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

Grandparenting: Do maternal Grammies have an edge over paternal Nanas?

When I first got into the business of being a grandparent--PenPen to my son's and daughter's children--it was at a time when, not surprisingly, many of my friends were starter-grandparents as well. A common topic of conversation--or should I say stress--was the worry that the "other" grandparents would be favored, would be more "loved" than they, would have more say in their grandchildren's lives.

Some of this rivalry seemed to be driven by proximity or the lack of it. One friend who lived in New Hampshire and had three grandchildren (her daughter's children) living in Atlanta was convinced that the paternal grandparents who lived in Georgia were more beloved. They were available to babysit in a pinch and offer summer swims in their pool. Although my friend and an indulgent step-granddad visited often, my friend lamented her second-place position.  Her exhibit A: Her daughter had texted her a photo of the granddaughter's newly refurbished room--puffy pillows, bouncy curtains and a sateen bed quilt that hosted a Noah's Ark of stuffed animals.  The other grandma, who had a key to her son and daughter-in-law's house, had surprised the family by re-doing the room while they were away on vacation.  How, my friend worried, could she compete with that.

Now comes research that should give my friend comfort. There is a  “matrilineal advantage” and it gives maternal grandmothers an advantage over the paternal ones. There are dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships, of course, but in general mothers and daughters have closer ties than mothers and daughters-in-law, and that, the research contends, leads to warmer relationships between the grandchildren and the maternal grannie.

“The mother-daughter dyads engage in more frequent phone contact, more emotional support and advice — more than mothers do with sons or fathers with daughters.” This is what Karen Fingerman, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who has published studies on this topic, told Paula Span of the NYTimes.

As to a mother's ties to her son's children, it's all about the relationship to her daughter-in-law.  Dr. Fingerman reported that she has found that parents’ rapport with a daughter-in-law — “a key figure” — significantly influences their bond with her children. The mother--whether she's a daughter or a daughter-in-law--is the gatekeeper and she can help or harm grandparental closeness.

As to my friend from New Hampshire, she can rest easy for another reason. Her daughter (and her granddaughter) were less than pleased that the other grandma had taken it upon herself to redecorate on her own and without consultation the child's room. There is a matter of overstepping boundaries and that's where proximity can be a negative.

painting: Red Dance by Kenneth Young

Labor Day's Labor: Dr.Pangloss checks in on the year's transitions

Labor Day Weekend is a chance to step back and take stock as our kids and grandkids make their way through various transitions. "Summer" is over. The worst of the pandemic and its quarantines is behind us and yet it lingers.  Young-adult kids and grandkids are starting their school year with masks, social distancing and Covid-testing part of the daily routine. But those unpleasantries are dwarfed by this: They are back in the classroom, mixing with friends and meeting their teachers. Their parents--our older adult children--are returning to offices where their work-life is being transformed in ways that may make their personal lives easier.

Many of us more senior parents feel, as I do, like we are sitting on the sidelines watching these moments unfold. If we've retired, our transitions may be less marked. Maybe that's why I am using this weekend to sop up the signs of positive growth as my grandkids inch toward independence and my children reap the results of effective parenting. There are worries that one child is disappointed about their dorm, that another will become homesick living so far from home or that the youngest and smallest won't make friends at a new school. But I'm not their parents. I'm not involved in the quotidian work of parenting. I'm a silent observer--and if asked, a friendly consultant.

Right now, the year that gets kicked off by the fall season looks full of potential. There's a world of possibilities out there for our kids and us. With my inner Dr. Pangloss activated, I've luxuriated in a weekend of focusing on the good stuff. That's a grannie's prerogative.

painting: Au Coeur de la Vie by Baillargeon.

The Pain of Parting: Lessons in Letting Go

Our son sent his oldest child back to college and his oldest daughter off to Roma for a gap year of study abroad. He still has one child at home but his heart is aching. As his two eldest headed off, he managed, he tells me, not to tear up in front of them.

He also tells me he has come to appreciate how we did the same for him and his sister. "I had no idea," he says, "how hard it is and how hard it must have been for you and dad." I am not violating his privacy when I repeat the following words since he posted this wry take on his Facebook page: "Two of my three kids are leaving in the next few days, starting this morning. If I'd known how hard their leaving was going to be, I never would have encouraged all of this "go to college" business when they were little."

On the morning after his daughter flew off to Rome, he called to let me know she had landed safely, made her way to the appartamento she and two other students had rented, registered at the school where she would be taking classes and bought supplies at a nearby grocery store. Dinner will be ramen and nectarines. The other girls will not arrive for another day or two. My Grand and her parents were texting every step along the way--from airport landing to getting a sim card to figuring out the tricky lock on the appartamento door. She did all this with only 4-weeks worth of Duolingo Italian stuffed into her brain. My son is so proud of her for the confident way she figured things out and so happy that she is embarking on this avventura.  But he is heart-heavy. She is now so far away. He misses her.

He wanted to know how we managed to keep the pain of parting from him and his sister. I reminded him that when he left home for college, there was no Internet, no texting, no email. There was only a landline and the mailbox. We couldn't have shared the immediacy of our sadness even if we had been inclined to--which we weren't. Like him today, we did not want to weigh him down with our blues. We only let him see the pleasure we were taking in his launch.

So excuse me while I deliver pats on our own backs. We were able to show our children how to let go gracefully. It wasn't intentional and it may not seem like much. But evidently, it was.

painting: Monet. Bridge at Argenteuil

 

Gifts to Adult Children: No strings attached, please.

I don't have many rules in my life, but one "good deed" I live by is this: When I give my children or grandchildren a gift,  I attach no strings. No rules about how the gift--be it financial, a tangible good or a service--should be used. If I don't trust them to use the gift responsibly, I don't give it.

There's another kind of string some of us may attach to a gift. We may want the gift acknowledged on a regular basis. That is, our kids can't thank us often enough for whatever it is we gave them. Or as a variation on that theme, we may use the gift as blackmail for future favors or requests, as in "This favor is the least you can do for me since I gave you .....whatever."

I was reminded of this second version of "strings attached" by a Carolyn Hax column in which a reader wrote to complain that her in-laws, who had helped her and their son's family by babysitting their very young children--two under the age of four. The young couple couldn't afford child care and both needed to work. The in-laws stepped up, drove an hour each way to babysit the grandkids three days a week for a year. Now that the young mother and father are able to afford good, nearby child care, the in-laws "cannot seem to stop 'calling in' this old debt" even though "they are thanked regularly and graciously." That is, when the in-laws want the couple to visit with their children--during Covid this meant driving 50 miles to stand outside their house and wave--they pressure the young family to make the visit by reminding them of the gift of babysitting for a year. "This has led me to realize that whenever my in-laws want something," the daughter-in-law writes, "they default to reminding us (subtly or not-so-subtly) about that period when we were entirely dependent on them to keep our family running."

Hax's advice to the writer was for her and her husband to remind the parents "that you are both grateful beyond your ability to express for the year of child care." But then "tune out the guilt noise and make your own decisions for your own reasons."

I read this vignette and it reminds me how attaching strings to gifts engenders ill will. The reason I refuse to turn my gifts into debts is totally selfish: I do it to preserve a positive relationship with my children. No one likes a blackmailer, even if the bounty is only an emotional one.

painting: Cezanne, Still Life with Basket

 

 

 

 

Vacationing with Grown Children: Traditions get an unwanted update

Ah, the traditions of summer vacations. We have friends with a home on Cape Cod--no running water in the kitchen sink or the, um, throne room. But that's another story. The house had been passed down in the family for generations. Today, whenever their kids, now grown, bring a friend to the summer house for a visit, there are stops that the visitor needs to be introduced to. The places that represent a rite of the family's summer traditions--the hidden beach where the family built over-large sandcastles till the tide carried them away; the lake where they paddled a canoe at sunset.  

We had no house passed down to us. Nor did we buy one. But starting when our children were very small, we drove to Vermont every summer for a two-week vacation. We would rent a two-bedroom apartment or, as our earning power increased, a townhouse near a ski resort.  We would hike, play tennis, skip stones across mountain brooks, swim at the local swimming hole. Our kids learned to pick wild raspberries and eat them with breakfast. On Friday afternoons a farmer brought a huge plastic trash can full of just-picked corn to a spot near a gas station.  We would buy a dozen. The taste was unlike the city corn we were used to.

When our kids hit their late teens and young adulthood, those trips to Vermont were put on hold. Our children had summer jobs, friends to visit and plans of their own. Instead of heading for summer in ski country, we the parents pivoted: We went on bicycling adventures abroad.

The trips to Vermont didn't start up again until our kids were parents themselves. We would rent a large townhouse--this time within a resort near Stowe and its summer delight of a 7-mile long bike path that ran from town, through forested glens and to the foot of the mountain. Our kids and their young families would join us for the week. Eventually our son rented his own place and made summer vacations in Vermont his family's own. We rented a unit near his but it was at a time of his family's convenience, not ours. After all, they led busier lives and had more moving parts to consider. When they were in Stowe they developed their own traditions--swimming in the rain, climbing the rocks at the nearby brook. We joined them at the swimming pool on sunny afternoons to watch our grandchildren do handstands in the water. Idyllic moments in the bright sun of Vermont.

Time moves on. Children grow up. Our son's two oldest children now have summer jobs, friends to visit and plans of their own. He managed to find a week when all three of his children could come up for part of the week in Vermont.  The older children had little interest in splashing in the pool rain or shine. We were unable to join them.

Vermont family vacations are on hiatus again--certainly for us and possibly for our grown son as well He's at the point we were when he was a teenager and outgrowing the family Vermont trip. But the cycle will likely repeat in another decade or so. If there is a generation of great-grandkids to splash in the pool, we may fly up there for the pure pleasure of watching them.

painting: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, G. Seurat

 

Post Pandemic Issues: Can we close our helping hand to our non-vaxxed kids

The country is riven by the vaccinated versus anti-vaxxers. Infection rates are escalating among the unvaccinated. That's allowing new, virulent variants to thrive, threatening our health and the return to normal, whatever that may be.

What happens when the unvaxxed hits home, when it's not the rogue uncle or distant cousin but your adult child who won't get a shot?

This touchy issue popped up in Kwame Anthony Appiah's New York Times column The Ethicist. The father of an unvaxxed son wrote in with that quandary plus a further complication. Until the son gets a job, the dad is paying his son's share of the rent on an apartment the son shares with his girlfriend. But the son's job search is complicated by his reluctance to get vaccinated. The reader posed this argument and question:

I told him that future employers would most likely insist on his getting vaccinated, and that his unvaccinated state would have financial implications by delaying his start date and income until he could get fully vaccinated. I said that his refusal to get the shot would cost money and that I wasn’t sure I would continue to support him during that gap period between accepting a job and starting work. He became upset, maintaining that he was already compromising by agreeing to become vaccinated if a job required it and that my withholding support was unfair, especially given his willingness to compromise by getting the shot.

Who’s right here? 

Appiah covered the importance of getting vaccinated and then zeroed in on the issue of whether the father, who's nearing retirement and feeling a financial pinch, is right to cut off financial aid if his son refuses to get vaccinated.

Vaccination aside,  Appiah made a point that will resonate with all of us who offer our grown children financial support of any kind. 

If he’s willing to accept an employer’s terms, he should be willing to accept his parental benefactor’s. After all, a parent isn’t generally obliged to provide financial support to an adult child.

Given that you have allowed him to depend upon your generosity, however, you would do well to withdraw that support gently, or with ample advance warning. I know it seems paradoxical to say that a gift can entail an obligation. But in all sorts of circumstances, it can. Suppose your tractor-owning neighbor makes a habit of clearing your driveway every time you’re snowed in. Because of her generosity, you don’t make alternative arrangements. If she suddenly has a change of heart, you’re worse off after the next blizzard than you would otherwise be. That doesn’t bind her to a lifetime of plowing your driveway; it does mean she owes you notice.

In the end, though, respecting people’s agency doesn’t mean you have to underwrite their every mistaken belief. Your son is free to reject your support if he wants to persist in error.

Rebalancing Acts: Following our kids' cultural and health leads

During the pandemic lockdown many of us experienced a strange shift in the balance between us and our grown kids: Instead of our previous parental controls, they were "ordering" us around--telling us we had to stay home, stop going out to buy groceries and order take-out food delivered.

It came, of course, from an overabundance of care that we were in the over-60 group that was prone to deadly Covid attacks.

Well, the pandemic is mostly over. We're vaccinated now. We're able to shop at supermarkets without our masks on--and without admonitions from our children. But as the fog of the pandemic clears, there's still some re-balancing going on. These are of a lower level than the "pandemic orders." And yet, the old order changeth yielding place to the new.

One mom tells me that for most of her daughter's high school years, the daughter borrowed her mom's clothes--appropriated might be a better word. Now her young adult daughter sheds her clothes in a mini-moment of style. The mom picks up the discards and is now wearing them. It almost never happens that the daughter wants to be seen in her mom's sweaters.

Then there's the dad who loved to introduce his pre-teen son and daughters to a beloved book or watch his favorite old movies with them. Now that they're young adults, they are introducing him to music he never heard before, to dance crazes that are part of their world and to poets with whom he is totally unfamiliar. He's happy to learn all about the new world but he's rarely the one who comes up with cultural touchstones anymore.

Among those of us who have kids older than the young adult stage, we may be surprised at how influential their voice can be. A friend whose husband had balance problems but refused to use a cane found the adult daughters sending their dad a handsomely carved, wooden, walking stick. It was better looking than the sensible cane his wife was pushing. And, because it came from his kids, somehow he found it more acceptable. A rebalancing act.

painting: Readers by Theresa Bernstein

Post Pandemic Parenting: Compassion for the anxieties our kids may be experiencing

The pandemic was difficult for everyone. As parents of grown children, some of us couldn't see our kids or grandkids--no hugs, no in-person visits. Infants and toddlers had no "village" to support them or playdates to socialize them. School-age kids--well, the school year was a disaster for many of them. Our grown kids, especially the twenty-somethings, also suffered. Whether they moved back home with us or toughed it out with a roommate or spouse, the isolation of the shut-down disrupted their friendships and romantic relationships as well as their work life. Many of them lost what one clinical social worker calls "the rhythm of living."

Here's what some recent findings show:

--43.6 percent of adults 18 to 29 self-reported that they experienced symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder in the previous seven days between May 26 and June 7, according to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention’s Household Pulse Survey

--34 percent of those 18 to 23 said their mental health has worsened compared with before the pandemic, according to the  2020 Stress in America survey by the American Psychological Association. That number is higher than any other generation.

All of which suggests we may want to offer our adult kids a little extra measure of compassion. This NYTimes article sets out some effective strategies for helping our kids find help if they're struggling.

Avoid lecturing. It comes across as criticism and may shut down the lines of communication. "Start by asking questions that help parents understand how the young adult is hurting, with language like: “How’s your mood these days? You’re doing so much.”

Don't try to solve their problems. Instead, let them know you've heard what they've said. For instance, they might say they get yelled at by their supervisor. Tell them you're sorry they're experiencing that. That might open the door to suggesting they get help, but if it doesn't, let them know you would be happy to partner with them in thinking about possible solutions.

Normalize the situation. Tell your child that many people struggle with their mental health and that it often helps to talk to someone about how they’re feeling. “Let them know that you will be with them every step of the way” and help them get to a better place."

Normalize a decision to get help. That is, help them see that treating mental health is just like treating a physical ailment. "Conveying the message that mental health issues are similarly treatable provides a 'sense of hope.' ”

 

painting: Picasso. Femme au cafe

 

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Post Pandemic Parenting: Keeping our families safe from hate crimes

We have come through (are still in) harrowing times--not just the pandemic but partisan divides and a Fascist-like call-out of one group or another. It isn't just Twitter storms or Facebook harangues. As any of us who follow the news know, violence against people from various ethnic or religious groups is on the rise here.

I bring this up now because some of us have been sheltering our grown children during the pandemic--colleges went virtual; so did jobs. Many of our kids who had been living independently came home. Now, with vaccinations making colleges and workplaces safe again, our grown children have been emptying or re-emptying the nest. Those of college age will be leaving by September.

We all worry about our children's safety as they venture out into the world, but what do we do if our kids fall into any of the groups currently under attack by...I'm a little stuck for a word here; I'll go with the Intolerant and Ignorant.

A recent NYTimes piece on nest-emptying offered some advice about intra-family communication in dangerous times. With violence against Asians currently front and enter in the news, the article addressed their concerns in particular. 

Here's the relevant excerpt from the article:   

Even as vaccinations make the risk of the coronavirus less dire, some families have other reasons to fear for each other’s safety. Ms. Tabag [Kari Tabag, a licensed clinical social worker and professor at Adelphi University] works with several Asian families and says that, in the wake of Asian hate crimes, parents are worried that they can’t protect their children. They used to end conversations with, “I love you. Take care,” she said. “Now it’s ‘Stay safe.’” At the same time, some children she works with fear they can’t be there to protect their parents.

Ms. Tabag said that filial piety is ingrained in Asian children, who are expected to listen, follow directives and not speak back to parents and elders. She believes open communication between parents and children involving concerns about acts of hatred is important. “Asian parents need to speak with their children and disclose their concerns for their safety. This gives the green light for children to open up to their parents and voice their concerns about their parent’s safety.”

photo credit: Maia Lemov

We're the Aging Parents Now: How do our grown kids see us?

Another weekend in June, another grandchild is graduating from high school. We are winging our way thither for a pre-ceremony celebration. While we sit on the airplane waiting to land, we wonder: What will we look like to our son and his family? We haven't seen them in person in a long time (thank you, Covid). Will they see how we've aged? We're slower walkers now. Sometimes we forget to stand up straight. Will we look like old people to them?

A vanity, yes. But still. We want to be seen as energetic, as parents who have come to visit, are helpful around the house and are able to play ball with the kids. That's how we see ourselves, even as we know there are limits on how physical we can be. (Kick the soccerball with a granddaughter? Maybe a few touches.)

What we learned on this trip is that everything's relative. Yes, we've aged. Yes, we're slower than we were. Long walks with our son and various family members are no longer three to four miles; more likely to be one or two. On this trip, we arrived on the heels of our daughter-in-law's parents. They had been there for a week and left three hours before we arrived. They too had slowed down a step or two. Fiercely independent and hardy folks, they live a nine- or ten-hour drive away from their only child--and, unlike us, with no easy airline flight back and forth. They had always maintained --not in these words but in words to the effect--that "over my dead body" would they move from their beloved Maine to live near their child. And yet, health issues were threatening their well-being; they, too, are getting older. On this visit when their daughter brought up the subject of their moving to her city, they were receptive to the idea.

My daughter-in-law was part relieved--if they moved she could be on hand when they needed help. But also part alarmed: There was the recognition that her parents were aging and struggling to maintain their independence. It made her sad to realize that change was coming and soon. It made me sad, too. When my mother became frail and ill, I remember feeling that there was a turnaround in our relationship. In effect, I had to become her parent. That's the direction we parents of older grown children are heading--if we're lucky or healthy enough to get there.

photo: Sunset by Maia Lemov

 

Observation: A dad realizes his daughter is all grown up. So does his mom.

"And then suddenly you turn around and they are all grown up..."

This is the lament I found on Facebook by a dad who posted a photo of his daughter dressed up for her high school's Senior Ball, looking sophisticated and ready to take on the world. The posting seemed to capture the moment the dad realized what lay ahead: His daughter had become an independent young woman who, come September, would no longer be living at home with her parents.

But here's the thing about that plaintive sentiment: It was posted by my son, about my 18-year-old granddaughter, and I couldn't believe how far both of them had come. Suddenly you turn around and....

 

 

Our Daughters' Naming Rights: Free at last to choose what name to use when they marry.

There is something primal about my generation's desire to see a family name carried forward through marriage. In its simplest, most traditional form this means our sons marry, have children, and bingo! the name moves down the line. The wife's family? Well, they lose the name game. The link to their family history is broken.

But we no longer live in hide-bound traditional times. Today, daughters marry and may choose to keep their original name or they and their spouse may devise a combination--a hyphenation of last names or a new name made up from bits of each family name.  Sons, along with their spouses, may change their names to the newly devised combination.

Life is so interesting; name changes and the reasoning behind them so fascinating--although not so easy for the traditionalist generation to accept. As one of the cards in a deck of Lojong (Tibetian Buddhist sayings) my daughter made for me, puts it, "Don't Misinterpret. We don't get wise by staying in a room with all the doors and windows closed."

On a recent visit to my daughter and her family--for my granddaughter's high school graduation--we found ourselves caught up in a discussion about the decision women today make about their names when they marry. I remembered when I married--at the ripening age of 25 (relative "old" for my generation). I was starting my career as a journalist but had published only one or two stories. I was not yet an established or recognized byline. I was going to take my husband's name. My boss a Time Inc.--a woman ahead of her times--urged me not to do it. I was deaf to her suggestion. This was the 60s and I was of the generation that, as teenagers, we scribbled our fantasy married names on sheets of notebook paper whenever we had a crush on a boy.  Besides, I was excited to take on a new name with fewer syllables than the one I had been born to.

My daughter married in her 30s with her career more firmly established than mine had been. She had authored a book and had a recognizable name in academia. She kept our family name, which her father confessed he found thrilling. Her daughter has her father's name, which my daughter says occasionally causes confusion when she calls her daughter's schools or doctors.

There's also a young woman who is like a goddaughter to me. She's the daughter of my best friends who are now deceased.  When my "goddaughter" married (in her 30s), she and her husband took the same name--a  combination of both their names. This kept a link to their own family names and careers but now they and their daughters have the same last name.

WHat's the history here of women adopting their husband's name? TUrns out it dates back to the 9th century and something called the doctrine of coverture in English common law. Under this doctrine, women lacked an independent legal identity apart from their spouses.

Psychology Today follows up on that historical note:

At birth, women received their father’s surname; when they were “given away” at marriage, they automatically took their husband’s surname. The phrase “giving away the bride” was intended literally—under the doctrine of coverture, women were property, transferred from husband to father, and largely prohibited from owning their own property.

Mirel Zaman, a blogger on Refinery29, was lamenting her decision to take her husband's name (she made her maiden name her middle name and dropped her middle name). She writes that she felt she lost a piece of herself. Beyond that, though, she researched more recent history. What she found was that well into the 20th century, women had to fight state governments if we didn't want to change our names when we married. States could make us take our husband's name in order to vote, open a bank account or secure our own passport.

It wasn't until 1975 that the last of the state laws requiring a woman to take her husband’s last name after marriage had been eliminated.  Zaman writes,

"This was thanks to the women’s rights movement, in which marital names became a core issue insofar as they pertained to a woman’s personal liberty. It was such a prominent issue that the number of women keeping their birth-given surnames hit an all-time high in the 1970s, according to a small 2015 Google Consumer Survey analyzed by The New York Times’  The Upshot. That figure dipped in the more conservative 1980s, before rising again each subsequent decade.

How do the psychologists at Psychology Today see the fallout in the 21st century if women make name choices that run counter to tradition?

Women face censure for nontraditional name choices. Women who retain their birth surname are seen as selfish and uncommitted to their marriage and family .... Observers may hold women with nontraditional surnames to higher standards of “performance” as wives. Needless to say, this censure is not applied to men who retain their birth name—as long as the possibility of men changing their name remains largely unconsidered and invisible, men’s retention of their name appears natural and inevitable.

The writers also make this point:

As long as women are subjected to unequal societal pressure to change their surname, the practical and professional costs to name change are disproportionately born by women, as are the psychological costs of losing an individual identity.

Hard to believe that a little more than fifty years ago states could put our choice of name under a husband's thumb. And yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same.* That said, our Betty Friedan moments back in the day have helped our daughters to move the "married name" ball down the field--even if their daughters will have to move it further along.

*In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

Graduation Day: Traditions in the time of Covid

Middle- and High School graduations are in high season. Some schools are providing zoom-only events--grandparents can watch from the comfort of their home screens. But with the weather warmed up and the outdoors deemed safe by the CDC, the in-person event is also happening. And we're allowed to attend.

School rules vary but last weekend our granddaughter graduated from a school that was able to hold an in-person outdoor ceremony. Not that it fit all the traditional markers. Each graduate could have six people sit in their pod--six chairs huddled together and set at least six feet from other pods.

The pods were well spaced not only from each other but from the "podium" and from where the graduating seniors were seated in chairs six feet apart. Everything was spread out for health-spacing purposes, which meant that our pods were far from the action. (The equivalent of the nose-bleed section.) Still, we were there. When the graduates walked in (traditional Pomp and Circumstances on speaker system) it was hard to tell one student from the other--the gowns, the caps, the distance. 

A pre-ceremony email set out the rules of attendance:  Masks on the way in; masks on the way out. No socializing with other families before or after: Deliver your child, listen to speeches, watch your child receive their diploma and then take them home.

The sun was shining. It was a hot and beautiful day where the breeze was just enough to ensure covid-safety, especially with everyone masked and most guests and graduates vaccinated. Socializing happened. How could it not? Of course, we were from out of town so we knew no one to socialize with. We could watch as our daughter and her family met her child's friends and their families. How pleasant it was for them. How joyful. A major stepping stone in their child's (and our grandchild's)  life: Achieved.

To be honest, there were moments when we the grandparents felt like hangers-on--a bit left out. Was it the recognition that we are no longer center stage. Our children and their children have the starring roles now. As they should. But it wasn't that. A year of no in-person visiting had left us in an information vacuum.  We hadn't been around to pick up the small details about friendships made and the small triumphs and disappointments of our grandchild's year. The things too minor to mention in a zoom call but in the air when you visit in person. That's why at a celebratory dinner with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter we had trouble following the conversation about our grandchild's various friends and what they would be doing this summer, about the funny challenges of the senior year, about the underlying meaning of the valedictory's speech.

Was it worth the trip? You bet. We are so fortunate to be around and healthy enough to make the trip. It's what we do. We wouldn't have missed it. Especially when, as we were walking back from a morning-after shot of coffee, my daughter said, "It meant so much to all of us that you were here."

We're the audience that takes notice. We're a necessary part of the on-going play.

photo: graduation day, June 5, 2021

Anger Provocateurs: When relatives play favorites with our adult children.

Hell hath no fury like a parent whose child has been treated unfairly by others. Or whose close relative favors one of their children over another. A wave of inchoate anger rises even when the children are adults and making their way in the world.

A Social Qs column churned up this barrel of hurt. A reader wrote Philip Galanes that her sister, who had been relatively estranged from the reader's family, "made a large cash gift to my eldest daughter, who is a doctor, and gave nothing to my younger children, who earn less." The reader, who noted that she and her sister had been raised in a home filled with "unhealthy competition," asked Galanes if she could speak to her sister about this painful show of favoritism or should she let it go.

Galanes advised the reader not to raise the issue with her sister "unless you're prepared to rehash the dynamics of your childhood."

Check in with your kids instead. Ask them how they feel about this. You may be surprised to learn that the care you took in treating them equally will pay off now when others don't.

I have my own deeply buried experience with a situation similar to that of the reader's. My brother played a negligible role in my children's lives--he never called or sent a card on a birthday or attended any events that marked passages of their childhood. . Then suddenly he decided to show up for my daughter's graduation from an Ivy League school. He showered her with a large cash gift and took her and her roommates out to dinner. The next year, when my son graduated from a lower-profile college, my brother was a no-show and a non-acknowledger (no congratulatory phone call or note to say nothing of a gift) of the important passage in his nephew's life.

I like to think it was all about my brother's ego: He was dazzled by the Ivy League; it wasn't a personal statement about my son. Nonetheless, it stung.

So, lo these many years later, I took Galanes advice and asked my children about my brother and his track record with their college graduations. (I couldn't talk to my brother about it; he died several years ago.)  My daughter, well past her graduation days, remembered the discomfort of an uncle with whom she was not close paying so much attention to her and her friends and treating them so lavishly. She reminded me that neither she nor her brother "had a relationship with him and that's kind of sad. But I remember how mad you were."

My son brushed it off. He barely remembers any role my brother did or didn't have in his graduation.

So I guess the pain is all on me--and that's as it should be. Galanes is right on this count: Like the reader, much of my anger was not just at the way my brother treated my children but related back to the dynamics of my childhood.

Hell's fury might be when those dynamics are visited on your children, but the upside is that my children don't have the emotional overlay to be scarred by it.  

painting: Paul Klee, View from Red

 

Re-nesting: Adult children moving back home--here and abroad

Remember the bad old days and the effect on our grown children of the Great Recession (2008+). Remember stories about the worst old days and their effect on families during the Great Depression (1929+)? Well, the Pandemic Retrenchment (2020+) has, like those past economic disasters, brought many of our adult children home again. They're camping out with us--by themselves or with significant others; job hunting or working remotely, or re-assessing their future. The nest is refilled--like it or not. A Pew Research Center survey found the share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents is now a majority of that age group and a larger majority than the past Recession or Depression.

All of which is a long way of saying, if your adult children have reclaimed their childhood bedrooms or are sleeping on a couch in the basement, you're not alone.

Not only aren't you alone, but we here in this country also aren't alone either. Across the Atlantic in Great Britain, the Centre for Research in Social Policy reported last fall "nearly two-thirds of childless single adults aged 20-34 in the UK have either never left or have moved back into the family home." 

They've hung some numbers on it and some commentary on implications for the future:

Around 3.5 million single young adults in the UK are estimated to live with their parents, an increase of a third over the past decade, and a trend that is likely to accelerate as the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic deepens.

The so-called “boomerang” phenomenon – young adults returning to their parents’ home until well into their 20s or early 30s – is now a permanent feature of UK society and likely to trigger a profound rethink of how many families live their lives.

Here's the word from one of the chief researchers:

“Children living at home well into their 20s is not a temporary phenomenon, it’s here to stay...A lot of young people will spend most of a decade of their lives living like this.”

The numbers here are bigger, of course, and surprisingly well-spread. Pew reports:

In July 26.6 million  or 52 percent of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 24 million or 47 percent in February. The increase was evident for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions. Growth was sharpest among the youngest age group, ages 18 to 24, and White young adults.

The question for those of us with refilled nests is, how do we cope? I'll tune into advice on that in future blogs. Meanwhile, here's one generic guide to the basics. It covers five pointers:

• Understand the Situation
• Don't Spend Your Retirement
• Agree on a Time Limit
• Remember Whose Roof You're All Living Under
• Accept That Your Child Isn't a Kid Anymore

photo: Maia Lemov

Post-Vaccine Adventures: Grammie and PopPop get their hugs

There is some confusion about what we can and can't do unmasked, how we should or shouldn't behave in close-together spaces. That confusion gets mixed in with social anxiety. As we inch toward the full opening of a post-pandemic world, a lot of us are nervous about how we'll navigate our former social lives. Going unmasked to a neighbor's outdoor barbecue party may be allowed (if you're vaccinated) but many of us are no longer used to socializing in groups larger than two people.

What it means is that a lot of us are tiptoeing into the re-opening world. But there's one place where we're jumping right in: We are visiting our children in person and getting hugs from our grown kids and grandkids. The Instagram and media photos I've seen of parents reuniting with children or grandchildren exude the simple pleasure of a warm hug.

For those of us who live far from our grown kids and grandkids, the hugs have been slower to arrive  but they're coming. We're going to get them. A lot has changed since I wrote this post in March when public health experts warned against air travel.

Paterfamilias and I take off on an airplane in a few weeks. We're vaccinated so we're no longer worried about the perils of catching Covid on the flight or at the airport. Our destination: Our daughter's house. Our expectation: XOXOXO non-stop plus the joy of watching a granddaughter graduate from high school--outdoors with distanced seating in pods. (We're not totally back-to-normal yet.)

All hail vaccinations. It's making what seemed impossible last summer (and even two months ago) possible and probable.

How do we "old folks" feel about these hugfests? The consensus was captured in this reporting from a Washington Post story:

Among the many who have endured long separations, the first highly anticipated reunions are finally taking place. For grandparents in particular, the need to guard against covid-19 has been weighed against the yearning to be close to children and grandchildren, and an acute awareness of the time being lost. But now, with the arrival of vaccines, dates are circled on calendars, flights are booked, plans are made.

After picking up his young children from an overnight visit with their grandmother--a visit delayed by a year due to Covid--a father told the reporter:

“It was like old times — they didn’t want to come home. Things are starting to feel really different from how it’s been, finally, and I’m really happy about that.”

Hug on.

 

Leaving a Legacy: A push to get our storytelling act together

I have been working on a memoir for several years--writing sections, taking breaks, losing heart, returning to the work.  Anyone who's tried crafting anything personal knows what I'm talking about: So easy to lose confidence and stall out. The memoir is about my career--a legacy for my grandkids so they can know the times and culture we (my generation) worked our way up and through.

This Mother's Day a gift from my daughter is setting me on a parallel legacy path. The gift is called StoryWorth. Naturally, since my daughter is of her generation, it's digital. I receive an email each week with a prompt for something to write about--the prompts chosen or posed by my daughter. After a year, all the essays (or a sentence or whatever I write) and any photos I add are collected into a "book." My daughter sees each "story" after I write it and can comment. 

What an experience. The first question: How did you feel when your first child was born?

I wrote about it this morning and I haven't yet returned from my trip down memory lane. Recalling that day--that moment in my life; the birthing practices of the time--and sharing details I had almost forgotten with my child and her family has left me feeling both weepy and joyful. She says she felt the same way when she read my remembrance--it was her birth, after all.

StoryWorth is only one means to an end. What a gift we give each other when we take the time to dig deep into our memories and share our stories. It's our most meaningful legacy to our children and their children. Why not be here to enjoy it.

painting: Matisse

Observation: The profound value of mothers to their adult daughters

 

As Mother's Day nears, what more touching message could we hear than this one from author Abigail Tucker via an e-newsletter from NYTimes staff editor, Sarah Wildman.

Only human females and a handful of long-lived whales have a lengthy life phase when reproduction ends and the time arrives to pitch in with the grandkids,” Tucker explains in the piece, which is adapted from her newly published book “Mom Genes: Inside The New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct. This all-hands (or all flippers) approach to ensuring your genetic legacy apparently pays dividends.”It turns out that a grandmother’s help can have a profound impact on a new mother’s well-being, on the success of her pregnancy and even on how her children thrive.

During the pandemic, even those mothers who live close to their own mothers have often been forced to be distant. For many others — like me — who live hours apart, this time has caused us to reconsider why we don’t live close enough to continue to be mothered well into adulthood. It’s not just wishful thinking; as Tucker explains, there’s a science to our sense of need.

painting of mother and daughter: Berthe Morisot

 

 

 

Great Expectations: Anger and our grown children (Part 1)

We've all been there--gotten annoyed at our grown children. Maybe it was for not returning our text promptly, or forgetting their sister's birthday, or taking time off when they should have been buckling down at work. Or just plain not doing things the way we have always done them. Whatever. However much we love them, we can also be angry at them and hurt and disappointed.

What to do about it? One answer is to lower expectations. In a column, Carolyn Hax answers a reader whose son never drives the two hours to visit his mom and dad for major holidays (he goes to his in-laws who live nearby). He refuses to come to his father's yearly family reunion ("too far in advance to commit") or to her mom's 90th birthday party ("not enough notice"). The reader is angry, hurt and depressed about his stand-offishness.

Here's the essence of Hax's silver bullet:

Adjust your plans to reflect reality. Expect delayed replies, holidays without your son, occasional daunting travel.

Learn to recognize that what we get from people, over time, represents pretty accurately what they’re willing to give.

Enjoy what they give you, period. Stare down disappointment with gratitude.

and this

Acceptance — be it of mildly annoying unanswered texts or of heartbreaking distance — can feel like the breaking point of a relationship. Often, though, it’s the beginning of a better one.

Why? Because it is just not human nature to rush to see people who only complain or make sad eyes at us for not responding enough or visiting enough or caring enough or giving enough. Quite the contrary; we tend to pull away harder.

So if you miss your son, then lay off wanting more of him. ...Whether this creates new connections or improves your problematic old ones, it’s a win either way.

 

Supporting Adult Children: We've shifted with the times

Who says we're stuck in the old ways of doing things? Our roles as grandparents have been keeping step with the times. There's a study with lots of data to show how we've shifted the way we help our grown children and the impact that's had on our grandkids.

Teresa Cooney, who analyzed data from a parent survey, compared parental support for their adult children in the 1980s-90s to more recent times. Thirty or 40 years ago parents were more likely to help out married children as opposed to adult children who lived with their partners without being married or were single parents. What that says is that, along with the culture, we've become more accepting of the many configurations that make up our notions of what a family is.

If we're tilting our resources towards our adult children who are single parents it's not surprising. They tend to have fewer resources than married‐couple families. At the same time, we tend to have more resources--not just the financial means but the time to help out; that is, to make our presence a positive factor in our children's and grandchildren's lives.

Here's Cooney's bottom line:

Grandparental support appears responsive to the needs of their adult children. Nontraditional families no longer receive less extended‐family support. Grandparents today appear to play an important support role for their children's families.

Can't put a price on the return on that investment.

painting: William Chase, A Friendly Visit

Grandparenting: Play is more than play when we play with our grandkids

For years one of my granddaughters and I had a favorite game: I would be the "doctor," her stuffed animals the patients. One by one she would bring them to me, tell me what was wrong with them and assist while I treated them for, say, a broken leg or a tummy ache. I loved the game. Not only was it precious time together, but I hoped to gain insight via stuffed-animal aches and pains into the little things she worried about as she grew from toddler to pre-schooler to a kindergartner.  I'm not sure we ever reached the insight stage, but we had our little game and we loved playing it together.

One of the many advantages of being a Nana or PopPop is that we are free to play with our grandkids, often to the exclusion of the things we had to do as parents--overseeing their homework, driving them to soccer practice or imposing discipline. While play is responsibility-free, there's more to it than that, according to this article in Grand, an online magazine. We're enhancing our grandchildren's lives as well as our own plus we're forced to keep ourselves current.

Here's author Judith Van Hoorn's take on that:

Another characteristic of play is the age difference between the players. When we think of preschoolers, school-aged children, or teenagers playing, we often imagine them playing with friends their age. The most common exception is playing within families where we see people of different ages playing together. And, with grandparent and grandchild play, the age difference is usually the greatest.

What might that mean for grandparents in terms of what we play and how we play? To begin with, we have to adapt our play styles to one another. For example, we need to update our repertoire of songs, stories, books, and movie plotlines, and definitely update the names of popular superheroes and princesses.

Here's looking at you WandaVision.

 

 

Observation: Carolyn Hax on what to do if a grown child pushes you away.

The comforting way to put it is that our grown kids need space. But the far end of that need can play out in a way that translates into "they don't want us around."

In answer to a reader's complaint that her daughter won't take her phone calls, discourages her from visiting (even though she's now vaccinated) and otherwise is putting a lot of distance between mother and daughter, Carolyn Hax addressed the estrangement issue. The thrust of her advice for mending a rift, be it between mother and daughter or any other meaningful relationship, is to become a good listener.

If I start listing reasons grown children estrange themselves from their parents, I’ll still be typing when the next pandemic hits.

What matters is that you become a better listener, stat: “You’ve been saying no [to phone calls and visits], and I’ve been so caught up in changing your mind that I forgot to listen. I’m sorry. I will take no for an answer and stop pushing. I’m here when you’re ready. And, if I haven’t said so already or enough, thank you for being so good about putting the kids on FaceTime with us.”

This might leave you feeling resentful, as if you’re the one doing all the sacrificing here. That’s a common complaint when I recommend a full retreat — but it’s also a trap. It tempts you into looking for fairness when fairness doesn’t apply; reality is in control. And reality says you can’t make your daughter do anything (in fact, it’s probably tired of repeating itself), whether fairness demands it or not. You can work only on your side of the problem.

So, you offer her respect, space, grace — and give yourself the best chance of mending the breach.

painting: Rebecca Lemov

Covid, Kids and the Comfort of a Hug: Is it safe to travel to see our kids and grandkids?

The headlines have been reassuring: "Grandparents are getting to hug their grandkids for the first time after getting vaccinated."

Well, that's fine for grandparents who live near their grandkids or within driving distance. Those of us who have to fly--well, that's another story. In the best of all possible worlds, we should hold off on airplane travel unless it's absolutely necessary.  Does a hug qualify? Our public health gurus tell us, Don't do it unless you must, even if you're fully vaccinated. Maybe by summer when even more people are vaccinated (and a fourth wave either doesn't rise or is under control)  it might be safer to go.

We're making plans to see both our grown kids and their kids later this spring and again this summer. We'll fly, as we did last fall.  This article spells out what we can expect if we take to the air.  Here's what I learned from it and from others:

It will be more crowded and busier than it was in September 2020 when we took our "see the kids" trip. Planes will be fuller. Delta is still blocking middle seats but that's only through April and may change for May and beyond. Other airlines are filling all seats on their flights. So we may be sitting cheek-and-jowl again. Here we go, back to normal but in way that we wish would be back better.  word.

Airlines required (but didn't enforce) masks when we flew in the fall.  The current Transportation Security Administration has mandated masks at airports and on airplanes through May 11; airlines have become stricter about enforcing their own mask-up rules. A T.S.A. spokesperson said it was too soon to say what will happen after the May date but given airline mask requirements, the rise of a fourth wave and the variants that are around, face coverings are likely to be required for the seeable future. Given concerns about that fourth surge and President Biden's plea to wear masks, we''ll probably double mask while traveling.  Just to be sure.

At the height of the pandemic, most airlines stopped food and drink service. They may start again--at least with beverages and snacks. What happens to our masks when and if the airlines roll those drink carts down the aisles? Can't eat or sip a soda with a mask on, so what do we do if we're thirsty or hungry? We may have to mask between bites.

Most food concessions remain closed at many airports--though that may loosen up as vaccination totals climb. When we flew in September, there were one or two concessions available to buy food. We ate our lunch while we waited to board the plane. The airport was eerily empty so we had plenty of space to ourselves. If more passengers show up at airports, concessions may begin to reopen and socially distanced space may be harder to find.

When we get to our destination there's the question of whether, even though we're vaccinated, we can carry and spread the virus to our loved ones. The research so far is unclear, though it leans toward non-spread.  Some of us may luck out in that our grown children may be vaccinated by the time we travel--and therefore immune from anything we pick up during our travels. Our New York State kids already have appointments for jabs. If we put off our trip till their second shots take root, we can visit with them in their home with fewer precautions--and more hugs. 

painting: Renoir, Oarsmen at Chatou

 

 

Covid, Us and Our Grown Kids: We're a luckier generation.

With the possible exception of newborns, I can't think of an age group that hasn't suffered terribly during the pandemic. Certainly, school-age and college-age children have had their worlds turned upside down; many are struggling with mental health issues from social isolation and screen-learning difficulties. Young adults may have lost a year of finding a career and an independent lifestyle. Older adult children may have had their careers curtailed, their job safety undone, their incomes lost.

Our generation is at the further end of the generational arc. Many of us are retirees or older parents who may still be working but whose careers are no longer on the mega-growth path. Overall, we seem to be doing better than our grown kids and grandkids. We were starting to slow down anyway; the pandemic accelerated that trendline. So long as income hasn't been an issue, we've suffered mainly from isolation and the inability to hug our grandkids or enjoy the pleasure of having an adult child drop by for an in-person visit.

I'm not the only one to think our generation has been luckier than others in this pandemic. Surveys over the last year show that, despite being at higher risk of contracting Covid and suffering severe complications,  we've managed to stay relatively happier than younger generations.

Why is that? Here's what researchers at Stanford University's Center on Longevity, who surveyed some 1,000 adults, aged 18 to 76, reported:

Age was associated with relatively greater emotional well-being both when analyses did and did not control for perceived risk and other covariates. The present findings extend previous research about age and emotion by demonstrating that older adults’ relatively better emotional well-being persists even in the face of prolonged stress.

In other words,  compared with young adults, people aged 50 and over score consistently higher, or more positively, on a  variety of daily emotions. We tend to experience more positive emotions in a given day and fewer negative ones than the generation of our adult children.

 

In a similar study, psychologists at the University of British Columbia exhaustively surveyed some 800 adults of all ages in the first couple of months of the pandemic and found the same thing.

Their investigation of  daily life amid the outbreak, found,

Older age was associated with less concern about the threat of Covid-19, better emotional well-being, and more daily positive events.

There's more than curiosity associated with the findings of this research. It has policy implications.  As Susan Charles, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, told the New York Times,

“I think the older generation now, as much as it’s been threatened by Covid, they’re beginning to say, ‘My life is not nearly as disrupted as my children’s or grandchildren’s,' and that is where our focus on mental well-being should now turn.”

 

Downsizing: Our housing decisions are emotional ones for our children

There comes a time when the kids are grown and the house we raised them in is too big, too much to maintain, a burden to carry or a source of little and big repair bills. The roof might need replacing. The driveway is cratering. The washer and dryer are aging out. Or all of the above.

We were ready to sell the home we lived in for 43 years and move to something easier. Plus, we wanted to try an urban lifestyle.

We were ready to move out and on, but were our children? They have been living far from us with families and homes of their own. So why would we even think they mattered in our decision to sell.

We checked in with them anyway. The house was where they grew up--their story of origin. Even as they became independent and moved to other parts of the country and world, the house was there as a refuge--a safety net. When they married and started families, they brought their children to the house to show them where they grew up, what their life was like when they were young. They took pleasure in showing them a secret passageway between rooms, the hill on the driveway where they practiced kicking a soccer ball. It wasn't just our children who were attached to the house. One of our grandchildren spent enough time visiting us there that she became friendly with the girls across the street and knew every dog that lived nearby.

It would have taken an emotionally persuasive argument for our children to change our minds about selling the family manse. They had no desire to do so. They were behind the move. But a day before we closed on the sale, they both flew home--without spouses or children--to say goodbye to the house and the neighborhood and to reminisce about the riches of the family life we had known there.

This visit happened nearly five years ago, but the memory of it came flooding back as I was reading Claire Tomalin's "brisk and sparkling" biography of Jane Austen. Tomalin wrote about the effect on the Austen children (all of them adults) of their parents' decision to leave Steventon, the home where Jane and her brothers and sisters were born and raised. (Jane and her older sister, Cassandra, still lived with their parents.)

Jane was greatly distressed [by the news.]....[A niece] was told her Aunt Jane fainted. The whole thing was a shock, and a painful one.

All the Austen children were affected by it. The fact that every one of them who was absent and could possibly return to Steventon--[four of Jane's brothers]--made a point of doing so before their parents left--"while Steventon is ours,' as Jane put it--suggests how much they felt it as the closing of a door on their childhood and the end of a way of life."

painting: Edward Hopper