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

Parenting Adult Children: Feeling like an outsider when we visit.

On our way home from a recent visit with Uber son--his is a family of five that lives some 350 miles away from us--Paterfamilias and I were in accord: The 2-day visit had been bittersweet.

The sweetness was in the welcome when we arrived; in observing how grand our three Grands are, each in their own way; in seeing the closeness and strength of our son's marriage; in marveling at the way he's built his career and in our daughter-in-law's ability to build a warm home around challenging demands.

We spent almost all of our "Blitzkrieg visit" (in one day; out the next) at indoor soccer games (a Saturday night tournament, no less) and hanging around the house. When the sun shone, we were outside with one or all of our Grands, the wee-est one riding her trike, the biggest heaving a football to his dad or Gramps and the three Grands building a snowman with the remains of an early-Spring snowfall. All of that comes under the general category heading of "Sweet."

So what was bitter? Maybe bitter is too harsh a word. But what had us feeling a good deal less than warm and fuzzy about the visit was the feeling of being excluded--of being on the outside looking in. It was likely not intentional, just the reality of not being part of the in-group of a very tightly knit family.

       

A few days after we got home, Uber son posted on his Facebook page a description of a game he and his family had just taken up: Sardines. It's a variation on the theme of hide and seek. They go down into the basement. One person turns off the light and hides. Everyone else tries to find him/her and when they do, they hide with him/her. The last person left still looking is "it" next time. Uber son noted happily that "My three kids ALL love it and how many things can keep an 11 year old and a four year old happy? All of them would choose it right now over a movie pretty much hands down."

It struck me that Sardines was the perfect metaphor for what we experienced. They huddle together and we can't really find a way to be part of them.

We are not alone in feeling this way. I know that--from friends who've experienced similar visits to their grown children and from therapists who offer advice to those parents of grown children who are feeling their way through the unhappiness of exclusion. Dr. Kathleen McCoy, a psychotherapist who blogs on midlife and beyond, noted that some parents complain that they feel they are "on a socially accepted ice floe when it comes to their adult offspring." or that they are "bit players in the lives of their adult offspring."

McCoy suggests that we reframe the feelings of being on the side lines. "Instead of feeling diminished and left out, one can get in tune with the rhythm of life. We can reframe being a "bit player" to "having a front row seat" or "cheering them on."  Letting the pleasure of generativity flow over you as you marvel at the accomplishments of your children and grandchildren can be life-changing."

She admits there may be times when you miss being central to your children's daily lives. "My Aunt Molly used to say that, as you age, 'you're welcome at the party, but the party isn't for you.' " McCoy adds, "participating in the party, minus the burden of being the central focus, can be even more satisfying."

Intellectually I know she's right but it doesn't feel that way when we're in the moment. Her Aunt Molly's line is a zinger that reminds us of our deepest feeling: Most of us don't necessarily want to be the life of the party but we do want to be part of it. And when we feel somehow pushed away--however unintentional it may be--it's bittersweet. And a reminder that we did the same thing to our parents. So much for the pleasures (and guilt trip) of generativity.

 

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Grandparenting: Finding a place in the busy lives of our grown children and their children

What has the grandparenting life come to? We had to make an appointment to telephone Happy Birthday wishes to a 10-year-old grandchild. Okay, it wasn't like a business apppointment but we did have to txt and e-chat to find a moment when the phone would be answerable and the appropriate child available to hear good wishes sent her way.

                                 

There is a back story. Of course there is.Our grandchildren have aged out of toddler-hood and preschool--those were the days when we sent balloon bouquets to great huzzahs of excitement on their part. They are now primary and middle-schoolers. There are soccer practices, piano lessons, gymnastic classes, play dates, homework and who knows what else. In the case of Uber son, whose family lives in a city far from ours, those activities--and the coordination of said lessons, practices and playdates--are multiplied times three children and would take an excel sheet to map and execute if my daughter-in-law didn't manage it all in her head.

The busyness is understandable. Therefore, so is setting a time when there's a break in the child's day and she or he can come to the phone. It's when we finally get through--appointment kept!--that we find  the conversation not very satisfying. It is the end of a long day. The Grand is tired. She has a date with her dad to read a book together before bedtime. She's very polite but we can sense how--well, what a drag this call might be. It was so much easier when air-blow ups of Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty were an option.

                                     

So why do we persist with the telephone call? I have been thinking a lot about this. First off, we love our grandchildren. We want to remind them that, though in our case we don't live nearby, we are another set of adults who care deeply about them, that they are very special to us and very special. In short, it's a reminder that we are there for them.

But there's another part: I think we do it to remind our grown children, whose lives are even busier than their children's are (and certainly than ours are, now that the child rearing is done and our careers are winding down), that we are part of the family--the part that shares the deep and constant love for the most precious aspect of their lives, their children.

That's as good a reason as any to make the appointment, if that's what it takes to send the message.

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Understanding Social Media: Questions of etiquette

Gotta face the truth: We will never understand--or accept--all the subtleties of social media. There is a generation gap. Not that we don't have Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. StumbleUpon, anyone?

 

The gap comes in the way we use those sites and the way our adult children--and their children--do. I'm not talking about the teen-like behavior of letting it all hang out there on the ether--the stupid pranks played on friends, the rowdy behavior at beer parties, the unfortunate experiments with illegal substances, all the stuff we know shouldn't be up there for future employers (or even us) to read. Stuff we may even warn our emerging adults or grandchildren about.

What I'm talking about are subtle offenses as we stay in touch via the Internet. To judge by the advice columns, a lot of us get really upset over our adult children or their children sending us an email thank you note instead of penning one on paper. Personally, I think we just have to get over it and be glad we got any acknowledgement at all. What's the big difference between pen/paper and a txt message or an email--or even a Facebook acknowledgement? A thanks is a thanks.

But breaches of etiquette can be trickier than a thank you note. A recent writer to Philip Galanes  Social qs in the New York Times wrote about a young man in his early 20s who posted his father's death on his Facebook page and announced it via Twitter to his friends and followers. The young man's mother--who was the father's ex wife--was appalled. So, how serious a breach of etiquette was it?

Galanes agreed that Facebook and Twitter are "too chilly for sharing tragedies with our nearest and dearest. Not to mention that these posts would be sandwiched between gags by Jimmy Fallon and clips of Honey Boo Boo." Social media, he suggests, is better suited to spreading the word to workaday pals.

That said, Galanes faces reality. "It’s only natural that he would turn to his comfort zone in a time of grief. For you and me and others north of 32, that would almost certainly involve a telephone. But for your son, who probably picks up the phone to speak rarely, if ever, his impulse would be to text and tweet and post his sad news on Facebook. There is little use in bemoaning our changing times. I just hope we all find what we need in our dark hours."

Just to put the "changing times" in perspective. A recent Pew survey on the use of social media in political life, found 60 percent of American adults use either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter; 66 percent of those social media users--or 39 percent of all American adults--have used social media to post their thoughts about civic and political issues, react to others' postings, press friends to act on issues and vote, follow candidates, ‘like' and link to others' content, and belong to groups formed on social networking sites.

That being the case, is it any wonder that young adults who grew up on Twitter and Facebook would use it not just for civic statements but to express other near-to-their-heart sentiments and a thanks to their parents or gramps.

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Grandparenting: A home run with the Grands and the Grown Kids

"Only connect." That's the guiding principle of E. M Forster's Howard's End. And it applies to our lives as they revolve in and around our grown children and their progeny. We're always looking for that special way to connect--to say something meaningful or just amusing that hopefully they'll remember us by or think of us fondly by.

All of which is a long way around saying that in that regard, I Hit a Home Run. At least I think I did. Both my grown children and their families live in cities impacted by the mountain of snow that fell in early February. [Does that storm have a name yet? If so, I missed it.] In any case, when a friend sent a series of snow humor cartoons my way, I clipped two that I thought would inspire the young "build stuff in the snow" set and sent them to my Grands via their parents' email.

This was one

This was the other

I got the ultimate compliment, given the limits of email correspondence: I quote my daughter-in-law's message in full: "Kids got a kick out of this." Short but sweet. In my mind's ear, I can hear them chuckling over the clips.

Warms the heart. Makes all that downloading and dragging of images (some of the images were not appropriate for the younger set)--and the pleasure you anticipate the Grands will get--worth the effort.

In case you're wondering what sort of snow humor would not be quite right for toddlers and pre-teens, here's one I'm still giggling over.

 

 

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Grown Children and Their Families: Feeling the need to feel needed

I have a case of parent/grandparent envy. My friend Jo has her work cut out for her in the next few weeks.

Her daughter (the mother of Jo's twin grandsons who have just started kindergarten) has to leave on a business trip. She'll be gone for three weeks--a first for the young family. Jo already has plans to entertain the twins on the weekend--she's thought of lots of fun things to do with them that will take their minds off their mother's absence. Even though her daughter and son-in-law live almost an hour drive away, she plans to perk up the twins' weekdays with several drop-by visits late in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Jo's son and daughter-in-law are expecting their third child. Last week, her DIL was put on bed rest--her blood pressure has been soaring. The baby is due in six weeks and the third-time mother-to-be now spends her days lying on the living room couch, laptop on her belly, telecommuting to and from her job. The two older kids--both in middle school--need to be picked up from various activities. Jo and Larry--grandma and  grandpop--will help out there. Jo also has been cooking meals and delivering them.

When Jo and Larry, who both retired a few months ago, laid out the coming weeks, I felt a twinge of envy. Not about the additional time they'll get to spend with the grandkids--though that's a nice benefit. It's more about the feeling of being needed.

Of course, my children don't live close by--both live in other cities that are a long drive or a one-hour+ plane ride away. And I'm still working, albeit with very flexible hours and the ability to grab my laptop and work anywhere. When my children have had emergencies [a daughter-in-law in the hospital] or a known need [my daughter and son-in-law both traveling for work at the same time], I've managed to get there to help out, happy to do so.But if there were needs like Jo and Larry's grown children have, it would be hard for me to do all the nice little things--bring over dinner; cheer up the twins--without making it a big trip, an expensive one, too.

When we parents live far away from our grown children, our children find other ways to cope. Friends pitch in. Their help may not come with the loving care ours does, but it fills the need and our children help their friends out in return. It's what Paterfamilias and I did when we moved away from our families.

There are times when being so far away from my children leaves me with an empty feeling. There is something profoundly comforting to feel needed by your grown children and to be able to do something about it.

 

Parenting Adult Children: We no longer get to make their important decisions

When our children were young and living in our house, we made decisions about their lives--where they would go to school, how they would dress, whether they would be allowed to drive our car. As parents of adult children, that's no longer our terrain, and that can be painful when our children make decisions that run deeply counter to what we would do.

It can be especially hard to take when the decisions involve our grandchildren. A friend told me about a man in her memoir-writing class. He talked about how his daughter's only child, now 13, was gifted in math and science. To the grandfather, his granddaughter's mind worked in the same way his did and he enjoyed working out problems with her. When she applied to and was accepted at a competitive school for math and science, he was thrilled--his beliefs in her potential were confirmed and he could see the school as a launching pad for a brilliant career.

His daughter saw things differently. She thought it was more important for her daughter to continue at the religious school she had been attending since kindergarten. There was no argument the grandfather could present to his daughter that would persuade her that the math-science school was a golden opportunity, that religion could be taught at home--how much more of it did she need after eight years of it?--and that it was foolhardy to throw away this chance of a superior education. 

And yet, there it was. No was no. He was helpless to change the course of his grandchild's schooling--he who had always put a premium on education and seen it as the way he, as an immigrant, had been able to make his way in the world. 

It's a tale of frustration. Maybe the writer's workshop will be cathartic, help him work through his feelings by writing about the offending events. One thing that can't be reworked, however, is that he doesn't have the standing to make the choice. And that's what can be so anxiety provoking about being a grandparent. We may see our children making a mistake in the way they are bringing up our grandchildren, but they are the parents and all we can do is hope to be kept in the loop of what's happening. If the stake's are high enough--and the grandfather in this case thought they were--we can double down on persuasion and reason. But in the end, we have to limit the amount of conflict we take on.

A few days after I heard this story, I came across a  metlife survey that asked grandparents about the values they hoped to pass down to their children and grandchildren. Not too many surprises here: most of us--88 percent--want to pass along honesty, then came good behavior (82%), self-sufficiency (70%), higher education (69%), and good health habits (68%). We may have more input in these values than we do in day-to-day decisions. So maybe we're not as helpless as we think.

Vacation Time: Finding the formula for a stress-free family vacation

Midway through our family vacation in Vermont, the Grands put on a magic show. As dusk fell, we adults--Paterfamilias and I, Uber son and wife, Alpha daughter and husband--sat inside and nursed our wines and hot teas. The Grands were outside on the lawn plotting and putting together a grand extravaganza for us.

As darkness fell, we were called outside.

The opening act--courtesy of my son-in-law--had the four kids (11,10,9 and 4) running around with tiny sparklers flaring, their whoops of excitement filling the night air. Then came the main event, with each Grand parading before us with his or her trick. They had, for props, a magic set that one Grand had gotten for her birthday. While we had been sipping our drinks, they had worked together to teach each other the tricks and practice them. They coached the four-year-old on the "disappearing ball" trick and supported each other in ways large and small for the more complicated tricks. When a trick didn't work the first time out, they re-grouped, talked it over, re-read instructions and came back for a second try.

The cool Vermont night, well-lit by a starry sky, was the perfect stage. This was our Norman Rockwell moment. I can report--and not just because I'm the grammie--that the Magic Show was brilliant and heart warming--not for the sleights of hand or "amazing" tricks, but for the way the Grands worked together and helped each other without adult interference.

And it mirrored the way this, our ninth family vacation together in Stowe, went this year. No flare ups, no mis-communications, no hard feelings, no sour moments.

It hasn't always been so. Over the years, we've tinkered with the right formula to make the vacations refreshing and full of good family will. We've made our mistakes: rented condos that were too small for three families or too far from the swimming holes, mountain brooks, bike-riding paths and wild raspberry bushes. Three years ago, we finally got the physical configuration right--two condos in a community that is walking distance to everything. But families being families, we've also had to tinker with the right combination of togetherness. Two weeks--too much. Friends who have second homes they own or rent for an extended period have long advised serial visits--one family and its grandchildren at a time, with a weekend overlap to give the inter-family Grands time to run wild together.

But even with the seemingly right combinations in place, our vacations were still marred by something or other. And then this year, it wasn't.

Did we get the formula right? The amount of time we spent with each family and they spent with us and with eachother and in the right size houses near the favorite frog ponds and walking trails? Yes, but we had those things in place last year and the year before and we still had our sour moments.

What made the difference? Here's my theory: our grown children. This year both of them were at a good place in their careers. They were still under pressure, still had the stresses and tensions inherent in being in the prime of their work lives. But both made decisions this year about their careers that helped alleviate some of that strain. And the easing of that tension permeated up to us and down to the Grands and made eveyone happier,more adaptable and less remote.

When our grown children were growing up and we took them on vacation [in, yes, Vermont], the success of those trips depended on how well or ill we were feeling about our work lives--whether a black cloud from the office followed us up the mountain and onto the hiking trails. But the center has shifted. It's now those children, grown up with children of their own, who set the tone for the vacation. And it isn't anything we can control by how big or small, convenient or inconvenient our vacation house is. The magic of a great vacation is in their hands now.

Guilt Trips: There's a price our grown daughters pay for trying to "have it all."

My heart goes out to Alpha Daughter: her daughter is in tears. There's one more week before school starts and my granddaughter just learned that she has to go to camp that week. Dad's work is starting up again; so is Mom's. After a long vacation, it's back to the real world. But now my granddaughter is sobbing in the back seat of the car and my daughter is wrestling with her real-world obligations and that awful feeling that her career is forcing her daughter to do something she does not want to do.

Now my daughter is offering her daughter some "sweeteners"--something to make the mandate easier to bear. She could pick her up early; they could Skype us every night. My granddaughter isn't buying any of it. For now, she's inconsolable.

And so am I.  How I wish we weren't heading for the airport, that I lived nearby and could fill in. The lousy feeling travels up and down the generations. At least the female generations. It's a terrible guilt trip, and we've all been on it. Women having it all? There's a price to pay for every little bit you get. As Anne-Marie Slaughter put it in her article in the Atlantic, Why Women Still Can't Have It All,

"The women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed."

At the airport, Paterfamilias hugs his granddaughter goodbye and tells her that her mom needs her help and she should do what she has to do to make things easier for her mom. I can't bring myself to say anything such thing--though "easier" is what I wish for my daughter. That and a painless way to cut herself in half.

 

The Buddy Game: The names our kids use to cheer on their kids

"Go long, buddy, go long." That's my grown son talking to his son. They are throwing a football back and forth on the solid ground of the dead end street that fronts their house. Long, wide, down the middle--dad and his buddy are giving that football and themselves a workout.

"Keep your eye on the ball, buddy." That's my son again. This time he's advising his son on hitting a baseball with a bat. It's an art and a science but "buddy" has to watch the ball closely.

"Shoot, buddy, shoot." "Look for the pass, buddy." "Get back, buddy." This time we're at a soccer game and it's not my son shouting to his buddy. It's all the dads. They are offering free coaching advice to their sons who are on the soccer pitch and trying to score or defend against a goal or just be a factor in the game. The calls for buddy to do this and buddy to do that are a cacophonous backdrop. In a way, it's a positive--the buddies can't tell if it's their father is yelling to them or someone else's dad is yelling to a teammate. So they can just concentrate on the coach and the game--or not. There are some daisy-pickers out there.

When did it come to all this buddy-calling? Hang around a soccer game and you're unlikely to hear a dad call to a Mike or Bill or Frank or even to use some home grown nickname, like "slugger."

Is all this "buddy" talk an attempt by our grown children to buddy-up to their children. Be their pals. Should we shout "buddy" when we go to a game? Quick answer: No! We should not shout anything. Not even ''yay, buddy." We are not our grandchildren's pals. That's our grownchildren's job.

One theory behind all this buddy calling comes from psychologist Michele Borba, who was quoted recently in the New York Times, on the topic.Her point: “The gist of Buddy Parenting is the parent’s goal is to be more of a pal than really the parent, the monitor, the overseer. It becomes toxic when you start placing popularity with your kid above establishing limits or saying no.”

We've seen none of that toxicity in our son's household. Limits are firmly set. But we do see gender discrimination. At his daughter's soccer games, neither our son nor any of the other dads or moms give a shout out to buddies--though our son has been heard to call out some coaching encouragement to his daughter. "Good kick, Angel." "Nice hustle, Angel." But he is a loner. Girls aren't buddies to their moms and dads and apparently they aren't angels either. At least not yet.

 

 

Grandparenting: Building a bond, one crossword at a time

You never know where that special bond with a grandchild is going to come from. Paterfamilias has long had a special relationship with his grandson, who's now 11. When we go visit our son and his family or they come visit us, PF and grandson kick the soccer ball, throw basketballs through hoops, have a catch with a baseball. And then there are the touch football games at Thanksgiving: women, and more particularly grammies, are not specifically excluded but they aren't exactly welcome either.

This year, when our families were vacationing together in Vermont, we were blessed with a rainy Monday morning. I say blessed because PF had come back from his morning coffee run with the New York Times. After he and grandson poured over baseball stats and soccer results, I opened the paper to the crossword puzzle and asked my grandson for help with a clue--the name of some baseball player who had won some obscure award years ago. Of course, he knew it right off the bat. Nothing baseball is obscure to an 11-year-old. So he sat down and wrote the answer in the appropriate boxes. While he scanned the other clues for another answer he would know, I suggested he hold back. "Let's work around the answer we've got," I said. And so it went, we worked away at the crossword puzzle--the Monday Times crossword being the easiest of the week. We used my laptop to look up the names of Greek mythology figures and the like--this was, after all, a learning experience. We noodled over the many ways we could interpret different word clues. Reader, he finished it. Tuesday, I warned him, would be tougher. And it was, but between the Internet and occasional input from other adults, we completed that one, too.

We didn't have time for the Wednesday, the progressively more difficult puzzle--our son and family were heading home--but I promised I would save it. We were staying in Vermont another week but would be overnighting at his house on our way home. I would bring it with me and we could do it together then.

And so it was that we sat at his kitchen table and worked at the Wednesday puzzle with our usual tools. It took a while but we finished all but one little square. We were very pleased with ourselves.  We may never crack a Saturday puzzle--it's only for the crossword Super Gods--but we now have our New York Times moments to look forward to. It's not soccer, but it is a special game we do together. Bring on Thursday puzzles. I now have a partner.