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

Real Life: When the Kids Come Home

We're an exhausted little band of people--those of us who've had our grown children and their children visiting for the holiday. I don't mean just for Thanksgiving dinner. I mean for an overnight or two. One friend emails: "We had all the kids here from Wednesday afternoon to Friday night. As I type it doesn't sound like much, but how come I spent Saturday and Sunday barely getting out of bed? There was never a minute when either the dishwasher, washing machine or dryer wasn't whirring. All house rules [rules her grown kids impose in their households] were not in effect--kinda like alternate side of the street parking. So candy, juice boxes and doughnuts were the food pyramid."

Chez moi, I had my kids and their kids in the house from Thursday morning through Saturday evening. I, too, could barely function on Sunday. Oh the bliss of sleeping late on Sunday without a chorus of "shhhh's" emanating from the kitchen where the wee ones were tucking into their cornflakes.

Real Life: We Try a Little Togetherness

It's November and all thoughts turn to summer vacation. Should we be making plans for a multi-family love-in with all offspring and theirs?

The first year we tried that, we bundled into one 4-bedroom condo: alpha daughter, her hub and a one year old; uber son, his wife and a 5-month and 2 year old. Luxury place. Protected lawns for running; swimming pool and tennis courts across the way. The vacation was, well, here's what it was: Neither alpha's family nor uber's came with the attitude that pater familias and I would be babysitters in residence. Nor did they expect all their meals to magically appear at the table. Everyone pitched in. There was no dumping. What there was, tho, was a lot of need. From the moment I hauled myself out of bed in the morning, someone small needed something that wasn't being provided: a quiet cuddle, a romp outside, a belly rub, an apple sliced, a clean sock found, a milk run made.

What with different bedtime rituals for babies and toddlers [plus the complication of different time zones--alpha daughter lived a coast away] and the plain old exhaustion of having three children under 2 in the house, not once during our week of togetherness were all the adults in our little family able to sit down to a dinner at the same time--which was part of the point of vacationing together: the chance to visit with eachother as adults.

Almost every afternoon, pater familias would raise his head from his book and call out to an ever-more frazzled me: what time do you want to play tennis? Or, when are we going for a bike ride?

What universe was he living in?

Actually, he was in the real one. This was, afterall, supposed to be our vacation, even though a week of rest is what I needed once this one was over. Yet, as we all packed up to drive off to various cities and airports, both alpha and uber asked the same thing: Can we do this again next year?

Reader, we did. it does not get easier.

Insights from Experts and Others: Wills, Estates and Dividing Up the Spoils

When it comes to where and when we help our children financially, pater familias and I have taken a Marxist tack: To each according to their needs. It's never overt. An offer of a helping hand here, a fiscal boost there. We've never totaled up who's gotten what or whether the "books" are even. But a recent A to a Q in the Ethicist [NYTimes, 11/11, 2nd question] got me thinking about whether we should.

The writer of the Q earned a comfortable living; his sister, off doing good works in Central America, did not. The parents helped her out financially. Shouldn't there be a reckoning, he asked, so that the aid she had already received be subtracted from her share of the final bequest? "The allocation of money in a will," Randy Cohen warned,"can seem symbolic of the deeper feelings parents have for their children." Some families are able to "discuss these matters openly," but that isn't necessarily you, me or even possibly The Ethicist himself. Most of us, he suggested, prefer to avoid the discord and discomfort such discussions spew. (His final word on the subject: we parents should live it up and spend it all before we go!]

Well, maybe not. But I'm girding myself up to at least let the kids know what our "allow and bequeath" philosophy is--to the extent we have one.