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

De-Nested: When adult kids move back home, politeness is strained.

I'm a sucker for a new phrase, especially when it captures the definition of the moment. Here's my most recent find: Economy of gratitude. It refers to the breakdown in the way we treat each other--we being the parents and ourr adult children who have moved back into the family nest. It's when family members notice only the inconveniences and ignore the nice things that we do for one another.

According to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times, that doesn't have to happen. "Children and parents can peacefully coexist by approaching the new living arrangement as they would if they were taking on any roommate: Agree in advance on how to handle household purchases, cleaning and other responsibilities. Resolve the question of who is in charge and how the house is to be governed, and the situation may not seem so bad after all."

The L.A. Times is covering the issue because California is one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis. One of the phenomenons of that tragedy is that people who are losing their homes or in danger of losing their homes, are bunking in together intergenerationally. That is, parents with children or children with parents. But that phenomenon is not limited to the usual--parents and their 20-something children. It involves older children. And here's why

An AARP study--released in September and reflecting 2007 foreclosure woes--found that more than a quarter of the foreclosures and delinquencies in the second half of 2007 involved homeowners ages 50 or older. SInce then there has been the calamity of the plunging stock market and the unraveling of the financial safety net for many midcareer Americans and their parents. No reliable figures yet exist on the number of adults forced to move in with parents because of the financial crises--or adult children moving in with their parents to help the parents--but it's clear this group consists of older, previously well-established homeowners.

The time are a changin' and it's not for the better.

Boomerang Kids: Return to the empty nest

A little historical perspective: We may all hear about--and some of us experience--a return of our adult children to the nest--but their leaving before marriage is a relatively new phenomenon. And one some of us may view from a biased perspective.

 Michael Rosenfeld, a social demographer at Stanford University says almost 41% of singles ages 20-29 in 2005 were living apart from their parents, compared with 11% in 1950 and about 19% in 1880. His analysis  shows almost 39% of single women and almost 46% of single men ages 20-29 lived with a parent in 2005, up from 36% of women and almost 42% of men in 2000.

It may only be a blip. “The boomerang idea,” he noted in a USA Today story, “flatters our parental sense that our adult children need us more than they think. They think they’re going to be independent, but we know they’ll come back to the front doorstep and need us again.”

Many of us hope that's not so.

Re-Nesters: Profile from the UK on kids moving back home

We are not alone. The phenomenon taking place here is also raging in the U.K. According to this survey of British home life,

Nearly one in ten parents have grown-up children living with them--young adults who have been "priced off the housing ladder."

The parents are not only looking after their kids well into adulthood, but are also caring for grandchildren.

One in four give regular financial help to their grown-up children; 7 per cent don't get any financial contributions for the household from their adult children.

The biggest help these parents of grown children are giving, this survey says, "is by funding their grown up children's housing costs, by allowing them to carry on living at home for free."

Helicopter landings: Overprotecting adult children does not pay off

There's an interesting discussion on the perils and pitfalls of helicopter parenting--of the sour fruits parents reap when they don't let their grown children grow up and take care of themselves--at this web site. While many of us think of the moms as the overprotective parent, this is a story about a dad who does too much.
It reminds me of a dad I know who was having trouble letting go of a 29-year-old daughter. "I know she has to take off the water wings," he said, "but what if I'm not in the water to catch her."

here's a grab from the entry on jimsjourney.wordpress.com:
"His children were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, but they didn’t have to do it.

I remember one day in particular that the man was more than a bit irritated; he had to go home and change the oil in his forty-year-old son’s car. On further questioning, the man revealed the true reason for his anger… the oil should have been changed weeks earlier.

The bottom line is that his children were only partially to blame. On the surface, it appeared they were taking advantage of Daddy. In truth, Daddy had a personality that needed to be needed."

Money Matters: Helping support a grown child

At last, a financial planner who isn't all bean-counter and estate-protector. There is, says Aaron Katsman, more to having an adult child move back home than rental agreements or fees for food. And more to providing them with a temporary stipend than a loan contract.

Keying in on the recent, economy-based phenomenon of older adult children--in their 30s and 40s--losing a job and either moving back home or needing significant financial assistance, he makes some points that struck a common-sense chord with me:

"Isn’t the point of having money, aside for trying to provide a comfortable lifestyle, to try and help out those less fortunate? Wouldn’t a struggling daughter fit that bill?"

"If parents are themselves stretched financially, they don’t have to actually shell out money for the child. Rather, they can provide a roof and help that way."

"Neither parents nor children view moving back home as a desirable outcome, but if left with no choice, would you actually refuse to support your child?"

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