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

Communicating with the Kids: Times to keep your mouth shut--and times not to

There's a new book out on talking to your adult children--and the advice we all give each other to "keep your mouth shut." Ruth Nemzoff, a scholar at Brandeis University, pulls together her studies on the subject in "Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships With Your Adult Children."

Here's one of the points she makes in an interview:

"One of the most important factors in maintaining a healthy relationship with adult children is forgiving both yourself and your child for not being perfect. " And the definition of perfect changes daily, said Nemzoff. "One day it could mean being compassionate, and another day it could mean being high achieving with conflicting desires, so there is no perfection."

On the subject of grown kids moving back into the nest between school and job, she had this to say:

"Tell them what you expect, and invite your returning child to do the same. Agreeing together about the rules of the house before your adult child returns may be key to preventing every out-of-place coffee cup, shoe, or T-shirt from becoming a cue to reenact past dramas."

Ah the reenactment of things past. We all know we press certain emotional buttons when the kids come home, even when it's just for a visit. If only we knew what they were--as well as they do. I haven't read Nemzoff's book yet, but I will and will report back on some of her other insights.

Daily Lives: What do they really want from you?

Jen's mother-in-law is visiting. She's come from her home in Michigan to help with the Washington, D.C. baby--five months old and gurgling. Jen's just come back to work--she has the office next to mine--and she needed the help: Her husband is away at a conference and she has some obligations this week that would make it hard for her to get home in time to pick up the baby by day-care "curfew."
She and her mother-in-law are getting along very well, Jen says. Except for one small thing: Should the baby stay home with grandma or go to day care? Her mother-in-law stayed home with the baby on Monday. On Tuesday, she suggested the baby go to day care. "You don't want to get her out of her routine," Jen's mother-in-law said. 
Here's the conversation I had with Jen:
Jen: I'd much rather my baby stay home with her grandmother. I don't care about breaking the routine.

Me: Maybe that's your mother-in-law's way of saying, "'It's too much for me."

Jen: I can understand that. And I'd be happy to take the baby to day care. I just want her to be honest with me.

Me: That can be hard. She loves the baby. She wants to be helpful. But it can be hard staying home all day with the baby.

Jen: Well, I asked her if she preferred I take the baby to day care. She hurt her ankle the other day and I told her I could understand that it might be hard on her leg to move around with the baby. I asked her to be honest with me. And she just said, "You shouldn't break a baby's routine."

I know what Jen is talking about. I also think I know what her mother-in-law is saying. You want to be helpful; you've come to your daughter or daughter-in-law's house to help out. But it's confining and lonely and, depending on the Grand's age--tedious [newborns sleep the hours away] or exhausting [you're on guard every moment]. I've used similar subterfuges to avoid saying, "It's too confining and lonely. This isn't my house. I have nothing to do here--you don't want me taking over your kitchen or putting my imprint on your house. I need a break."
Jen's point: It's OK to say I don't want to be home with the baby all day today. Just don't pretend it's otherwise, because that way the best interests of the baby may not be being served.

That may be what she says. But is honesty the best policy? What would you do?

I

Money Matters: When is it time for "the chat?"

During the last few years of my mother's life, a visit to her (she lived in another city, an airplane ride away) generally meant a peek at a little list she kept.  She wanted me to know what her assets were and where--a CD at this bank, a safe deposit key at another one.  I came to think of it as "The Chat."
It gave me the creeps.

Yet, I've started wondering whether paterfamilias and I ought to be having "the chat" with our offspring. We're believers in share-it-now, help-them-when-they-need-it. But we're also husbanding what we'll need for an independent and comfortable retirement.  We're not [presumably] close to closing in on the end of our life lines, but you never know what's coming down the pike.

So we're asking ourselves, when is the best time to give our grown children a rundown on the assets we'll be leaving behind for them? It's a touchy issue but we don't want them to have to scramble around to assemble our assets. Maybe the sooner we do it--when we're in the pink of health and robust in appetite for life--is the better time. Not so creepy. Just the facts.

I've just developed a lot more empathy for my mother and The Chat.

Advice from Experts & Others:Only connect, but how?

Are our grown children our friends? Can they be our best friends? Not likely--there is an emotional component that bars the way. If a friend--best or otherwise--loses a job, gains too much weight, becomes ill, we'd worry about them and talk to them directly. "Are you OK?" we might ask. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

But such questions and concerns come freighted with other meanings when they're addressed to a grown child. That's a point Deborah Tannen makes in ter book, "You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation." While Tannen addresses herself to mother-daughter issues, much of what she has to say is true for any parent-child discourse--at least it is in our family.

Here's the point Tannen makes about the fundamental tension built into the conversation between parent and adult child, particularly when it comes ot advice or suggestions and the fine line between those and criticism:

"From the daughter's point of view, the person you most want to think you're perfect is the one most likely to see your faults--and tell you about them. From the mother's point of view, your job has always been to help and protect your daughter, give her guidance based on your greater experience, and ensure that all goes as well as it can for her. But any advice or suggestion you offer implies criticism, because someone who is doing nothing wrong does not need suggestions or advice."