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

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.

Home for the Holidays: Being a good vistor or host

Whether your family comes to you or you go to them, the holidays--Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover, whatever--can be a strain on everyone. Setting aside the emotional pitfalls, there are also the day-to-day physical displeasures--beds to make, food to prepare, individual needs to cater to. That's what I found so helpful in this blog: It's full of simple ways to ease the hospitality issues.

One of the writer's ideas: keep little tote bags for each grandchild--or adult child. Fill it with special little things each one likes or needs (a wash cloth, slippers, favorite lotions; for little kids, crayons and a pad of paper.) On arrival day, put the tote on each child's bed, along with a towel, new box of tissues and a bottle of water. Repeat for each visit.

So simple. So welcoming. And so easy to do if it becomes a habit. I like it! I may even try it.

 

 

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?

Togetherness: Knowing When to Say No

My dentist has two sons: One lives nearby; the other half way across the country in Michigan. Every Christmas, the sons and their families come to her house for the holidays. This year, when she was discussing the holidays with her Michigan son, he brought up the question of travel. He didn't know what to do. He had a 3 year old and newborn. He didn't want to fly the crowded skies with two little ones. He was planning to drive--he usually did--but the newborn hated the infant car seat--he cried and cried whenever he was in it. The son didn't know how his family would get through the eight hour trip.

This is the dialogue that ensued [according to my dentist]. SHE: Son, don't come.  HE: But I don't want to disappoint you. SHE: We'll come to you the day after Christmas . HE: Oh Mom, that would be so wonderful.

Truth be told, my dentist told me [what could I say with all that dental gear in my mouth?], she didn't really want to make a big Christmas dinner for the family at her house. It's a lot of work. She hinted as much to her son who lives nearby. This son has five children. "We see them all the time," she said. "I suggested we just stop by their house on Christmas day. But he was so disappointed. The kids look forward to Christmas at grandma's house."

This time she did not say "dont' come."

Raising Questions: When Does the Schlepping Stop?

A Vermont friend’s daughter has been to college in New York, to a first job in Boston, to a stint in Africa in the Peace Corp, to a university in Michigan to get her master’s degree, to an internship in Ecuador. Now she’s back home, 30 years old, and job hunting--here and abroad. For each move, my friends pack up the car, attach a trailer and move all the daughter’s stuff to the next place or to storage in their basement.  The daughter’s career has been wonderful and exciting--for the daughter as well as my friends. They’ve gone to visit her in Africa and Ecuador, in Boston and Ann Arbor. But they are getting tired of carrying beds and a well-worn couch up flights of stairs and in and out of a trailer.

When, my friend asks, does the shlepping stop?