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.

Money Matters: Health insurance for your grown kids is not an indulgence

Paterfamilias and I had dinner with friends the other night--friends whose oldest child is about to graduate from college. They are recovering from the $50,000 a year it's been costing them and looking forward to his independence, particularly his financial independence. He doesn't, of course, know exactly what he wants to do. He's hoping to take a year or two to figure it out.

That brought back a lot of memories for me and the pater. When our kids graduated from college--lickety-split, within one year of each other (talk about recovering from tuition stress)--our daughter headed out to the West Coast : She loved painting and wanted to be an artist. Our son went to New England: He wanted to see if he could make it as a writer. Both of them took part time jobs to support themselves--to pay their share of a shared room in a group house and their share of the spaghetti that they lived on. So they were independent--except that they did not put aside any of their earnings from part-time work for health insurance. Naturally not. What 22-year-old who has had nothing more than some sports-related injuries to deal with, thinks about health care coverage.

But we did. There they were, far from home and on their own. But what if something terrible happened to them--an illness that put them in the hospital or required high-priced specialist care. Naturally, we'd want to make sure they were in the best hospital for their problem and hire the best physicians we could find. There is nothing in life that we love or treasure more than our children. So we took out so-called catastrophic health insurance policies for them. I say for them--it was not something they were going to do. And we didn't see it as an indulgence. We weren't insuring them so much as our assets. A 10-day stay in a hospital and a few visits to a specialist could wipe out our savings.

Our friends at dinner hadn't had the chance to think this little "dependence" issue through yet. One thing that has changed in the past year or two is that several states have passed laws allowing parents to cover their adult children--most set limits at 26 years of ag but in Florida, it's 30.

Insurance for those young adults is something worth planning for. We'll all need our assets for the little luxuries of life for our children's children--when they finally arrive.

Empty Nesters: Filling the adult child's nest--with you

Lots of self-help tips for parents of grown children center on what to do when the adult kids move back to the family home. But now there's a new trend: The U.S. Census reports that there is a 75 percent increase in parents under the age of 65 who are now living with their adult children--in their children's homes.

What's behind this reverse trend? Some of it is the troubled economy--foreclosures, loss of jobs (older baby boomers have a particularly tough time re-attaching once they've lost employment) and overall difficulty making ends meet. 

According to the census data, the average size of both families and households grew from 2000 to 2007, after shrinking slightly in the 1990s. The average family in 2007 had 3.2 people, up from 3.14 in 2000.

Letting Go: Parenting styles for the ages

We've been through the basic steps of parenting--from being a caregiver for an infant, through manager of school-age kids and advisors to our older teens and young adults. Now, we're moving from consultants  to the final stage: colleagues to our mature, adult children. Sounds like the best of times but it's no easier than the first 18 years when they lived at home. A recent story goes through those stages and makes the point that what's good for one stage of parenting doesn't work so well for another. Let the parenting style fit the child's age.
So, what's a colleagues stage all about?

"This final phase of parenting," the article states, "recognizes that there comes a time when our grown children become friends as well as offspring. The unique relationship of parent and child never really ends. As our children join us in adulthood, however, they often begin to share common values, goals and experiences with us. These can be the foundation of a friendship that will be special to parent and child alike."

So far so good. Sounds like the ultimate goal of parenting. But, the writer warns, "Some parents are unable or unwilling to 'go with the flow'" ... It's the fit that's important."

And here's the final word:

"Letting go" of our children may be one of the most frightening things we ever do. Yet, it can be one of the most rewarding as well. Oh, and we will make mistakes. There is no doubt about that, either. What is important is that we learn from our mistakes."

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.

Empty Nested: The warring emotions

I am now more than a decade past shipping uber son and alpha daughter off to college. They've graduated, started careers, moved to other cities and coasts, are leading successful and independent lives: just what any parent could wish. I couldn't feel better about them. And yet, I still remember to this day the first month of the empty nest--my children are one year apart in school years and when my youngest left, the house was suddenly so cold, so empty. No loud music blaring from the stereo; no basketball being bounced in the living room. Paterfamilias and I, who've had a good marriage, found ourselves quarreling with each other. Nitpicking. Not being nice. It took a while to realize that we were both feeling incredibly sad at the loss of the children. And it is a loss, no matter how happy we are to see them set those feet on the road to independence. And as in any marriage, it always helps when one is feeling up when the other is going through a down. But here we were, both down. We got through it and started to enjoy the next stage in our lives. But there are dangers in letting our children see those emotions--it's called a guilt trip--and there are strongly competing emotions as well, as therapists Susan Newman and Michele Weiner-Davis point out in this bit of blog from Psychology Today. Hopefully, paterfamilias and I never transmitted the sad ones, only the glad ones, to our kids. Evidently, they felt guilt-free enough to move about the country.

Here are some highlights from the Psychology Today blog:

Some words of caution from Susan Newman:

"In our digital age, the real risk is that parents remain in charge directing a student's every move no matter where in the country he or she attends college. E-mail, instant messaging, and cell phones allow immediate contact -truly a double edged sword. For college-age children, the journey toward independence is being short-circuited when parents continue to micromanage their college lives. "

"When parents run interference for every single snag in their child's life, mom and dad maintain control of their college student. Constant involvement is a very hard habit to break."

Finally, here's a surprising observation about the empty nest and the blue feeling parents feel when their kids move out and on.

"Men are 'less prepared for the emotional component of the transition.'
For women empty nest is not such a terrible thing, but rather they view it as an opportunity to move on. Men express regret for the things they didn't do and opportunities they didn't take to be with their children."

Some observations on empty nest emotions from from Michele Weiner-Davis:  

"A certain stage in one's life is over. The kids have flown the coop. And while it's true that when young adults leave home, it opens up many new horizons for parents, it's also true that endings often bring a sense of loss. Feelings of loss are not unhealthy, they are a sign of love, connection and caring. What is unhealthy is the mistaken but common notion that feelings cause people to act in certain ways. In other words, if I'm sad about my child leaving home, I will behave in ways that will signal these feelings and "lay a guilt trip" on my child. "

"I have no difficulty experiencing diametrically opposed feelings at one time--sadness and pride--and feel no compunction whatsoever to act on my feelings of grief other than to normalize it when others share this emotion and encourage them to find ways to fill the void. In other words, it's possible to feel sadness and not behave in ways that are self-centered or that would thwart our children's growth.

"When a young person asked me what she should do because she felt guilty leaving her single mother behind, I simply responded: It's not your job. It is lovely that you care about her feelings. But she is an adult and she must find ways to make her life fulfilling without you. All parents need to do this, even single ones. I know you love her, and you should keep in touch with her. But she should reassure you that she is fine(even if she is lonely), because it is YOUR job to spread your wings right now and fly. Let her know you love her but keep flying."

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.

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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