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

The Power of "No:" Over-indulgence has its limits.

Our grown children may have great expectations about the goods and services we can--and often do--provide. That's' why, a friend says, she felt liberated when she said "no" to one of her children.

It may sound trivial--and clearly this is a parent and grandparent who enjoys indulging her children--but she has her limits. She had arranged for grown daughter and her three children to join her and grandpop for a long winter weekend at a resort in Florida. The grown child pays her family's air fare to Florida but my friend and grandpop foot the resort bill--room, meals, entertainment. They can afford it, and it gives them pleasure. One vacation day, my friend, daughter and granddaughter went shopping. As they passed a pricey children's boutique--the kind only grandmas shop at--my friends daughter told her daughter to go in there and pick out something,that grandma will buy it for her. And that's when my friend said No. "It was a tiny little thing, but I felt liberated. I was finally able to say, 'I'll do this, but not that.' " When she said no, my friend adds, "Chicken little did not fall from the sky."

The question for many of us is along the same line: How many times do we pull out the credit card or send the check because our kids make us feel it's expected? Even when we can afford it, are there times when we should say "no," when enough is enough?  

The Just Say No extends to matters beyond money. When we're expected to babysit--even tho we have other plans; when they want to come by for a visit--even though it's inconvenient. Many of us drop everything--cancel plans with friends, rearrange our schedules. Sometimes we should--our kids genuinely need us and the loving service only we can provide. But sometimes there's a feeling that they are taking advantage of us, that we still have an active life we're leading and can't drop everything just to make things more convenient for them. As my friend says, "It's a very interesting process to begin to do this."

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.

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.

Vacationing with Grown Kids: Serial togetherness is the charm

When our grands were 1,2 and 3 years old, and again when they were 2,3, and 4, we spent our summer vacation by renting a large condo in Vermont and inviting both uber son and his two children and alpha daughter and her one to stay with us. All of us--under one roof. My reasoning was simple: Alpha lived on one coast; Uber on the other: if we didn't have this family-together time, how would the cousins get to know each other?

Readers of this blog may know that these vacations didn't work out so well. Oh our grown children said they were fun--they even requested repeat performances. But I felt so divided--always wanting to ease the way for a Grand who needed a cuddle or a parent who needed a mini-break--and was worn out by the end of the week. Since then, the Grands have grown--they are now 6,7 and 8 plus there's a new 1-year-old--and Alpha daughter has moved east to the same coast as her brother. They now live a mere 3-hour drive apart. So the compelling need to vacation together under one roof is no longer so pressing. Nor so desirable. Different parenting approaches can make for hard feelings when you're all under one roof. My daughter-in-law summed up one of those vacations best: "It's like a great play date--that goes on too long."

The whole issue of family vacationing was taken out of our hands this year. Uber son rented his own place for a week and invited us to join him for part of the time. So we, in turn, rented the same place for the next week--thereby letting him extend his stay a few days. And we invited alpha daughter to haul  herself and her family to that condo while we were there. For three days of those two weeks, we were all together--the "big" cousins romping and playing and giddy with the delight of seeing each other. Alpha daughter and her family stayed in a nearby motel that allowed dogs [she came with her rather large puppy and several of us are allergic to dogs] and it all worked out really well. The natural break at bedtime--one family to bed upstairs; the other to the motel--gave the cousins time to unwind. The dog was a big hit with Uber son's baby and there was scarcely a meltdown or scene to be seen.

We got to spend time with each of our children and their family exclusively--and expend all our attention on the Grand or Grands at hand. But when we were all together, magical things happened. My daughter-in-law taught her niece to ride a bike; my son-in-law taught his nephew to catch frogs. The dog cozied up to the baby and let her explore the wonders of her pelt. I say magical, but it's really what families are all about. It's just that when your grown children live in different cities--from you and from each other--these "normal" moments don't have too many chances to happen. And that's what made this serial vacation [with overlap] so wonderful: the time and opportunity for the miraculously normal things to happen.

Money Matters: Hard Hit and Hating It

Many of us who have grown children have been hit hard financially by the economic crisis. Money we thought we'd have to live comfortably on and still help out our adult children is gone. Is that changing our relationship with our adult children? Some of us may be worried about becoming dependent on them, or that they'll be dependent on us and we won't have the wherewithal to help.Or we jsut feel so bad about what's happening that we take it out on the grown kids, as one financial adviser noted recently.

Friends who used their second homes as vacation retreats for their children are having to sell those homes. May not sound like the worst crisis in the world, but it means the loss of a family gathering place and a familiar setting--one that may date back to their children's childhood--for their grandchildren to spend idle weeks of summer.

Friends who had planned to help their children buy a home are finding they don't have the cash to help out with the down payment. Or to pay off college loads. Again, it may not sound like a terrible crisis, but the loss of power--of still being the Big Daddy or Momma--are palpable. So many of us want to make life easier for our children, and this fiscal crisis is playing havoc with that plan. Maybe this is healthy--maybe some of us coddled our children. But a lot of us didn't. We just took great enjoyment from using the money we'd earned and saved over a lifetime to make our children's lives easier. And for many of us, that ability is gone.

How are you coping with fiscal losses? Is it affecting your relationship with your grown children? Or your own feelings about yourself vis a vis those children?

Too Much Togetherness: Tips on vacationing with grown children

It's always been a dream of mine, to gather together my two grown children and their children and vacation together. It's an especial longing since uber son and alpha daughter and their families live far from the family manse. But I've pretty much given up on that one--different parenting styles, sibling rivalry and personal habits get in the way. Serial vacationing with overlap--that seems to be the way to go.

We did have some successful trips together when our children were younger adults--with or without significant but not necessarily permanent others. Our best bet: ski trips. Everyone busy at their own level; no need to be attached at the hip.They felt free to go out in the evening without us. And we were too tired to care if they stayed home or not.

Families who've tried more ambitious trips have often found it a rockier road. Here are some excerpts--observations, forewarnings and pointers--from a grown child on her trip to Japan with her retired parents and brother and sister.

 On my recent trip to Japan with my 20-something brother and sister and our retired parents, our great times were tempered with an unexpected amount of tension for five adults who were no longer a full-time family unit.

While Mom and Dad's idea of a family vacation may not have changed, the kids they were bringing with them sure had.

Many families ...fall into old parent/child roles and reprise arguments they may not have had in years. While the children have adult relationships with each other, it's their relationships with Mom and Dad that have yet to mature.

Some Good Pointers:

Mixing money and family can be worse on the road. Avoid friction by establishing reasonable meal and accommodation prices in advance. If budgets vary wildly, consider eating or staying separately from time to time.

To keep things fair, consider having a `slush fund' for incidentals. Have everyone contribute the same amount of money to a common pool to be used for taxis, tips, common needs

Plan in advance and set everyone's expectations around activities that are important to you. This will avoid last-minute conflict if there's difficulty fitting everything in to your itinerary.

Be sure to have activities you want to do privately, even if it's as simple as reading a book.

Though there were plenty of tense moments on my family trip to Japan, we never took any pictures when we weren't all speaking. As a result, we have an album full of happy photo and positive memories.

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.

On the Road: Taking grown children on your vacation

Vacationing with adult children is a whole new world--from getting to know them (and their habits) all over again to issues over who's paying for what and who's making the decisions. I'll be blogging about that all summer long, but meanwhile there's this story by a dad who's a professional traveler--he was escorting a large tour on a worldwide trip and brought his adult daughter along. He doesn't describe any pain in traveling with his now-grown daughter--just the wonder at her wonder at seeing the world's greatest sights.

He starts off witih his most trenchant point:"One reality most families eventually deal with is that when your kids grow up, graduate from college and begin a life of their own, it is easy to grow apart, particularly if they live a distance away. They have their own friends, interests and want their independence. It is a rare opportunity to have them set aside a few weeks to just be with you."

Real Life: We Try a Little Togetherness

It's November and all thoughts turn to summer vacation. Should we be making plans for a multi-family love-in with all offspring and theirs?

The first year we tried that, we bundled into one 4-bedroom condo: alpha daughter, her hub and a one year old; uber son, his wife and a 5-month and 2 year old. Luxury place. Protected lawns for running; swimming pool and tennis courts across the way. The vacation was, well, here's what it was: Neither alpha's family nor uber's came with the attitude that pater familias and I would be babysitters in residence. Nor did they expect all their meals to magically appear at the table. Everyone pitched in. There was no dumping. What there was, tho, was a lot of need. From the moment I hauled myself out of bed in the morning, someone small needed something that wasn't being provided: a quiet cuddle, a romp outside, a belly rub, an apple sliced, a clean sock found, a milk run made.

What with different bedtime rituals for babies and toddlers [plus the complication of different time zones--alpha daughter lived a coast away] and the plain old exhaustion of having three children under 2 in the house, not once during our week of togetherness were all the adults in our little family able to sit down to a dinner at the same time--which was part of the point of vacationing together: the chance to visit with eachother as adults.

Almost every afternoon, pater familias would raise his head from his book and call out to an ever-more frazzled me: what time do you want to play tennis? Or, when are we going for a bike ride?

What universe was he living in?

Actually, he was in the real one. This was, afterall, supposed to be our vacation, even though a week of rest is what I needed once this one was over. Yet, as we all packed up to drive off to various cities and airports, both alpha and uber asked the same thing: Can we do this again next year?

Reader, we did. it does not get easier.