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

The Old Order Changeth: Making new plans for Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving dinner I made is a vivid memory. My two children were toddlers; we didn't look forward to the four-hour long drive to my mother's house and even less to the traffic-delayed return trip--six to eight hours stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike. Suggestions were made. And taken. My mother and brother and his wife would come to our house.

We never looked back. Thanksgiving has been at our house for more than 30 years--through births and deaths and additions of our best friends and their children, plus assorted others. Everyone loves it. Well, that's what they tell us. But life changes. Our best friends are gone; their children have moved away. So have our children. For the past decade, our children and their growing families have piled onto airplanes and come home for the holiday anyway. It's exhausting for everyone but it's wonderful to fill the house with all that excitement--and noise and mouths to feed. It's also expensive: we are talking about 8 airfares plus, this year, renting a van to transfer the family of five [a new baby!] from airport to home and back again.

So this year, suggestions were made. And taken. Thanksgiving will be at uber son's home this year. Alpha daughter and her family can drive over--it's only three hours away. We'll fly up a day or two early. I'll do most of the cooking--my daughter-in-law has her hands full with two school-age children and an infant.

Sounds fine. And it is. And yet. It is the old order changing and yielding place to the new. We say that this arrangement is only for this year, that each year we may do something different--our house, daughter's house. Could be anywhere. And yet it is a sign of passing time and years. Another flattening of the hierarchy, as my friend Marian the psychiatrist likes to say. We are moving even further off the center stage--we've acknowledged that in many other ways--and this is just another Rite of Passage. We don't feel old; we don't feel like we're ready to be flattened. And yet there comes a time when it's Their Time.

I've always loved Thanksgiving. It isn't laden with all the gift-giving or religious symbols of other family holidays.  It's just turkey [well, tofurkey for some] and pumpkin pie. It will be fun to put it all together  in another kitchen. But it won't be the same. The torch is passing.

Family Vacations: The discomforts of togetherness

Summer vacations are over but Thanksgiving is upon us. So I thought I'd share these notes I made when friends talked about their summer vacation with both their sons [neither of whom lives near them or each other] and all their grandchildren--six adults, five small children together in one large vacation house near the beach for a week.

SHE SAYS:

"There were many wonderful moments. There was so much interaction between the little kids. It was great to see them playing together. But...

"There were too damned many dynamics. My two daughters-in-law have never jelled. So they avoid each other. One harbors a lot of anger over her brother-in-law yelling at her a few years ago for something she said to me. She's never forgiven him so he withdraws when he's around her and I get upset about that.

"When they're around us, my sons regress in their behavior and slip back into old patterns. And if the little kids would have a fight, I would intervene and if I did on behalf of one son's kids, the other son would get upset with me as though I were siding with his brother.

"One of my son's and his wife are quite strict with their children. It isn't just discipline; they don't let them do anything out of their sight. They are very careful and cautious. My other son and his wife are looser. They give their kids a lot more leeway. So, when he and his wife disappear for a while and let their kids make their own lunch, play in the yard by themselves, my other son and his wife feel like they have to be responsible for their brother's kids. They end up making lunch for them, watching out for them. And that creates a lot of tension.

HE SAYS

"I enjoy having my sons around. They help me do things--like major repairs to the house. And I like both of my daughters-in-law. They're both very pleasant to me. But during most of the visit, I feel irrelevant. "

.....

For those of us whose children live in other cities far from us and from each other, we often make heroic efforts to bring everyone together--to rekindle that "ideal family" spirit; to make it possible for the little cousins to get to know each other, to enjoy seeing our children and their children have fun together. And then we either get caught in the middle of a resurgent sibling quarrel or, if they and their spouses are finally having a nice bonding moment, we feel totally left out.

Another friend rents a house for six weeks over the summer. Each of her sons comes to visit for a week of vacation with his family. Do they ever come at the same time? "Are you kidding?" she says. "They know better than that. The wives don't dislike each other but they don't particularly like each other either. The boys are brothers but they're not particularly close anymore. And, even more to the point, the young families have very different parenting styles. So serial visiting is the way we go."

Not that there are lessons to be learned here. Just the comfort of knowing we are not alone in struggling with the many dynamics--whatever they may be--when our intergenerational families get together.<

Have any of you found a way to get everyone together for holidays or vacations and still enjoy the togetherness?

Vacation Views: Who pays for what

This is a little too problem-free for my experience, but here's a blog, from Momsbestwisdom that talks about how a family with seven adult children handles the financing and management of a beach vacation together. The gist of what this mom has to say is this:

--Vacations are an important part of our yearly tradition. My husband, Patrick, has always held vacations as a family as an important and necessary event. 

--Now that almost all of our children are grown, we have established the tradition of a yearly beach trip as a family. Everyone comes--sons, daughters, in-laws, and grandchildren. Patrick pays to rent a six bedroom, four bath house with a pool, and each family is in charge of making one dinner and doing the clean up that day. The family beach trip has been a big success.

--Patrick and I have also gone on several vacations with our adult children and their spouses one at a time. It gives us an opportunity to know them as a family and gives us a lot of time with grandchildren.

My hat is off to them if that beach vacation is as raucously happy as it sounds. Maybe the greater the number adult kids and grand kiddies in attendance, the easier it is: You can't focus on any one person's discomfort.

This next excerpt from a blog--by an adult child at an enfamille beach vacation--takes note of some of the roils behind the raucous good times:

You know, no matter how much you love your family, it is inevitable that there will be some level of stress when adult children spent a week with their parents and their own children. No major drama though. (Okay, there was some drama, who am I kidding? And I really tried to stay out of anything and everything was just not any of my business. And then I started to worry that I was becoming a hard and uncaring person. So you see the Goddess Neurosis, she never deserts me.)

Anyhow, we are so lucky that my parents are able to make this happen, and am very aware that one never knows what the future will bring, so CARPE DIEM and all that.

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

A New Baby: Offering help in one form and another

There's a lot of excitement in our small family. We have a new baby--that is, Uber Son and his wife have brought forth their third. Babies are something we know something about. And we also know--experience cannot be denied--how hard it can be to juggle taking care of a newborn while also meeting the needs of two young children, a spouse, a home and mealtimes. We know how helpful it is to have another pair of hands--especially hands that can drive a car and take a child to piano lessons, get another to soccer practice, race to the supermarket for supplies, cook meals that can be frozen for use on another day--and bring the nursing mother a glass of water while that new baby is taking nourishment (oh the thirst when you're nursing).

Paterfamilias and I just spent several days as extra pairs of hands. This is, of course, a basic service that comes with being parents of grown children.  But when we leave--we live a seven-hour drive to the south--both Paterfamilias and I key in on the same thing: How will they manage? I am distraught that I can't offer to spend another week or two to help. (It's something called a job.) What, after all, am I here for if not to help when help is needed. I look at my schedule and try to figure out when I can come back.

Paterfamilias has another solution. He sends them a check, earmarked for paying for babysitters. Get them often, he writes in his note.

It's practical. It's helpful. And it's also appreciated. And it's what we parents of grown children can do when we can't do the job ourselves.

News Alert: How others (our grown children) see us

This just in from MSNBC. It's not only a look at what we do that our grown children don't like, it asks for anecdotes--outrageous is what it requests.  The headline says it all: Grandparents Behaving Badly. Check it out.

A Big Event: Who has the bragging rights?

Our friends the Ds are having a baby. Let me rephrase that: Their daughter is having a baby. Her second. Their fifth. Their daughter's husband called at midnight with the good news: healthy 8-lb boy. By 12:02, Mrs. D was at her computer sending out an email announcement to family and friends.So far, so good--except that her daughter hadn't called her brother. It was late, the brother had three small children under five years of age and sleep is a precious commodity. The call could wait till morning. The sister-in-law, however, was up at 6, logged onto her computer and got the news by email from her mother.-in-law. Her nose was quite out of joint. She and her husband wanted the joy of the personal announcement from the daughter and brother-in-law. They  were quite resentful about the email.

I think about that now because we are having a baby. That is, uber son  and his wife are having their third. She is almost a week late and we are in daily communication about when an inducement might take place. Soon, if that baby doesn't make it's way into the world by week's end. So I bring up the question about who will tell uber-son's sister. Does he mind if we do?
He is dumbfounded by the question. "We're a close family," he says. "Who cares who calls first?"

Presumably, it's the mass email that's less than a charm. A call is still personal. Email's OK for friends and far-flung family but not for the nuclear ties that bind. At least this is the note I've made to myself.