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

Communications: How it feels when we feel left out of our grown childrens' lives.

"Only connect." That's the famously underlying theme of E. M. Forster's Howard End. It also applies to our relationship with our grown children. We want to stay in touch--not just on a superficial level. We want to know what's happening in their lives, where we can help, where we can offer advice. And there are also those vicarious thrills. After all, our lives are slowing down while their's are picking up speed. And the place where those places interconnect can be uncomfortable. Forster is far from the only writer to look at the frailty of those connections.

Poet Cortney Davis captures the essence of a difficult parent-child moment when he writes of a parent and grown child sitting in an airport cafe:

How's work? I'll ask my son, trying to catch up.
He'll concentrate on his plate. I'll pick up the bill.

Money Matters: Are you squandering their inheritance?

So you took that lavish vacation--around the world in 90 days. Or you've remarried and are indulging your new spouse with a luxury condo or cash or other valuables. A recent piece in Money magazine looked at the issue from the grown child's point of view: What to do if your elderly dad showers a new girlfriend with diamonds or good-old mom maintains an expensive membership to a country club she can't afford and never goes to. Last fall I blogged about a divorced friend whose children wanted her to save some money for them because their father, recently remarried and a man of some wealth, was "spending it all" on the new wife.

We can be a source of aggravation, especially to the grown child who's worried about buying his first home or paying his college debts. He may be wondering whether he can count on a legacy from us. She may even think she can stop our free-spending ways by asking us to "grow up."

What Tyler Cowen, a professor economics at George Mason University and the author of the Money article, suggests is that these grown children take note of a classic paper called "The Strategic Bequest Motive." What they'll learn there: Time is money. That is, we parents of adult children want something in return for a bequest. Specifically, Cowen writes, "studies show that children who frequently call and visit their elderly parents tend to inherit larger amounts than those who don't." Taking that a step further, Cowen recommends that the best way to stop us from frittering away their legacy is for them to shower us with love and attention. "Whether consciously or not, they [Reader: That's us.] will treat their money more carefully because they'll want to leave it to you."

I have a different take on the bequest outcome. Perhaps the care and attention translates into a larger legacy because the love and affection already infuses the relationship--even if the patriarch or matriarch is enjoying a childish spending spree.

The authors of the original paper must have had their misgivings about false pledges of love and devotion. A quick check with the paper shows the authors give space up front and on the first page to a quote from King Lear:

Tell me, my daughter

(since now we will divest us both of rule,

Interest of territory, cares of state),

Which of you shall we say doth love us most,

That we our largest bounty may extend

Where nature doth with merit challenge.

Frankly, we should all have a conversation with our grown children about legacies--what they can and cannot or should not expect. We can only hope the strategic bequest--or the need for it--never comes up. RIP King Lear--and Will Shakespeare as well. 

Your Child's Ex: Don't get too attached

Lesson learned the hard way: Get attached to your child's boyfriend or girlfriend at your peril. They break up and you're left feeling the loss. Until they are an official part of the family, keep your emotional distance.

Many of us have been through it. A recent Carolyn Hax column was from a woman who not only grieved for the loss of the daughter's boyfriend, but for his dog as well. "My whole family welcomed him as one of our own," she writes. Then the daughter broke up the romance. Now, the writer says, "I have lost a big chunk of my heart. I was very close to the dog; he spent weekends with me when my daughter and her boyfriend did things together." She is disappointed in her daughter's decision--the couple seemed so right for each other--and she would like to see the dog, and the boyfriend as well.

Life is full of disappointments, and it hurts to get caught up in the grief of a breakup. It's so easy to say, keep your distance but what to do when the young couple spend time with you, move in together and make you part of their lives--then their relationship implodes. You're supposedly "safe" if  you get attached to a son- or daughter-in-law, but marriages implode as well. And if a couple lives together, how different is that from a marriage, in terms of the bonds you may form?

Well, sad as it is and good advice that the warnings are, the important lesson many of us have learned is to keep the sadness to ourselves and not do anything--like visit the dog or the boyfriend--that would alienate your child. Grown children do not take kindly to a parent undermining a big and very personal decision. Even an innocent remark in passing--"Johnny was such a nice guy" "Cindy was such a good cook" "Tiger was the sweetest cat"--can be construed as a critique of their judgment. Even a year or two later. 

Money Matters: Staying on the job to help the kids out

One friend is paying for her daughter's attempt to start a family through a surrogate pregnancy. The tab is high--$100,000 when all is said and done. Her husband is semi-retired and her daughter and son-in-law could never afford the tab. So she's continuing to work--"to pay the bill." At least, that what she says--that if she weren't paying for the surrogate's pregnancy and all the testing and medical procedures that were part of the pregnancy, she would retire--or work part time.

Another friend is also not retiring. Her son has a prestigious job--but the salary is not nearly as high as the job's profile. Maybe someday he can cash in on all that prestige. Meanwhile, the parents want to be sure there's the wherewithal to help out--when the son's roof needs repair, the basement floods, the grandkids' dental bills mount--without eating up their retirement savings. So they, too, are continuing to work--despite tempting thoughts of retiring to travel around the world.

Lots of us are doing the same thing--putting off retirement in order to have the cash to make life easier, better, more bearable for our children. Some of us are kidding ourselves that this is why we continue to work. A lot of us like working--like our jobs and the second family that work provides--or fear the loss of vitality that might come with retiring from the work force. We don't want to give it up, even if we are dog-tired weary by the end of the work week. While some of us continue to work "for our children," many times it's more of a mixed reason. What makes me nervous is any hint to the adult children that they are the reason we're still working. What a guilt trip that would lay down. And it might not even be true.

Grandparenting: Bonding is better when the parents aren't around

A friend is planning a trip to California--to see old friends whose eldest grandson is about to have a Bar Mitzvah.  The California friends date back to my friend's youth and the two families--one on the east coast, the other on the west coast--have stayed close for years. My friend's children and their children are invited. It will be close-friends reunion.

As a special treat, my friend is planning to fly out to Los Angeles four days ahead of time with her 10-year-old granddaughter, her first and oldest grandchild. It will be a mini-vacation together for the two of them. Last year, she took this much-loved grandchild to Paris. She sees the Los Angeles trip as a continuation of a tradition: Grandmother and granddaughter going someplace special together--and bonding ever closer.

Then her daughter, the mother of her Grand, had second thoughts. Maybe she got cold feet. Or just wanted to be part of the holiday. Or something. "I'll come with you," she told her mother. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

My friend said no, it would not be fun. It was, in fact, a deal breaker. It would change the whole nature of the trip. When the parents are around, grandchildren relate to their nanas and poppies in a very different way. Instead of being the center of the grandchild's world for those few days, the grandparent--no matter how loving or special--is second fiddle. There's no longer the one-on-one relationship. Actually, my friend put the bottom line this way: If her daughter came along, she said, "I'd just be a credit card." 

Grandparent Rivalry: Does more time with the toddlers translate into love and devotion?

"It's not a problem." This is what a woman I am talking to at a party tells me when I tell her I've just posted a blog on the subject of grandparent rivalry. Her son, his wife and toddler twins live in Los Angeles; she and her husband--the grandpop--live on the east coast. The other grandparents live in Los Angeles and "are co-parenting"  the twins, says my new acquaintance. But it is not a problem, she says, because they are "very giving people." When she goes west for a visit--usually for four or five days-- the L.A. grandparents make themselves scarce, giving the east coasters plenty of space to bond. "It works out just fine," she assures me. Except once.

The once: She went out for a longer visit--nearly 10 days. And while she was there, her son asked her if she would mind if the other grandparents came by. They wanted to say hello to her--and they wanted to see the children. "I told him, if they have to come they have to come. But I'm very angry about it. If you ask me if it's OK with me, it's not." They did not come.

I came away from that conversation thinking about what was at stake and how I would feel in her place. Are the stakes the fear that the toddlers will love the other grandparents more? That they will have a stronger bond and more allegiance to the other set of grandparents? Despite my previous blog on the subject-- based on a Dear Carolyn Hax query by young parents--I was surprised by my party-companion's reaction. And shocked.

I'd like to think that I would be more generous and welcoming, that I wouldn't ask my son to have a "you can't come by" conversation with his in-laws who have, as the east coast grandmother has already acknowledged, been "very giving" to her son and his young family. But emotions can run strong--and overrule what is in your head.

But there's another emotion running around my head when I'm the out-of-town grannie visiting one of my children and their children: loneliness. There I am in a city not my own, away from my usual routine and  comforts, far from my walking buddies, husband, job, whatever. It doesn't matter how warm and loving the grownchildren and their children are, it is still lonely. Personally, I would welcome a visit from the other grandparents during the long, slow daytime.And a chance to talk ad nauseum about my grandchildren. Who else would be willing partners in such a conversation?

Money Matters: Putting money aside to help the grown kids and their kids

This recession is hard on everyone--more so on those it affects directly: those with the lost job or the diminished 401k. But that hasn't stopped many of us from using what we've got to help those we love. A  study out of Britain may reflect what's happening here as well.

Here are the basics of the report:

13 percent of British grandparents are filling up savings accounts with money for their grandchildren to inherit:. A fifth of this group are saving upwards of £400 every year, which will turn into a £10,000 nest egg when the children turn 18. Additionally, a tenth of these over-50s are putting money into savings accounts to help their adult children through the recession.

The study is in sharp contrast to a report released earlier that revealed that six in 10 over-50s are concerned that their pensions and savings will be insufficient to look after them in retirement.

Meanwhile, back here in the U.S.A., a friend tells me what she's doing to assure that her 33-year-old daughter--unmarried and still struggling with job losses in this economy--will have savings in the bank on her far-in-the-future retirement day. She's has set up a Roth IRA in her daughter's name and is funding it for her--for now. More on this interesting idea in a future post.

Fighting over the grandbaby: New grandparents behaving badly

The Scottish poet Robert Burns had it right: "O would some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us."

I was reminded of that line while reading a Carolyn Hax advisory in the Sunday Washington Post. Here's the gist of the complaint: Young couple with first baby are facing out-of-control competition by grandparents for them--new mom, new dad, new baby--to come visit. The divorced grandmother resents any visits to her ex--one of the granddads. Meanwhile, the young dad's  parents keep count of how many times they visit them versus one of her parents. "It has gotten so bad," the new mother [and someone's grown child] writes, "that they ask us where we are on weekends to see whether we are at another grandparent's house, and if we are, all hell breaks loose."

I know wherein she speaks. Several of my friends have voiced concern that the other grandparents get to see their grandchild more than they do, that the other set will have more influence over, gain more love from, be more important to the grand child. The feelings run deep. I've had little inklings of them myself--don't we all? Fortunately, most of us keep these thoughts and emotions to ourselves or vent them to friends. As you can tell from reading this Post clip--"how can we help them to understand how hurtful it is to be given so much guilt"--the situation there is out of control. But more to the point, there's nothing these grandparents are gaining by making their grown children feel guilty.

Granny as Nanny: Offering your services, even from a distance.

The magazine where I've spent the past 20 years of my career has been sold. The new owners have, as they say, brought on their own editorial team. In other words. my work-family of 20 years is no longer under one roof. So now I am free to spend more time on this blog (a plus) and to be available to help my grown children, who live in cities far from me, should they need it. This is the message I relayed to Alpha Daughter. To which she replied: "Well, I have a real problem with child-care coverage on Wednesday and Thursday. It would be wonderful if you could come up here from time to time to help out." I would pick up my little Grand at school, amuse her, get dinner ready--in other words, I would be a helpful, hands-on grandparent and parent.

It takes some recomputing on my part to figure out how this would work: Free to travel on a Wednesday and Thursday? I'm used to thinking Saturday and Sunday. But why not? "Have computer. Will travel. Can help out." That should be my new motto--if I can just wrap my mind and new reality around it.

Traveling in Asia: Sharing your trip with the grandkids

Paterfamilias and I have returned from our trip to Vietnam. We are still recovering from jet lag and the challenges of dealing with the impenetrable language [they use the same alphabet as we do but not the same pronunciation of the letters], the different culture [this was our first trip to a country not dominated by Western language and thought], the traffic [hundreds of thousands of motorbikes; no traffic lights!] and the climate [hot and hotter in the south, though it was winter].

While we were there, we decided we would share the trip with our Grands. Almost every hotel we stayed at--from the shabby place in the Mekong Delta to the spiffy hotel in Ho Chi Minh City [Saigon] to the business-like hotel in Hanoi--had a computer with access to the Internet. So every evening before we went out to dinner we sat down at the computer and distilled the day for our Grands--filtering the day's activities to focus on what a 6-, 7- and 8-year old would find interesting.

So, we gave them our rules for crossing the streets [if there's a Vietnamese person crossing, go with them. If not, wade into the traffic and walk across it at a stately, measured pace; do not look at the traffic--it will terrify you and make you stop in your tracks and that would be a dangerous thing to do.] We told them how hard it was to speak VIetnamese [Nguyen is pronounced Win; Thu is pronounced Toe; Thuy is pronounced Twee--and that doesn't account for having one of 8 accents on the vowel]. We told them how sweet and friendly the children were [When we were bike riding in rural Mekong Delta, kids would run over and call out, "Hallo, Hallo." One little boy jumped on his bike, rode over to us and called out, "Hallo, Hallo. Good Afternoon," and rode away laughing merrily.] We would describe an ancient temple or tomb we saw and give them Internet links to it. When we moved from city to city, we encouraged them to get their maps out and follow our progress from the south of the country to the north and then over to Cambodia.

One of the wonderful things about emailing about the country and culture we were experiencing was getting an occasional email back--either a question from one of the Grands or a comment from one of our grown children to the effect of how much they were enjoying the reports and the details. In our last email, the day we were leaving to fly back home, one of the Grands is reported to have said, "Oh no. They're coming home. Does this mean no more emails?"

Bottom line:The feeling of inclusion with our children and their children while we were far from home was beyond wonderful. We were still connected.