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

Money Matters: It's okay to let your grown children treat you.

It was my birthday, and I was visiting Uber son and his family. My daughter-in-law proposed a lovely gift: A pedicure for two--me and my 7-year-old granddaughter. What a great idea. It would be her first. But my main thought was, how can I maneuver things so I pay for it. I didn't want my daughter-in-law to have to foot the bill. I didn't want to burden them with an additional charge. 

This was a little bit crazy on my part. They are, after all, on pretty firm ground financially--the double pedicure at a suburban strip mall outlet wasn't going to break the bank. So why couldn't I just sit back and enjoy?

I was finally forced to. When my daughter-in-law dropped us off for our pedicure, she pre-paid the bill. I'm glad I kept my "I want to pay" neurosis to myself. It was a perfect gift and a memorable experience to have this precious 7-year-old sitting with me while we picked out the nail polish color we'd try. We were going to do the same color so we had a lot of intense discussion about various shades of red and orange. We both dismissed the idea of blue or green. And then we sat side by side in big lounge chairs while we had our feet bathed and washed, our toe nails cut and polished. I could see how tentatively she sat on the edge of her chair, just a little bit worried about what was coming next. And I was able to sit right next to her, knowing I was right there to reassure her if something seemed strange or scary.

What a special gift. My grandchild and I still chat on the phone to compare nicks in our polish. And I've finally gotten over the feeling that my grown children shouldn't treat me. I was perpetuating an out-of-date reality--that they couldn't afford it. It's healthy for them to treat me. And it was wonderful gift for me--both the pedicure and the recognition that they were financial grown ups.

Money Matters: Facing the loss of their legacy

"It was," she says, "a very hard conversation to have." My friends DeeDee and Mel had to tell their  daughters that there was no longer an inheritance for them.

DeeDee and Mel had invested the lion's share their hard-earned money with Bernie Madoff. Now it was gone. Gone, too, was the lifestyle they were used to. They still had their 401ks--much diminished though they were by the 2008 crash--and social security. But, where they were used to being generous with their grown daughters--"we always liked sharing with them what we had accumulated"--that is no longer possible.

"When we told them," DeeDee says, "they were wonderful. They said, 'Mom, Dad, we don't need your money. If you need anything, let us know.' "

"As a parent," DeeDee goes on, "that's a very hard thing to digest. You always think it will be the other way--that you can give to them, that you'll be there to help them out if they need it. This is a whole new revelation. How do you process it? It's very difficult. We seem to be surviving."

Her bottom line: "Leveling with the kids was hard but I'm glad we did it."

Money Matters: Who pays for what when the kids move back home

When Shari's son, daughter-in-law and two children moved into her house, they had, financially speaking, nothing. The cookie business they started together had failed--despite infusions of money from the family. So when Shari and her husband Hal opened their home as a refuge--"a lifeline" she calls it--money was an issue. "We could have subsidized their rent," Shari says of the decision to have the family move in with her, "but their needs were so far above and beyond that. They needed food, medical insurance, car insurance, clothes--the works." Shari and Hal were fortunate to have the wherewithal to pick up the tab for the big things, but what to do about "walking around money" while the son and daughter-in-law were job hunting?

At first, the four adults held Sunday night meetings: to go over any unmet needs or frustrations; to keep Shari and Hal up to date on job interviews and other employment prospects. Once it became clear what some of the day-to-day cash needs were, Hal came up with a plan. Every Monday morning they would leave Shari's son a check that was big enough to cover lunches, car fare, outings with the kids, other incidentals for both the son and his wife. That way, the younger couple wouldn't have to ask every time they needed something. This was important to Shari: "Money can be very divisive," she says. "It can be a wedge." She didn't want her son to feel demeaned by his circumstances, that he had to ask his Mommy for money to meet a friend for lunch or take his kids to the movies. And there was this: she didn't want either her son or daughter-in-law to rush into a job that wasn't on a career path.

It helps when you can afford to be as generous as Shari and Hal were. But the important point, to me, was not so much how much they could give and how many bills they could cover, but the open way they communicated. Talking things out--being up front about even the most personal money issues--can ease a tricky financial situation. And for Shari, setting a clear goal--jobs for her children that were on a career path--helped her formulate a plan she could live with and not resent.

Share the Wealth: To help our children now or to leave a legacy later?

Paterfamilias and I have been incredibly lucky. We've had good jobs and rewarding careers--to the point where we have been able to set aside enough padding for our retirement--and a little bit more. It's that "little bit more" than wiggles and jiggles inside my brain and bank account.

If we have "a little bit more," why not share it with our grown children in the here and now? Not to spoil them but to step in when there's a crisis or a need. And to let hem know in advance that should they need help, we've got their back. If we can afford it. We see nothing wrong in that. But recently, I've been doing some research on the question and that has raised some doubts about how good a practice this is.

One book by a psychologist suggests that to keep on offering money both spoils grown children and infantilizes them. It's a way to control the kids by keeping the apron strings tied to money. He suggests we who offer cash are suffering from affluenza, that our financial parenting has run amok.

I took all that to heart, but then i read an online story that interviewed several psychologists who all tsk-tasked the idea of helping kids out with money. When questioned about their own personal practices, however, all admitted to being guilty of helping out or indulging their grown children.

is this a case where common sense and best psychiatric advice differ?

And does it all come down to what we're comfortable with, what makes sense for our particular children and their behavior. If they aren't dependent and don't make constant demands and suggest they expect your help indefinitely, then why not help out on an as-needed basis? Isn't this a case of no harm no foul?

Money Matters: The long arm of parents who help their kids.

"We are spending so much money on our kids," a friend tells me. "They need to be rescued every once in a while."

The kids in question are hers from her first marriage and his from his first marriage. One of her sons went through a painful and devastating divorce, including court battles over child custody and support. He lost his job. My friend, her husband, her other son, the father of her son and an uncle all pitched in to help the divorced son. It took several years before he was back on his feet. And now his eldest son--one of my friend's three grandchildren--was ready for college. He had to choose not the best school he got into but the least expensive one. My friend and her husband dipped into their retirement savings to pay tuition--her son couldn't afford it and neither the ex-wife nor her parents (the other grandparents) were willing to help out.

My friend could live with the choice of the lesser school. That's life. It made her angry that the other grandparents weren't willing to help. That's life, too, but more emotional, verging as it does on fairness.

Now, she's got another financial anxiety: Her stepson--a man in his late 40s--has always been self supporting and single. And has always been shy around women. So, when he started dating a woman his age and then announced he was getting married, everyone was thrilled. But the new wife came with old and huge debts from her life with a former boyfriend. The new husband is helping his wife pay off those I.O.U.s--the credit card debt keeps compounding like crazy--and now everyone's helping out. It's another drain on my friend's dwindling retirement resources.  

"It never ends," she says. "It seems like one of our kids is always having a money crisis." A few years ago--just before he retired--my friend's husband paid off the mortgage on their house. "So we are lucky," she says. "What would we do--how could we help our kids--if we had a $2,000 a month mortgage payment to meet?" It also raises the question of how long you help out your grown kids. When does the rescue line end? And maybe even more to the point: How do you define crisis?

Does it help to know she--and by extension we--are not alone? The Brits are experiencing similar pressures. Here's a news story I just came across. In Great Britain, "millions of grandparents are cutting back their spending because they feel under pressure to fund their grandchildren." Research also found that the majority of grandparents regularly spent cash from their retirement savings on clothing, toys and other treats for their grandchildren. Others helped pay for essentials, such as shoes and school uniforms, to help their own children balance their finances.

Here was a key finding that hit home: "Although some children did ask their parents for financial help, much of the pressure to provide for grandchildren comes from the grandparents themselves." 

Money Matters: Helping kids with big purchases

When it comes to money, we're all over the place--tight-fisted to spendthrift; controlling to reckless; obsessed to careless. When it comes to our kids, it's even worse. It gets emotional, often reflecting where we've come from in our own lives.

Here's what I mean: A friend of a friend is a very successful and high-profile lawyer--a millionaire many time over with a big house and many expensive cars to his name. And he did it by himself: Started with almost nothing and slogged his way through to his current position of power and affluence. That, at least, is the routine he has always given his sons when he tells them he will not help them out financially--no loans to buy a car, a house or pay unexpected expenses. When they were heading to college, he insisted they work their way through. His message: They should work just as hard he did. He doesn't owe them anything.

This is not to suggest he isn't a loving father. But he draws a tight fiscal line and has yet to cross it. I've written before about those of us who prefer to use our hard-won money to help our kids out--to see them enjoy in the here and now the relief our money can bring. But we also have friends who say, we put our kids through college and that's it; we don't intend to help them with anything else--not that they can't afford it; it's a principle. It's an issue I've visited before on this blog.

It may get down to something as basic as our life experiences. If our parents were generous, we may have that model and want to be generous as well. Or, if our parents were fiscally restrained, we may decide we don't want to follow that path. Or perhaps they were generous to one of our siblings and that brother or sister squandered the money and our inheritance as well. We might want to be more cautious in the help we offer our children or the strings we attach to that help.

If you have the money to do help your grown children, where do you draw the line? Or are you all or nothing? Some things--help with paying off college loans, perhaps--but not others? And how do you come to your philosophy of giving?

Money Matters: Letting Your Kids Know What Their Legacy Will Be

Heartache and heartburn lie ahead for grown kids whose parent's don't let them know how they plan to disburse their assets. That's what the estate-planning experts say and they may not be exaggerating.  Of course, right or wrong, you won't be there to see it. But still.

The misunderstandings that can arise range from hurt feelings over who the executor of the will is to why one sibling was chosen to inherit the house and another got the jewelry--when the kids would have preferred it the other way around.

Yes, it's time to have a conversation with your grown children about your estate plan. Not necessarily how much you'll be leaving them but why you're doing what. One set of parents with a financially successful son and a do-good-works but much poorer daughter, sat their son down to explain why the daughter would inherit more of their money than he would. Having the information come directly from mom and dad and the reason behind it meant a lot to the son, who said he might have felt that somehow he had disappointed his parents--rather than that they felt so good about his success that they didn't feel he needed further backing. He also felt that if had disagreed with their reasoning he would have had a chance to argue against it. And he was able to tell them what items of theirs had sentimental value for him.

Such a nice story. And you're probably saying, as I am, I'm going to do it, I'm going to have a conversation with my kids about my estate--however big or small that estate may be. Besides, sentimental value can't be overestimated. And yet we don't do it. I haven't done it yet. Is it the confrontation with mortality? The discomfort of talking about money? Of appearing to play favorites? Of re-stoking sibling rivalries?

Time to come to terms with those emotions. If you need a little rational support, this New York Times story may be just the ticket. 

Communications: How it feels when we feel left out of our grown childrens' lives.

"Only connect." That's the famously underlying theme of E. M. Forster's Howards End. It also applies to our relationship with our grown children. We want to stay in touch--not just on a superficial level. We want to know what's happening in their lives, where we can help, where we can offer advice. And there are also those vicarious thrills. After all, our lives are slowing down while their's are picking up speed. And the place where those places interconnect can be uncomfortable. Forster is far from the only writer to look at the frailty of those connections.

Poet Cortney Davis captures the essence of a difficult parent-child moment when he writes of a parent and grown child sitting in an airport cafe:

How's work? I'll ask my son, trying to catch up.
He'll concentrate on his plate. I'll pick up the bill.

Money Matters: Staying on the job to help the kids out

One friend is paying for her daughter's attempt to start a family through a surrogate pregnancy. The tab is high--$100,000 when all is said and done. Her husband is semi-retired and her daughter and son-in-law could never afford the tab. So she's continuing to work--"to pay the bill." At least, that what she says--that if she weren't paying for the surrogate's pregnancy and all the testing and medical procedures that were part of the pregnancy, she would retire--or work part time.

Another friend is also not retiring. Her son has a prestigious job--but the salary is not nearly as high as the job's profile. Maybe someday he can cash in on all that prestige. Meanwhile, the parents want to be sure there's the wherewithal to help out--when the son's roof needs repair, the basement floods, the grandkids' dental bills mount--without eating up their retirement savings. So they, too, are continuing to work--despite tempting thoughts of retiring to travel around the world.

Lots of us are doing the same thing--putting off retirement in order to have the cash to make life easier, better, more bearable for our children. Some of us are kidding ourselves that this is why we continue to work. A lot of us like working--like our jobs and the second family that work provides--or fear the loss of vitality that might come with retiring from the work force. We don't want to give it up, even if we are dog-tired weary by the end of the work week. While some of us continue to work "for our children," many times it's more of a mixed reason. What makes me nervous is any hint to the adult children that they are the reason we're still working. What a guilt trip that would lay down. And it might not even be true.

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.