--to keep them out of poverty while they find their footing. The issue they raise: Can we afford not to do it?
Tough questions. And hard to deliver the tough love answer to our kids. There are practical issues--what happens when we can no longer afford to help, or like this mother, are ready to retire but can't afford to do so until our children have made their way up the career ladder. By continuing to support them, are we standing in the way of their being able to take care of themselves.
Carl Pickhardt, a psychologist who specializes in adolescence has this observation for parents of young adults: "Just
as parenthood doesn’t come with a set of directions for how to get
started, there is no fixed schedule for financial letting go. Thus many
parents continue their parenting by offering extended help, often of the
financial kind, until a firm hold on young adult independence is
finally gained."
The tough part is not the tough love but knowing where that line of independence is or ought to be.
Source: 
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics. Data refer to workers age 25 and older.
Sources: October School Enrollment Supplement, Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics; Thomas Luke Spreen.
Sources: October School Enrollment Supplement, Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics; Thomas Luke Spreen.
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