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

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.

Re-Nesting: What's driving them home?

The latest stats are not out yet--the census moves slowly--but it will doubtless show that this Great Recession has created a migration of sorts: adult children moving back home. In 1970, less than 8 percent of adult children between the ages of 25 to 34 lived with parents. By 2000, that percent was at 10.5. By 2010, the percent will be larger. The census suggests that there will be more than 80 million parents of grown children who have one of those children living home again.

What’s driving adult kids back home? Difficulties finding a job, decision to go back to school [graduate degree, anyone?]. Then there's foreclosures and housing prices. Besides the economic reasons, there are the age-old ones--protective parents and kids who've learned to love the comforts of being taken care of.

In today's world, financial pressures have to top the list. But there's also a need for a safe haven during a divorce. And, the grown kids may move back home to help out their aging parents.

If you're looking for practical advice on what to do if the boomerang happens to you, try this Web site. The bottom line on the author's advice: "Remember to treat your boomerang kids as adults. Making life easier on grown kids who live at home by doing their laundry

, cleaning their rooms, etc. can hurt them in the long run by delaying their transition into responsible, independent adulthood."

Keep Your Mouth Shut: Rearing their children is their business.

Every piece of advice you've read tells you the same thing: Don't interfere with your grown children's parenting of their children. And we don't. But oh how close we can come to making the fatal error. It's tough to sit and watch discipline in action. This is especially true for those of us who live far from our grown children, as we do: Visits tend to be extended and you see too much--but don't know enough about what's been going on to put it in context.

This Thanksgiving, we hung around Uber son's house for four days, and on one of those days we were witness to a major meltdown: One of our grands lost a checker game to a sibling. There were tears and much unhappiness. The parents were adamant about imparting lessons about good sportsmanship and how important it is in life to know how to "take a punch" gracefully. This only seemed to produce more tears and wailing, followed by more chastising and lecturing. To us, the witnesses sitting idly by, it seemed like over-reaction on the parents part. It was uncomfortable and painful to sit there. And Paterfamilias is a lucky man. As he was about to open his mouth and intervene in defense of his Grand--a major no-no--I was able to clap a hand over his mouth--figuratively speaking. Even though I wanted to help put an end to it, too.

Of course, 10 minutes after the meltdown, all was well. The Grand was back in the room, laughing and talking and kidding around with us. And that's what we have to remember when we're tempted to "say something." We don't have the context of previous behavior or the knowledge about the consistency of discipline to balance out what we're hearing and seeing in the moment. Besides, our grown children may not know better about parenting than we do [look how successful we were!], but then again, maybe they do. Besides, it's their ball and their court.

Thanksgiving's Good Tidings: We see ourselves as others see us

Our family is together for the Thanksgiving feast: Paterfamilias and I, Uber Son and his family, Alpha daughter and hers. We are gathered together at Uber Son's house--we all live in different cities and his is centrally located, big enough to fit us all in and require the least amount of airplane flights. There is much to say about these several days of togetherness--there are moments of great joy and hilarity--grandkids are cute and smart and amazing--and some difficult passages that attach to having so many people together at once, vying for attention. This is especially so when you all haven't been together for an extended period of time. I will write more of that after I've digested it. But one moment stands out:

We are seated for dinner--kids at a small table near the adult table. The wine has been poured at the big-people table, and Paterfamilias suggests a toast to being together plus a question: What do each of us have to be thankful for. Our answers vary based on our particular perspectives--Paterfamilias is grateful for the political change in the country; I am thrilled to see all my grandchildren playing together under one roof. And so on. But one of our guests--the widower of our best friend, a man who has been part of our Thanksgivings since the children were teenagers and Thanksgivings were held in our home--has his own observation. He has flown up to Uber son's house to be part of this year's feast and he says he is thankful to be with a functioning family when there is so much dysfunction all around us.

As a family, we may have our difficult passages, but they are just that: passages.

Paying for Vacation: Who foots the bill when you're all adults?

"It took a lot of courage to make that call." That's what my dentist tells me. We are talking about a vacation she took with her two sons and their families. One son lives in the middle of the country; the other on the east coast in the same city as my dentist. She wanted to have a mini-vacation where the sons could see each other and the cousins could play together and get to know each other better. I know that feeling. For several years, my two children lived on opposite coasts and I saw a me-organized vacation as a means toward cousin-bonding.

Her problem--one many of us face--was fiscal: She didn't feel it was fair to pay for everyone--her sons are, after all, adults who are able to support their families. But she knew it would be easy for one son to pay his way and a hardship for the other. That's when she made the call: To the son who was more comfortable financially. She asked him how he felt about paying for a condo unit for himself and his family. No problem, he said. "Well," she then told him, "I don't think your brother can so would you mind if we paid for part of his unit." "No problem, Mom," her son said. She then called her other son and he told her he really couldn't afford the trip. She offered to split the condo charge with him and the deal was sealed.

The 4-day vacation at a park in Ohio--two condo units (one for each young family) and a room at the main lodge for my dentist and her husband--went really well, she says. The cousins had fun together. Each son and family cooked dinner for the rest of the extended family one night; the parents took everyone out one night.

There were many things that made the vacation a success. Good weather. Fun things to do together and apart. But a key, my dentist says, was talking about and settling the financial issues in advance.

Your Money and Your Kids: Are they counting on a legacy?

At dinner with friends, paterfamilias mentions that his children--that's our grown children and their spouses--have told us, 'Spend your money; travel and enjoy yourselves; don't save it for us.'  In a way, he's bragging just a little bit. He's saying, in effect, his kids are doing well and don't need our help.

Our friends--she's a "new" friend, having just moved in with him, who's an "old" friend--laughs and says that's not what her children are saying. They're telling her: "Save some money for us. Our father [her former husband] is spending it all on his new wife."

We all chuckle over that. But neither of these dialogs deals with the real world--at least the real world I'm experiencing. Yes, I'm going to enjoy some of the money we've earned over the years, but yes, I'm also going to save something to leave for my children and grandchildren. Or, if I don't leave it, it will because they've already gotten it: either I've lent it or spent it--to or on them.  But even with that lend-or-spend attitude, I hope there's a small legacy for them [if old-age medical needs don't get in the way; how enjoyable a spend would that be?]--something to help the Grands through college or for my children to do something they've always wanted to do or just something to haveif there's an unanticipated need.

And I think that's what our friend's children are, in effect, saying. "We want to know a safety net will be there if we need help with some major expenses." Ours aren't articulating it because they still have the safety and stability of our Being Together as the same old us. We're not jetting off to a second youth or off on some other kind of spree. They can afford to say they don't care about a legacy, but it's not because they may not need it. That's a pretty comforting feeling for us--and maybe what paterfamilias was getting at by raising the subject at dinner with friends.

When Your Grown Child Needs You: The loneliness of the long-term visitor

Have you read Olive Kitteredge? Do. It's all about us and our interior lives, emotions and fears--of growing older, of our children moving away, of our spouses dying or worse, losing their minds.

For those of us whose grown children live in another city far from us, there's one particular story in Elizabeth Strout's series of linked short stories (they all revolve around Olive, a big woman with a big persona) that hit home. Olive, who has a dysfunctional relationship with her only child--her son has moved away and avoids contact with her--is suddenly invited by her son to come visit him and his new wife and her children from former relationshsips. The story touches on the tumult of emotions we go through when we visit our children, especially on our own without our life's partner--the joy of being needed and embraced by them and their family; the awkwardness of fitting in, of being a fifth wheel, of being part of things but not; touched by the affection within the little family; dismayed when a discipline of a child is [from our point of view] mishandled; the disorientation when you witness a nasty spat between spouses. And the surprise--the shock really--of the overwhelming desire to go home, even after just a few days in residence. Or, as Olive tells herself, "After three days, I stink like fish."

Strout also captures the almost inexplicable need and desire to touch base with our home base--a spouse, a close friend. To do so is almost an affirmation that we haven't melted into the woodwork. I think it gets back to that notion that we are no longer center stage. We know it. Intellectually, we accept it. When we go visit en force--paterfamilias and the momma bear--we're an exciting event; the center of things. And that's why we tend to wrap up the fish in a day or so. Leave while you're still ahead and still the Star Turn. But when we stay for longer--usually because we're needed for emergency babysitting-type purposes--the reality of how much on the periphery we really are hits home. And this despite all the kind words and attempts at inclusion our children make. Of course, Olive didn't get that from her son. But I leave what happened to her to the story (within the larger story), "Security." Read it and feel sad--for Olive and for all the losses that come along with getting older and being the parent of an adult child whose focus is, rightfully, on his or her growing family.