Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us

Leaving a Legacy: Letting your grown kids know what you are willing their way.

Estate planning is a funny thing: We don't give it much thought--until we do. When we're leading active, vigorous lives, who can be bothered--who wants to be bothered--by thoughts of mortality? As we get older and more isolated, we may start seeing those wills and estates as a 'pay back' device. And we do so at our peril.

I was reminded of this by hearing Hendrik Hartog  talk about his book, "Someday All  of This Will be Yours," on the Diane Rehm show.  Hartog catalogues a century's worth of emotional perils and legal pitfalls that come with leaving an inheritance that is seen as unfair to  one or all of your children. As he explained on air, his aim in presenting a history of cases between 1850 and 1950 was to look at what they show about parent-child relations and how, in a time before pensions and Social Security, people used the promise of inheritance to secure care for themselves in old age--a grown child was often called upon to stay home and care for an aged parent-.

But Hartog made an important point beyond legal and cultural history. Even though the cases he discusses come from a different time and era, some things never change. People he talks to today tell him similar stories of inheritance plans gone bad in terms of family harmony and unity.

All of this is just another way of saying, it doesn't have to be so, that we can clear the air so that our grown children not only know what's in our estate but what our guiding principles are in dividing up those worldly goods between them and others. Great movie scenes though they make, the reading of the will ought to have no unpleasant surprises--in fact, no surprises at all. The more our grown children know what we're thinking and where and how we saw fairness in drawing up our will, the fewer sources of disharmony we'll leave behind.

The will isn't pay back time. We do want to be remembered fondly, don't we?

 

Money Matters: Is a loan a gift when we help grownkids buy a house?

Whenever we talk with friends about grown kids and money, one connection is a constant. Almost all of us have helped or plan to help our children buy a house. We're the generation that was lucky enough to buy our homes before the infamous bubble and whose overall estates have benefited from the pre-2008 relentless climb in home values. The climb has been such that many of our children, successful though they may be at this point in their early careers, can't afford to buy a house. And we want them to have one: Not just as a shelter, but as a solid financial investment. (Yes, we still believe those days will come again.)

When we do extend that helping housing hand, it tends to fall into one of three forms: an arms-length deal in which money for a downpayment is loaned and repayment is expected; a loan that's not-so-arms length and will be repaid when the house is sold; a loan that's really a gift that comes with no strings attached. (There is a fourth form--or so I've heard: Some buy the house outright for their kids. They put up the downpayment and pay the mortgage fees. But that seems a whole 'nother category of house "loan.")

Here's the story in stats, from a 2010 survey by the National Association of Realtors (Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers): 27 percent of first-time buyers who made a down payment received a gift from a friend or relative, typically their parents; 9 percent received a loan from a relative or friend.

For those 27 percent who give housing help as a gift, the survey includes some non-economic factors to consider: either don't attach any strings or declare upfront what those strings are. They can be anything from eventual repayment of the "gift" (which makes it more of a loan) to calling home more often. Not sure how well that latter point works.

The Re-Filled Nest: Improvements for our college grads in search of a job

The economy has wreaked havoc on those of us with recent college grads. One friend, whose son was fortuante enough to get a job in his professional field (accounting), reports that he is the only one among his set of four best friends to do so. And that's not untypical of the job situation for the past year.

Many of those children--emerging adults, frustrated at not being able to convert their college degrees into good-paying jobs--are living home. That's creating a whole nother set of tensions. For those parents looking for a break in that bleak picture--we love our kids but we don't necessarily love having them live at home anymore--there's some hopeful news on the job front. Not necessarily the dip down to 8.5 per cent  unemployment (though that's welcome), but the signs that show where the job growth is.

In a December jobs report, workers with bachelor’s degrees or other post-secondary educations were the ones who hit the sweet spot: about 1.1 million bachelor’s degree recipients found work. Meanwhile, the number of workers with high school diplomas or less who were employed fell by half a million. More surprisingly, the least-skilled workers also added jobs over the last year. The number of high school dropouts who had jobs rose by 126,000.

According to Catherine Rampell, who runs the online Economix site for the New York Times, the numbers support MIT economist David Autor‘s argument that the work force is hollowing out, producing very low-skill service jobs that generally cannot be done by machines or workers abroad (like food services) and higher-skilled jobs that require greater schooling (like medical jobs).

Grandparenting: Are we willing to share the wealth with our Grands?

A few days ago, I wrote about a 2011 MetLife survey on boomer parent's spending habits vis a vis their grown children. (Long story short: Most of us want to help our adult children with college tuition; fewer want to help them buy a house.)

There's also a 2009 MetLife survey on how grandparents feel about spending money on their grandchildren. The 2011 survey already covered the college tuition question for grandchildren--most of us say, 'no way.' But this survey has more specific questions.

How do we feel about financial assistance or monetary gifts for grandchildren? Two out of three of us give our grandchildren money; The average amount in the five years leading up to 2009: $8,700.

Why did we do it? The reasons most cited were general financial support, education, and major life events.

Do we want to give them gifts while we're still here or leave them a lump-sum legacy once we're gone? Nearly 80 percent of us would rather distribute smaller gifts. Nothing beats seeing them enjoy an indulgence or appreciate real-world help.

Has the Great Recession and its aftermath made us more generous toward our Grandkin? One in four of us report we are providing more assistance than in the past, due to the current economy.

Do we give advice along with the money? Not so much. More than two-thirds of grandparents report that they are not providing any financial advice or guidance to their grandchildren. Among those who are talking to their grandchildren about financial issues, the most common advice is “start saving early in life,” and “don’t get into too much debt.”

Isn't that what our grandparents told us?

Money Matters: What are we willing to pay for when our grown children are grown up?

There's a new survey out on how generous--or not--we are with our adult children. Overall, the 2011 MetLife survey found that four out of five us are willing to help out in a variety of ways. But we have our limits. 

Topping the list in priorities is college education. Nine out of 10 of us believe we, as parents, have some responsibility to pay for some of their higher education, with half of us seeing this as a strong or absolute responsibility. The survey even put some numbers on that assistance: More than half of us  would contribute 10,000 a year or more to the tab for our child's higher education.

In terms of percentages, we're more generous than our parents. According to the survey, only 35 percent of baby boomer parents helped with the college bills. As to helping our grandchildren with their college bills, two-thirds of us don't think we have any responsibility in that regard--love those kiddies though we do. Only only 15% of us report that we have contributed toward the costs of a grandchild’s education. 

We don't see helping our grown kids buy a house as nearly as compelling a responsibility as a college education. Half of us suggested that we had no responsibility at all to contribute to the down payment on a house. Among those 23 percent of us who felt we had at least a moderate responsibility to help, half of us said we would contribute under $10,000 for that purpose.

The survey also looked at how much responsibility we felt in helping out a grown child whose fortunes were flagging--who had lost jobs, were going through a divorce or meeting some other financial setback. More than four in 10 of us reported that, in such cases, we feel a strong or absolute responsibility to help out--if the setback was not of their own making.

Woe betide the grown child who spends recklessly and causes his or her own financial debacle. We are not as forgiving--at least our purses are not. Only 11 percent of us feel the need to bail out a child when the debt is due to overspending. We draw the line at those closets full of Jimmy Choo shoes, crazy weekends in Vegas or a drug habit. But even  here, the MetLife survey puts a number on how much we'd be willing to spend to help out--if we were willing at all. And it's not $10,000. It's half of that.

What about leaving them a legacy? Half of us in the Baby Boomer generation feel little or no responsibility to leave something behind for our heirs. For those of us who do, MetLife has some numbers: Those of us who would leave something behind see the appropriate amount as somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000. 

They survey also looked at what obligations our children feel toward us. Take a deep breath and read on: (all percents are for feeling a strong or absolute responsibility):

62% feel called upon to call us at least once a week to see how we're doing

58% would have us live with them if we weren't healthy enough to live on our own

50% would take us in if were financial destitute

46% would provide financial support in our later years if we were having financial reverses.

Not that we'd want that. 42% claim we wouldn't take the help.

Does this make you want to rethink those contributions to their financial health, education and housing?

 

Grandparenting: We also serve who sit and wait--and watch an endless event.

Ah the joys of grandparenting: small children who love us without question, who will come and cuddle up with us to hear us read a story and who, as they get a little older, will program our iPhone and show us how to download Netflix. They're still interested in hearing about what life was like for their parents when they were little tykes or for us when we were toddlers or teens.

Such wonders come with a price. Friends whose grown child and three grandchildren live nearby are often called on to babysit--something they don't mind doing. They've been to soccer games and volleyball tournaments, clarinet recitals and dance performances. But sometimes the daytime, weekend duties are a little harder to take. To wit, an email from these very same friends that arrived this morning:

"We ended up at [my son's] most of yesterday, covering for him as he had a week-end 2-day exam.  We spent an endless afternoon at a so-called Pine Derby car racing competition for scouts, which my grandson participated in.  There ought to be medals for the attendees!"

Holidays with Grown Children: More on that outsider feeling

Christmas dinner at his daughter's house: Dick was surrounded by his wife, grandchildren, son-in-law, stepsons and their families. What could be warmer and nicer for the holidays? For those of us at a certain age, plenty.

Dick says that as everyone moved from the living room to the dining room for dinner, he sat down on the sofa and brooded. Am I still needed? he asked himself. As a business man (retired but doing volunteer work with a small business advisory group), Dick had been there to advise his son, son-in-law, daughter, and stepsons on their career moves--on getting started, on moving up the corporate or other ladders. Now that they were well on their way, they had reached a point where they knew more about where they were than he did. Never good at small talk, he felt left out of the general chit chat going back and forth between and among his grown children. "I didn't see where I fit in. I wouldn't say I felt irrelevant. I would say I felt almost irrelevant."

To put in perspective the feelings that flooded him that Christmas night, Dick says it has been harder to take than some of the physical diminishments he has experienced as he has gotten older--no longer having the same endurance or strength he had as a 60-year-old man who rode his bike for 50 miles or more on a Sunday outing. Illness and age have taken a toll (20 miles is the new comfort level).  But he says he feels that diminishment of strength less keenly than the loss of his role as the wise head of a many-branched family. As far as he is concerned, the grownchildren have outgrown their need for his advice. "I brought them up to be independent," he says. And now they are.

Who knew success would feel so empty?

Holidays with Grown Children: That outsider feeling

The December holidays are filled with warm, fuzzy feelings: parents and their grown children get together to pay homage to cherished family traditions. There may be minor blowups and some discord, but the family is together again and that counts for a lot.

Then there comes a time in the life of almost every family when those traditions shift their ground, when our grown children start building their own family traditions with their homes and families at the center. And that can bring on a quietly sad trauma for us, the parents of grown children.

Here's one example of what I'm talking about:

Sam moved to Oregon 40 years ago--alone. None of his east coast family moved with him--not his mother, father, sisters or cousins. Sam married a west coaster and had one child, a daughter, who is now grown. Last year, she married a Portland man--a man whose family is three generations deep in that city. And that's what is making the holidays so difficult for Sam. In year's past, Sam, his wife and daughter came east for the holidays. They spent time with his sister and nephews in New York City, visited the tree in Rockefeller Center, window shopped the department store's Christmas extravaganzas and cooked Christmas dinner together. This year, his daughter, in the flush of her first year of marriage, invited her new Portland family and her parents to her house for a holiday dinner. Goodbye trip to New York and visits to all the cousins and nephews.

Sam's daughter decorated her house with garlands and tinsel. Made a good dinner for her first time at entertaining a lot of people. Sam's son-in-law's family was there by the dozens, people he barely knew. And that was the sad trauma for Sam. "It was the worst feeling in the world," he says, "to be a guest in my daughter's house and feel like an outsider."

Time and acquaintance may soften the feeling, but as our grown children put down roots with other families, we no longer make the holiday decisions or impose the traditions--regardless of how warm and cozy they felt for oh so many years.

Emerging Adults: What are those 20-somethings thinking?

Grown children in their 20s are a parenting challenge--not as challenging as adolescents. But still, they can be prickly and difficult. We think they're adults and they are, but they are stil going through stages of emotional growth and change. It may be hard for us to remember what was running around in our heads when we were their age.

I was reminded of this in a post on Nathan Bradford's blog. Bradford is a former book agent whose blog is about getting your book written and published (if you're in that category, check out his blog: it's excellent.] He's also a young man who just reached his 30s and in one of his posts, he wrote about his reaction to two movies--when he saw them in his early 20s and then when he saw them when he turned was 30. And that's where he layed it all out--the change in the workings of the maturing mind.

The movies in question were "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset." Here's his description of those movies: "In the first, "Before Sunrise," ... two early-twenty-somethings [Jesse) and Celine] meet on the train from Budapest to Vienna. Jesse has one night before his plane leaves back for America and he convinces Celine to spend the night with him wandering around Vienna, where they talk about life, love, dreams, everything. "Before Sunset,"...picks up after [an] intervening nine years. Now in their thirties, Jesse and Celine walk around Paris before Jesse has to fly back to the US, and this time they're dealing with the weight of real adulthood and exude a palpable sense of nostalgia and regret."

In the first movie, Bradford writes that the two characters capture the magical feeling of the rush of falling in love and of being with someone who excites you. The second is about testing the strength of that brief connection.

And here are Bradford's insights into his own maturing:

"The first time I watched these movies... I was in my early twenties and still in the exciting early days of a relationship. Of the two movies I naturally identified most strongly with "Before Sunrise."...I was roughly the same age as the characters, the world seemed full of endless possibilities, and my future was so excitingly uncertain.

At the time, "Before Sunset" struck me as poignant but also incredibly, almost needlessly sad. The characters were stressed and intense and (SPOILER) stuck in loveless relationships and thinking about what might have been if things had just unfolded differently on the platform six months after they first met.

But now, at age 31, I re-watched the movies at a vastly different place in my life and it was like watching completely different movies.

Now "Before Sunrise" was an exercise in nostalgia, remembering how intense conversations felt at that age, the sense of adventure, and the brave early twenties naivety of thinking life will be completely easy because we are the special ones, at long last, that truly get how the world really works.

And now it's "Before Sunset" that I identify with the most, not least of which because it turns out, like Jesse, that this year I was having a novel come out at the same time that I was starting a new life with some of the same weighty thoughts of what might have been. ...

That intense melancholy of "Before Sunset" that I once found almost maudlin is something I now see all around me in my peers. It's the quarter-life crisis of reaching a certain point in your life just by doing the right thing and hitting the right benchmarks of college, first job, dating, marriage, before inevitably being beset by forces outside of your control. There's a sense of wandering and uncertainty that sets in when you begin to face the weight of major decisions and choosing the right relationship (or not) or sensing you're in the wrong career.

Your early twenties are the time when you think you have everything figured out; at some point before the end of that decade you realize that you don't."

What Bradford has to say is, for me, an important guidepost for parenting grown children--in that it reminds me of what it is like to be that age, and how we, as parents, would do well to factor that into the way we deal with our grown and still-growing children.

Money Matters: The place where a few grandparent bucks have a big bang

Those of us who came of age during the greatest economic expansion of the 20th century are now near to retiring or we're already there. We may no longer be earning top dollar but many of us have put away money, earned pensions, established 401k accounts, and are otherwise well-padded for retirement--padded enough that we look at the economy our grown children are dealing with and wonder how we can help with the fiscal challenges that lie ahead for them.

All of which is a long way of saying, some of us are in the position to and would like to give our grown children some pecuniary peace of mind by lifting a small burden here and there. For those of us with grandchildren, one easy-lifting spot is putting money aside for our grandchildren's college education. We don't have to take on the whole burden--who knows how grand a sum it will be a decade or two from now or whether they'll get a scholarship of some sort. But we can contribute.

It's easy enough to set aside money in our own account or set up a separate account with a grandchild's name on it. But a 529 adds a tax bennie to such savings. The money comes out of our taxable estate and, once in the 529, it multiplies [hopefully, it does not shrink] tax free. There is no tax due on it when it's withdrawn--so long as your grandchild withdraws it for education purposes. If your son or daughter has already set up a 529 savings plan, you can contribute. You can even get special coupons to do it on your own. Or you can set one up yourself for each grandchild you choose to help. Setting up a 529 yourself gives you more control over the money. If you find you need the cash after all--for, say, unexpected desire to take a trip around the world--or you change your mind (that grandchild turned out to be an ungrateful wretch) you can ask for the money back, though you'll pay a tax and 10  percent penalty on the withdrawal. But still, it's a way to help out unobtrusively--and give your grown kids some relief about the burdens that lie ahead.

Here's a link to an easy-to-follow briefing on 529s. It's called "15 Facts All Parents Should Know About 529 Plans." And another one that answers a lot of questions grandparents might have.

Name Calling: Are Mom and Dad honorific titles or something special?

The name Mom or Dad is loaded. It's what our children called us when they were small and what they continue to call us--or some variation of that name. So it can create a little ball of hurt to hear a son call his mother-in-law Mom or hear a daughter call her father-in-law, Dad. For some of us, it's just the surprise of the moment--then we get over it. After all, we know who's who. But some of us take it more to heart, as a recent Dear Abby letter suggests.

To a Mom who wrote that she resented  hearing her son call his mother-in-law mom in front of his very own mother, Abby writes: "Let it go. Your son was probably calling [his mother in law] "Mom" because he had been asked to do so. ("'Sonny,' we're family now. Please call me 'Mom.'") It would not, however, be confrontational to tell your son that hearing him do it was hard to swallow." 

I can see letting it go. But bringing it up with the son or daughter? I'm not sure about that, and neither is Susan Adcox at About./com's Grandparents. She makes the very sensible suggestion of letting it go, period. "Friction with a daughter-in-law is one of the swiftest routes I know to becoming estranged from a son. Having a son with two moms is much better than having no son at all."

One of her readers added this point: "I believe my sons call their MIL’s by their first name, as my DIL’s call me. I do know though that it seems whichever Mom you are, you are only entitled to agree or there’s trouble."

Vacationing Togetherness: Two rules for avoiding friction

She's become a veteran at this: hosting her grown children and their families at the villa she rents in Tuscany. We won't go into how some people are really lucky about their vacation deals--she teaches Italian and needs to keep her skills fresh; he's a successful businessman [retired] and can afford to indulge this form of refreshment. Over the years of visits by grown children, other relatives, myriad friends and acquaintances, she has learned how to handle the extended [more than one night] visit.

Her first house rule for her children--two sons, each with a wife and two children--is simple: Keep 'em busy.

Before anybody arrives, she makes the daily plans. When they get there, she shares. Here's her rationale: "We never want a day when they can say, what are we going to do today? Or a day when they are just going to sit around the house and swim in the pool all day. I hand them a calendar when they arrive. It shows them what the plan is for each day. If they don't want to do it, they know in advance what's coming. We can negotiate and make another plan. Of course, they tend to stay with what I'm planning since I go with them and I'm the only one who speaks Italian. That makes it a lot easier for them to take trains to visit other cities, go out to lunch, understand the guided tour at the aquarium in Genoa."

Second house rule: visits are one family at a time: serial visits only, never together.

Her rationale: Too many opportunities for sibling rivalry, resentments over child-rearing practices and misunderstandings among family members. Besides, two sons, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren would be too many people to get moving in one direction at a specified time. 

How do her kids take to this? One comes every year for a week. The other has made the trek to Italy only twice in six years. Their choice.

Grandparenting: Getting away with grandkids in faraway places.

When our Grands reach school age, their parents--our grown children--may be willing to let them take a trip with us. One friend took her 11-year-old granddaughter to Paris. She made a deal with her: She would make sure the granddaughter could get the comfort food of her choice at dinner every night [plain pasta with butter]. In exchange, the little traveler had to be game to go to the museum or event of choice each day. It worked--there was hardly any whining. Also helpful: a midday return to the hotel for a wee bit of rest.

Another friend, who babysits one afternoon a week, was allowed by her son and daughter-in-law to take those Grands [ages 10 and 13] to the Galapagos this summer. Those one-afternoon-a week visits gave her a certain familiarity (with eating habits, personality ticks) and comfort with her grands--and they with her. Here's her report on the trip:

 "There's a family history here. When my son graduated from college, his dad said he would take him on a trip to anywhere in the world.  My son chose Galapagos, and they still talk about their trip with great nostalgia. As for my trip, I am on a "if not now, when!" kick. My husband [the granddad] couldn't go--nor did I want him to. 

My grandboys are real animal/nature enthusiasts, and they're getting to an age, especially the 13-year old, when they may not be so thrilled to travel with the old grandma much longer. 

They are very good travelers, not spoiled and not demanding and I knew that it would work out. They were much easier to travel with than their grandpa: No moaning and groaning, no frantic searches for bathrooms, no demands for attention, they can walk long distances--you get the picture.

They did go to bed earlier than I would have wished, and it meant that I would often go to bed early. (Come on guys, it's only 8:30! By the time I brushed my teeth and came back to the room, they were sleeping.)  I was able to read, but how much reading in bed can one do without falling asleep! Then I would wake up too early while they slept on. But that's a minor point.

It's a vigorous trip.  It's not for the halt and lame, though there were people on our boat who were overweight and not fleet of foot who managed well enough. To see the animals and birds in their natural habitats, totally unaware and unafraid of humans, was glorious. The boys each had their own cameras, birthday gifts I gave them last year when I knew we'd be going, and that was a big plus. Their photos are better than mine. 

We were on a boat that carried 100 people, extremely well organized so there was no waiting, comfortable enough (we were three to a room), great food.  We were on the boat for four nights and had five days of island hopping.  I think 5 or 6 days would have been better, though we certainly saw a lot. 

Now we've got that trip to talk about and reminisce about when we get together. We always find something new to share with my son and husband about what we saw and did--and how things have changed since they went."

Holiday Togetherness: Playing the Thanksgiving football game

The day after Thanksgiving is a peaceful one. There's no more cooking to be done--it's a leftovers feast. Everyone's following favorite pursuits. At Thanksgiving Central for our family, the three granddaughters were doing something girly-girly together; Alpha daughter and my daughter-in-law were chatting. Outside, Uber son, my grandson, son-in-law  and Paterfamilias were tossing the football around. They had some sort of "game" going when I wandered outside, with John, a friend of the family who was spending Thanksgiving with us. We watched them heave the ball around and establish rules for two-handed touch. I suggested we join them.

It was not a universally popular move. John wasn't particularly keen to play but he was game. The four players--PF and SIL on one side, Uber son and grandson on the other--seemed taken aback. Not at John's joining in. What was I doing out there? Since Uber son and the 10-year-old Grand were the "better" team, we joined PF and SIL. PF wasn't happy. He grimaced when, once in the huddle, I suggested a "surprise" move: a running play! He could fake a pass to SIL or John, hand the ball to me and I would run with it. 

Ah, to have a photo of the faces of chagrin at my proposal. No. No. The game was all about the pass. But a few plays later, they relented. We ran the play. I took the ball, cradled it close to my midriff, hunched over, turned and started forward. PF tells me I did well--held the ball properly to avoid a fumble and lowered my shoulder to ward off players from the other team. Only I never quite picked up any speed. "You were standing still," is the way PF describes it when my Grand gave me the two-hand tag. A few plays later, when my Grand protested that it was 4 players to 2, I was immediately traded away to his team. He was too polite to protest.

Oh Well. I didn't cross the touchdown line on my running play. Or catch a pass. Or even come close. But I had a great time. So let's score one for the grannie. She got herself out there. Point made.

Holiday Togetherness: Calm, comaraderie and connection in the kitchen

We arrived for Thanksgiving at Uber Son's house on the Tuesday before the great feast. The idea was to help our daughter-in-law out--make it easier on her by either doing the shopping or watching the Grands or some combination of both. On Wednesday, while the older Grands went off to school, Uber son went to work and Paterfamilias took the laptop to Panera to edit a transcript, my daughter-in-law and I had the kitchen and all that cooking to ourselves--with occasional help from the 3-year-old who puttered around, climbed up on counters and "assisted."

What a perfectly wonderful day it was. All morning and most of the afternoon, my daughter-in-law and I kept each other company while we each prepared our share of the dishes. How companionable it was. We talked about everything and nothing, about how the kids were doing in school, what my son's plans were for the future, how their trip to London had been, how she was composting and what tips I had, and whether she should make her own pie crust [her idea] or use a frozen crust [my favorite shortcut]. We set the table, pre-cut everything for the salads and other side dishes, brined the turkey, pre-baked the stuffing, and finally made the crust and baked a blueberry-cranberry pie and a pumpkin pie.

Three days later, when I called from home to thank her for her gracious hosting of our family's Thanksgiving, she mentioned Wednesday and how nice it had been to spend time together in the quiet calm of the kitchen.

Talk about a Thanksgiving gift. Can't ask for more than that.

Empty Nesting: Life and longing after the Thanksgiving weekend

It is Monday, the day after the Thanksgiving weekend and colleagues at work are chatting about the holiday--who went where, how long the left-overs lasted and, for those of us of a certain age, what it was like to have the grown kids together again under one roof. 

Betty's oldest son traveled home from his first job in another city; the middle son came home from college and the youngest was already in residence--he's still in high school. Here's her take: "It was so great to have everyone under one roof, everyone sleeping in their beds--the normal pattern of life. It's as though all of life we waited to come back to this. I felt like I finally got the right kilter back. I so lamented the break up on Sunday when two of my sons left. They'll probably be back in December for the holidays, but life shouldn't be waiting for these moments."

Kitty had her two children home for the holidays--her daughter home from college; her son back for the weekend from a job on the other coast. Her take: "It was wonderful having them both home--being our little family of four together again. The days are really limited in which we are going to be just the four of us. My son has a girlfriend. I really like her. She's lovely. I bet they'll get married one day. It's what you want for your children. But, from then on it will never be the four of us again."

I also had my family--Uber son, Alpha daughter, their spouses and children--under one roof. Not my roof this time. Uber son's. My take: It was touching to be together, to see my children and their spouses and my Grands reconnect--it has been over a year since we've had everyone together, not only under one roof but in one country.  It was also bittersweet. Late on Wednesday night, when Alpha daughter and family arrived, it was heartwarming to see my children reconnect, to see the good feelings flow and hear questions asked and answered about each other's lives. And so bittersweet for Paterfamilias and myself. We were bystanders--watching the action but not really of it. After all, we'd kept up with each family--made it our business to get to Berlin to visit Alpha daughter and kept up on Skype. And we'd traveled to visit Uber son and his family pretty regularly. So we sat and watched the third leg of that family triangle connect--son, daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law. Happy to see it, but no longer at the center of it.

It's what Kitty and Betty are sensing lies ahead: Once the family is no longer the snug little four or five of you, the kilter changes forever.

Holiday Togetherness: The Thanksgiving Day handoff from us to them

My book club's monthly meet-up is winding down. We've finished parsing all the meaning we can out of Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra. We're picking at dessert when the discussion devolves into the personal. Are your kids coming to your house for Thanksgiving dinner?

We are all women of a certain age--an age when our kids are in their 30s and 40s and have kids of their own. What struck me as various book-clubbers coughed up their plans was how few of us are still making The Dinner. Not that we're not up to it. Nancy's son has really gotten into cooking. He's coming to her house with his family--she has the Big House--but he's manning the oven and burners for the family, which includes his two siblings, their kids, his kids and his parents. Nancy says she'll stack the dishwasher.

Elaine says her son, who lives in city that's a 4-hour drive away, usually comes home with his family but this year he's got a neck injury. So she and her husband will travel to his house. When she asks what she can make, what she can bring, he says he doesn't need anything. The meal will be a less ambitious one than Elaine usually cooks. Her son says he can handle the dinner preparations; after all, there will only be seven of them. Even the offer of baking a pie or a cake is turned down. It is going to be a leaner meal, not a Big Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner.

Ann says she gave up the ghost several years ago. Her daughter-in-law loves to cook, has tried her hand at several cooking schools. She doesn't like her mother-in-law or anyone else to step into the kitchen while she's at work. Since the results are excellent, Ann happily acquiesces. She'd agree even if the food were so-so. She never liked cooking. She pitches in with the clean up--as do her two other children and their children--but it's not her home so it's much easier on her.

My tale is more complicated. I love making Thanksgiving dinner. I love having the turkey leftovers to fiddle with. I love picking meat off the carcass the day after. But three years ago, Uber son and his wife had a third child, and it got complicated for five of them to get on an airplane and come to our house, when two of us could fly to them. And, since Alpha daughter was within a 3-hour drive of her brother but flying distance of us, it made even more sense: air fare for eight vs airfare for two. A no-brainer.  Everyone prefers the arrangement, except for Paterfamilias. He wants everyone to come to his home for the holidays. He likes the idea of it: His home and everyone he loves in it. He made his case for Thanksgiving at Our House when we were visiting Uber son a few weeks ago. He was swayed only when our son, who travels a lot for his job, said with an enormous sigh, "I would pay not to have to get on a plane."

Case closed. Thanksgiving dinner at Uber son's house it is. I'm allowed to bake and bring and arrive a few days ahead to help with the shopping and cooking. But I don't get to take home the carcass. It will have been turned into soup and sipped up before we head for home.

Grandparenting: Children's books in praise of what we can do for our Grands

The Holidays may still seem far away, but that isn't the frantic take you get from the Halls of Commerce. Not only is Black Friday starting earlier, the holiday decorations are already up in many malls and along city streets. But I digress: If you're looking for a gift for one of your little Grands--for Holidays or anytime--the New York Times has a delightful page of reviews of books about us and how we are the emotional mainstay or treasured person in our Grands' lives. What a nice way to impress on them our importance in their lives--without having to overtly say so. Or having our grown children have to ask them to respect us.

My favorite on the NYTimes list: Crouching Tiger. Maybe because my Grands have taken such an interest in my attempts to learn tai chi (they find it uproarious to watch me "Stroke the Wild Horses Mane" and "Ward off Monkeys.") Maybe because my grandparents came from "the old country" and i was fascinated by their multi-lingual abilities. In any case, this is a story that deals with an immigrant child’s conflicting emotions toward a grandparent from the old country. The grandson wants to learn kung fu, but his grandfather insists on teaching him the tamer tai chi. "Eventually," the review notes, "he learns to appreciate his Chinese heritage in a convincing, unsentimental way, and to value the wisdom of his forebears."

Can't beat the wisdom thing.

Emerging Adults: Will they ever grow up? Patience is required. Sainthood, too.

I hear the complaints from friends with college-age kids and recent college grads in the house. They don't have the drive their father or mother had at their age, they aren't taking life seriously, they're lazy, willful, don't help around the house. Why it's just like having a teenager living in the house again. Only physically larger. And more worldly.

My children chose to go through this phase of "growing up" in apartments and group-of-friends houses far from the family manse. But as this wearisome economy rolls on and more and more of our children live at home--out of necessity--more of us are making our unhappy way through this stage. And it is a stage. So assures psychologist Carl Pickhardt in a newsletter he writes about the challenges of parenting young adults.

He call this stage trial independence (18 to 23-year olds). It's a time when, he writes, "the curve of parental impatience tends to rise." Parents are "really ready for their older son or daughter to get their life together, set an occupational or educational goal, show clear progress in that direction, and act responsibly grown up." When that doesn't happen--when there is what he calls "floundering and failing to make responsible headway," we may fear that our child will never grown into being a functioning adult.

Pickhardt suggests we relax and tell ourselves to be patient.  The parental job, he suggests, is to hold their emerging adult "to responsible account, affirm positive signs of growth being made, express respect for what the young person is learning from hard experience, and be patient as their son or daughter struggles to find an independent way."

So much easier said than done. If only we could tack those thoughts to our brains when we come upon our grown child sleeping through Monday morning and forgetting to check out that job lead.

Parenting Grown Children: Smother love overdoes the kindness and helpfulness bit.

Every summer, friends' grown child comes to their house at the beach for a two-week vacation--rent free, of course. Every winter, my friends take this daughter, their son-in-law and two children on a long-weekend ski trip. My friends pay for the condo and the lift tickets. The daughter lives near my friends and is frequently a guest for Sunday dinner and always for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

Since my children live far away from me and Paterfamilias and we don't have a summer house by the beach or anywhere else, I usually think, "Lucky friends to be able to treat their daughter so well; to be able to spend so much time together in a pleasurable setting; to get to know their grandchildren so well; to be so much a part of their child's life.

And yet there's another side to the story, as a Carolyn Hax column made clear. "Any advice," a son wrote, "on how to deal with a mother who is smothering me with love?" The son is married; he and his wife have good jobs and two children. "Yet, Mom insists upon family vacations, family dinners, family everything. And she always makes reservations and nonrefundable deposits first, then invites us second, with that little (or big) bit of guilt thrown in." What the son wanted to know is, how to tell his mother to "let me live my own life and meet you on my own terms."

Of course, there's a big difference between inviting and insisting; on making plans together and issuing a fiat; on making your resources available to them at their convenience and playing the guilt card.

So what was Hax's advice? "Accept the number of invitations that feels right to you, decline the overkill, and gently, kindly, firmly become an immovable object who will not get into long renegotiation of each 'no' you issue."

From our side of the aisle, if we notice a son or daughter setting these kinds of limits--"We can't go on a vacation with you every year"--it may be time to gut check whether we're practicing smother love.

 

Wedding Notes: When the bride and groom make decisions you don't like.

They're getting married. The grown son has finally found Ms Right. They've also found what they consider to be the perfect place for the wedding. It isn't your hometown or hers. It's a destination. Someplace far away and beautiful--but expensive. Too expensive for, say, most relatives and friends. If you're not asked to foot the wedding bill, do you have any say in the matter?

That was a source of lively discussion in a recent Carolyn Hax column in which the son and his bride-to-be planned to wed on the Isle of Capri. Sounds romantic. But airfare to Italy and several nights accommodation can run up a bill. The father wrote Hax to say he can afford to take his wife and stepson but no one else can afford to or wants to spend the money to go, including the elderly grandparents, uncles and aunts. He's tempted to decline the invitation but is, he writes, "afraid of the damage to our relationship with him. I did offer to host a reception for all those who cannot afford to go, but he declined, saying it would cheapen the ‘real wedding.’ How should I handle this?”

It's complicated. On the one hand, the grown child isn't thinking of his greater family or the down-home virtues of having his family and hers meet and mingle and put down roots together. He's thinking of a wedding that will have panoramic views and sophisticated venues--or one that has a particular meaning for him and his bride.That's the best case scenario.

Most Hax readers saw the grown son as incredibly selfish and advised the father to stay home. Hax, who suggested the father go and make the best of it, had this point to make vis a vis the selfishness of the son's decision: "There's no way to re-raise your adult child by saying no for the sake of saying no. Sometimes you have to make a calculation that taking a big stand isn't worth the cost."

It is their wedding--and they're paying for it. If they make a decision we don't approve of--and sometimes that may be the choice of spouse--we still want to continue to be part of their post-wedding lives. Sometimes we just have to suck up what we see as a bad decision and live with it. Especially since it's unlikely we can change it.

 

Leaving a Legacy: A place defines a family's values for generations to come.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my legacy to my grown children. By that I don't mean how much money Paterfamilias and I will leave them--who knows what will be left to leave should PF or I hit a serious-illness streak. I'm thinking more about what I'll leave that lets my grown children and their children know who I was and what was important to me, that little (or big) something that underscores my values, whatever wisdom I have to impart, a sense of the life I've lived.

Being a writer, I've always thought of the written word as my road to legacy. But a recent New York Times story ("In a Maine House, No Room to Waste"), held out a whole other notion. A couple in their 60s--each having grown children from previous marriages--love spending weekends on Mt. Desert Island in Maine, a place where kingfish and heron patrol the mudflats and marshes and development is sparse. When they cross the bridge onto the island and can smell the ocean, the couple said, they "roll down the windows and holler, “Yay!”   They eventually went from transient visitors to homeowners: buying and renovating a second home there, being very careful not to enlarge the home's footprint or leave any additional marks of man on the mudflats. It meant a very expensive commitment--to a home, a way of life and the marshy wilderness. They see the house as a way of leaving a legacy. They bought the house, the couple reported, "because we loved this island and we wanted to provide a way for us and our family and the other people we love to live together on this most gorgeous place on earth.”

A living legacy that says a lot about one family's values.

 

 

Rules for Parenting Grown Children: Overlook it. If you can't overlook it, forgive it.

I haven't added to my Notes to Self in well over three years. But I came across this suggestion from Susan Adcox at About.com.Grandparents: "Overlook it. If you can't overlook it, forgive it."

I take it to mean we shouldn't get hung up on our grown children's indiscretions, forgetfulness (in, say, calling us) or outright mistakes (in, say, raising our grandchildren). Life's too short--and our relationships with them too precious--to bear grudges against our grown children or insist on being RIght (see other Note to Self: It's better to be liked than right). This may not hold true for serious issues (addictions, failure to shoulder family responsibilities). There is a time and important place for Tough Love. For all the little stuff that crops up in the inter-generational life of a family however, it pays to give our grown kids a little slack. So I'm adding it to my list of Notes to Self--my little daily reminders of how to get along well with grown children and their families.

Hold that Thought: Why we temper the opinions and advice we give our grown children.

You may think you're tiptoeing around--"Walking on Eggshells," as Jane Isay, the author of a book by that name, puts it--but that may not be how we come across. My friend Pat, who describes herself as a person who says what she thinks upfront, says that after a day of babysitting--and reporting on events to her daughter--her daughter told her she shouldn't be so frank about what she's thinking. "What she doesn't know," Pat says, "is how I'm holding my tongue, not saying what I might otherwise say. I have to be very careful what I say around my grown children."

Don't we all. The great fear, I suggest to Pat, is that if we aren't careful with what we say, our grown children--children who now have adult lives and are heads of families of their own--will get so ticked off they won't speak to us again, or there will be a coldness to our relationship and that will break our hearts. She nods in agreement but she also asks, how much of a mute can you be?

In the introduction to her book, Isay recalls swapping notes with a friend about touchy incidents that they had both had with their grown children--how vulnerable they felt and how hard it was to communicate with them. Isay lays the problem to our being pioneering parents. "We're the first generation to have raised our children so permissively." Now, after cultivating the "creative" and encouraging them to express themselves, we're  stuck with the adult version of it. "Often their decisions [as adults] are not what we would have chosen--for ourselves or for them. We're at a loss to communicate our reservations, worries, and concerns, not because we can't put those feelings into words, but because the response we get often isn't pretty....the independence we worked to hard to instill in our children now feels to us like disinterest, and strong-minded youngsters sometimes grow into thoughtless adults."

Cold comfort, but all-in-the-same-boat comfort nonetheless.

 

Leaving a Legacy: Letting grownchildren in on the plan for your worldly goods.

In the French movie, Summer Hours, three forty-something siblings grow apart over how to dispose of a beloved summer home and the valuable items inside it. When their mother died, she left no specific instructions--just the hope that the place would be kept going for the next generation. I'm not giving the ending away to say that the mother's wishes go unfulfilled and that the relationship among the siblings deteriorates.

King Lear also fumbled his estate planning. He let his children know  who would get what--but not in quite the best way.

Movies and literature are filled with sad tales that surround the making or not making of plans for worldly goods. Estate planning runs amok or doesn't take place at all. While some of us have been orderly about the process--made out wills, told our children where accounts can be found. We may have skipped one important step: talking with our children about the disposal and dispersal of the lesser items.

Not that I've taken this advice myself, but I'm reminded of the need to make such arrangements--to ask my grown children who wants the piano and who would enjoy the Phyllis Plattner watercolor that hangs in the living room? Would anyone like my collection of wood, porcelain and tin cats? And what of the other things in our house--items paterfamilias and I might not prize but that may carry great sentimental value for one of them. I should gather our grown children together and do a walk-through. It needn't be gruesome. It doesn't mean we're about to leave this world. It's just a chance to put a plan in place that everybody is happy with--and avoid a post-mortem blow-up. Of course, we wouldn't be there to see the latter, but still....

In a Washington Post article, Adolf Gundersen wrote about his experience in doing just such planning with his 80-year-old parents and his siblings. The evening--his wife dubbed it a "pre-mortem"--of putting on paper what would happen when his parents were gone "combined the gravitas of a memorial service with the easy sharing of a holiday dinner. And the best part of it was that my parents were there to enjoy being the center of attention." The author and his four brothers decided what would happen to a cabin in the woods that they all loved but didn't want to manage.The get-together also touched on discussions about financial and health care planning that his parents admitted they were "weary of dealing with on their own."

Gundersen writes about some of the reasons why he, his brothers and parents waited so long to have this conversation. "Getting us kids actively and directly involved in so many facets of their lives would mean a huge role reversal....For a long time neither of them had seemed psychologically ready for such a gathering."

Depending on where we are in our life cycle, we don't necessarily have to invite our children into a full "pre-mortem" discussion. (One friend admits that her mother has a dispersal discussion with him and with each of his brothers whenever they visit. Her agenda: to find a home for her clown collection--something none of the children admire or desire.) But it wouldn't be a role-reversal for us to invite our grown children over to tell us which of our possessions they'd like to have once we no longer need them. Not that I need them to assure me that someone will keep my cat collection together.