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

Coronavirus and our grown children: Showing us they care by parenting us

Governor Andrew Cuomo, photo Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

Our son is on the phone again. "Are you doing Take Out for dinner?" he asks. We are. "Don't go into the restaurant" he tells us. "Have it delivered."

We are looking forward to the short drive to the restaurant. It's what passes for an outing in these times of social-distancing. The dash into the restaurant to pick up the food that's been pre-ordered and pre-paid: We're okay with that. We don't argue with out son. We don't have to. He's not our parent. We'll do as we think best when we click off FaceTime.

But here's the thing. Our friends are experiencing similar "parenting" phone calls, many even more directive. Their sons and daughters are telling them to stay home, quarantine themselves, don't go to the supermarket, abide by the strictest set of isolation rules--rules beyond those suggested for the general shelter-in-place population. Of course, we are all well over 60 so our children are worried about us, as public health officials have suggested they should be. We are staying home--except for daily walks, supermarket runs and the occasional take out dinner--and are healthy with no underlying conditions. So are they, but now they are parenting us.

Should they? The Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, says that he, at 69 year of age, is willing to, well, take one for the team if it means saving the economy. He suggests we should be willing to do it too. I guess that means we should spend our money on the economy and if we get sick, no ventilators for us. We "oldies" should be willing to cull the senior herd. No sacrifice too great for our kids.

Our kids and our grandkids are sending a different message: They like having their Nanas and PopPops around. New York's Governor Cuomo hit an emotional high note when he told a press conference, "My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable."

Thank you, Governor.

Now we're going to go pick up our sushi dinners at the Japanese restaurant where every surface in sight is wiped down and where we customers (and the men and women who deliver for GrubHub, DoorDash and the like) are kept at a safe distance.

For us, picking it up ourselves means one less contact with the package of food. We are staying safe as best we can. We are not Dan Patricks and our kids don't  want us to be.

Thank you for letting us know, kids.

 

Will the coronavirus pandemic be the defining event of our grown children's lives?

In 1966, the Arno River flooded Florence, killing 101 people and destroying millions of masterpieces. It was also a disaster for my Uncle Leon. He had a sweater import business; his inventory was stored in Florence. The sweaters were ruined and, through no fault of his own, so was Uncle Leon. For his family--his grown children just starting out on their own--the flood became a before and after point of reference. A legacy of sorts. 

I think about that now because I wonder about this pandemic and its effect on us--not just our health, but our squirreled-away retirement funds and our children and their future. Will this be a touchstone for many families who established themselves firmly in the middle class only to find the coronavirus swept that away. Not because we became ill from it--though that is still unknown--but because the economy didn't recover in time to keep us in the place we were.

After the scramble to make sure we would never be a  burden to our children, we now have to worry that the financial markets might have eaten away our best laid plans. We have to worry about the businesses our children are in. If they work for a big company--a Delta Airlines or a Marriott, as children of friends of ours do--will the furloughs they are currently on lead to rehiring or permanent layoffs. If our children started a business that's had to curtail its business, how will they (for how long can they) meet their payroll; if they work for a small business, are they out of work and trying to collect unemployment insurance? (Good luck with that; it's very difficult to get through even online.) And how widespread is this virus anyway--we have no widespread testing that would let us know. We have no idea who and how many among us are infected.

The majority of us with grown children have lived more than sixty years. We've been told to stay home and isolate ourselves--even if we don't have underlying conditions. We have to cut ourselves off from our children, our grandchildren, our friends--life as we know it. And we can't even get a test to know if that's necessary.

We are falling behind and behinder. Is this the legacy we're leaving our children--the turning point my Uncle Leon suffered half a century ago.

Helicopter Parenting: Does it end when our kids are adults?

Does helicopter parenting end when our kids graduate from high school or enter the work force? Don't bet on it. But don't indulge in it either. Barnard College's  Natalie Friedman can bear eyewitness account of the dangers to our children's welfare of over-parenting or having a bulldozer or snowplow parent--or even a lawnmower. So many words for those of us who can't stop intervening in our children's lives--even though they are adults and living independently.

Friedman fields call every day from "interveners." That's how she sees the damage done to a child's growth and ability to advocate for themselves. Although her words of wisdom are aimed at how to help your college kids grow up without your "interventionist" support  they also have relevancy to the post-graduate years--those years when our kids are setting out on their own, starting jobs that can support them (or come close) and are trying to figure out where they want to head in this world.

Here are some bits of her advice about helping kids advocate for themselves in college, though the tips below are relevant beyond the school years. (Words in parenthesis are mine, not Friedman"s.) The full article, which ran in the NYTimes, is here

--Help them write “scripts.” If your student is scared to talk to a professor or feels intimidated by a dean (or if they're in a workplace and are anxious about talking to a manager), help write a “script” for the occasion. Chances are you’ve had experience talking to your boss or manager, so tell your student what words to use. ... Ask your student to write down your suggestions in a notebook or type them into a phone, somewhere your student won’t forget to look right before stepping into a professor’s (or manager's) office.

Encourage them to follow up. Sometimes a student will work up the courage to find a professor, only to hear something disappointing: They are failing the course, or the next exam will count as their final grade.(Or a manager may tell them they're not performing well.) ...Some students will take this disappointing news and turn it inward, feeling terrible and using negative self-talk. ....Help to reframe the disappointment as a learning opportunity: Your student should follow up with an email or another visit to the professor with specific questions like, “What can I do to be better prepared for the next exam?”

Remind them to talk to more than one person. A professor, a friend or a teaching assistant might have one answer to a question, but others on campus (or in a business organization) might have advice of a different kind. Encourage your student to get to know other adults on campus who might be able to help navigate a less-than-ideal situation. Getting lots of information and input can help them make better decisions. Remind them that learning to live with disappointment is a facet of self-advocacy. Even students who are great at asking for what they need may not get the response they want. Remind them that this is O.K.: Rejection is a part of life.

Friedman ppoints out that too many parents have a “don’t-take-no-for-an-answer” mind-set, and their children adopt the same attitude. "This approach rarely works for self-advocacy," she writes. "Remember that every conversation is a give-and-take, and coming off as angry or inflexible is only going to create tension with the very people who are in a position to help." 

Friedman's bottom line for us and our children: "Learn when to accept “no” as the final answer and when it is appropriate to push back or ask more questions."

 

Observation: Philip Galanes on keeping indulgent gifts to grown-up kids on the down low.

When our children were just starting their careers and in the midst of struggling to meet their rent, cell phone bill and car payments, we may have helped out--a car payment here, a refilled refrigerator there; dinner out or a new sweater in just the right color. If we could afford it, we enjoyed doing all that and maybe a little more.

But there comes a time when it's counterproductive, when it makes our grown children feel like they aren't independent adults.  In asking Philip Galanes in Social Qs what to do about parental overindulgence, a reader (a young woman in her 30s) described how it made her feel when her parents "keep buying things for me and my kids (groceries, toys, clothing) and refuse to let me pay for anything. I've told them we don't need gifts, but they ignore me. I feel awful."

Here's the advice Galanes handed out in how to deal with us--the parents who aren't giving our adult children the gift of acknowledging they are grown up and self sufficient adults.

Sit them down one quiet evening and say: “It’s largely thanks to you and your unwavering support that I’m in such good financial condition for my age. I hope you know that. And I think it’s time we put our relationship on more equal footing.”

Then, depending on your means (and inclination), buy them something you know they will appreciate: new winter coats, a gorgeous filet mignon from the butcher or a sunny weekend in Coral Gables. No need to become a spendthrift. Just try a loving gesture. It may wake them up to your well-founded gratitude and the true financial picture here.

This doesn't mean we can't pick up the check for dinner or surprise them with a beautiful sweater. It's just that it should be an occasional treat, not a habit.  And we should let them treat us occasionally too.

Our Generation's Gift to Our Daughers and Granddaughters

Renoir: Mother and Her Children at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

We came out of college ambitions ablaze. This was the 1960s and 70s. We weren't going to be our mothers. Even though the culture and our parents told us otherwise, we went out and got interesting jobs--jobs our mother's couldn't even dream of. One of my college friends got a public relations job at Lincoln Center. Another did research for a consulting firm. I was a letter's correspondent for Time Magazine, answering reader complaints about Time's coverage of the Vietnam War or its cinema reviews.

Then we married, had children and realized how easy it had been to be trailblazers when we were young and unencumbered. When, and if, we tried to go back to work, there were no supports for us--no reasonably priced day care or after-school programs, no cultural acceptance or parental encouragement.

I had coffee the other day with my friend Sue who I've known for decades. We reminisced about how it had been in the 1960s and 70s. She talked about how, when her first child was 8 months old, she decided to take a part-time job. Although her husband was supportive, her parents and his parents were not. They drove from their homes in suburban New York to her apartment in downtown Washington D.C. to dissuade her, telling her that her baby son would suffer from her "neglect," that she was being a bad mother. "I was part of a woman's support  group--we were 5 neighbors who were also stay-at-home mom," Sue recalled. "We talked through the guilt and conflicts we faced if went to work or to graduate school, and that's what saved me."  She took that part-time job, had another child and went on to start her own successful management consulting  business. Two of the women in her group became lawyers, another also started her own business.

When Sue's sons married, one of the brides was in medical school; the other, an investment banker. When her daughters-in-law had children there was, Sue says, no question they would continue their careers.

In my family, my daughter, like Sue's daughters-in-law, never questioned that, once she had my beautiful little Grand, she would take her hard-earned PhD and continue to become the professor and writer she wanted to be. My daughter-in-law took a different path: She had been a bank manager but now she loves being a stay-at-home mom to three children. She takes her work as seriously as my daughter takes hers.

We have come a long way, even if our daughters and granddaughter are sometimes knocked about by glass ceilings and under paid or are dismissed for being a homemaker. One proof of how far we've come: When our daughters and granddaughters hear about how it was for us, they can't believe it was ever so. But it was. We moved the needle a little bit. That's our gift to them.

READERS: What sort of experience did you have as a young mom re-entering the work world or deciding to be a stay-at-home mother. I welcome your comments here or send me an email.

                                       Stone: Mother (mine) with her two children, 1940's

 

Grown Kids and Their Pets: Another family member to worry about

photo credit: P. Coleman.                 Tao in her prime.       

Our daughter's dog is in pain. She has been diagnosed with cancer. Tao--a "rescue" dog that is part black lab, part white-spotted sheep dog--is the sweetheart of the family. Indulged. Loved. Petted. Patted. Scratched (She prefers a vigorous rub behind the ears.) Walked often. Fed with various treats. She has pride of place in the family car. She walks with a jaunt to her step when she's taken to a coffee shop or on an errand. She is docile but alert when tied to a post outside the store--she bides her time with dignity. She has her favorite stops--mostly shops that offer her a doggie treat or a snuggle and a greeting by name.

Everyone loves Tao. And now it is hard to see her in pain and to see our daughter and her family wrestling with what to do. The tumor has been biopsied and tests have been run. The cancer is aggressive. It is no longer just in her leg--that rules out amputation.  They are talking to the veterinary oncologist about chemotherapy. It took 3 weeks to get an appointment with the vet oncologist. What does that say about families, the deep affection they have for their pets and the depths to which those who can afford it (or barely afford it) will go to keep them alive and, hopefully, well.

 It is so easy to say that we can do for our pets what we can't do for our human loved ones: We can put them down and out of unendurable pain when the time comes. But I can see that such a decision is not one my daughter and her family are willing to talk about right now. They are focused on helping Tao feel better. If she can't be cured, they are intent on keeping her out of pain, whatever the cost and for however long they can.

Tao was my first Grand pet and is my only Grand Pup. (I also have two Grand bunnies as well. One of them has had severe health issues.) So here I sit, hundreds of miles from the scene, feeling sad and helpless to give aid or comfort. A member of the family is in pain. Parenting grown children extends to caring and worrying about their pets as well.

photo credit: P. Coleman                        Tao exercising her senior rights.

The Joy of Grandparenting: Do we need help to get it right?

"We're pregnant." That's often how our grown sons or daughters let us know they and their spouses are starting a new family. Whatever the wording and from whichever child it comes, the message is a joy to our ears. We have visions of cuddly grandbabies nuzzling up to our chins or taking their first step in our living rooms. Our hearts fill with the idea that there will be a new generation with whom to share our wisdom--to say nothing of a big chunk of our genes. We'll play with them. Be silly with them. Spoil them when their parents aren't around. Oh the fun we'll have.

We can get way ahead of ourselves and right from the start. We may make plans to be there for the birth--whether or not we're invited. Or decide to meet our little heirs the day after they take their first breath. Surprise! An unexpected visit from the grandparents who live thousands of miles away.

Whoa. It's concern about actions like these that have created a groundswell of courses on grandparenting. From New York to Seattle and on to Chicago and Houston there are classes on how to not mess up the grandparenting thing. Who would think advice is needed but grandparenting can be pretty complicated.

We may know best about burping and diaper changing and feeding schedules, but we are not in charge. Moreover, we aren't the only grandparents involved. Our child is not the only new parent in the family. In short, we can easily offend and strain relationships with our son- or daughter-in-law, or their parents. We need to tiptoe on those eggshells. It's important to get it right from the get-go.

“Ask your children what they need." That's the core of the advice Sally Tannen gives at a grandparenting class she teaches in New York City." ‘How can I help you?’ is probably the best gift you can give them,” she suggests. “It will go very far toward allowing relationships to flourish if they feel supported in their role as parents.”

Another key suggestion: “They’re feeling so vulnerable as new parents that they hear everything through the lens of criticism, no matter what we say. And they push us away. They want to be the bosses of their own lives and their own kids.”

Not that we didn't know that from our own experiences when we became new parents and our parents may have offered more advice than we wanted. But sometimes our grandparenting enthusiasm runs high and we forget what it was like for us.

We want to be helpful, but grandparenting is another and very similar page in parenting grown children: We have to remember not to try to take over.

 

Holiday Togetherness: Bumbling through three-generation family gatherings.

When we were young and in our parental prime, the big holiday dimmers were at our house. Our best friends and their children joined us; we shared the cooking. Even as the years passed and the children became adults and added spouses or significant others to the holiday, we kept to our formula. Among the many pluses of sharing the feast with friends was that it kept each family's hot spots off the table (so to speak).

The more things change, the more adjustments we have had to make. Our friends have passed away, their children are married and have Thanksgiving with their new families. Our children have put roots down in cities far from us and from each other. Our son's house has become the most convenient central meeting place for our family. When we gather we are ten--two grandparents, four parents and four Grands (plus one grand-bunny who gets an inordinate amount of attention). Without "outsiders" to keep the conversation from straying into the uber-personal, we are all at peril of making a blunder, of inadvertently stumbling into unproductive, hot-spot territory. And there's lot of time to do it. All of us are awake and together from morning 'til bedtime--gabbing in the living room, taking walks outside, helping in the kitchen, nibbling a light lunch before the Big Dinner, which we plan for 5:00 knowing that means  we'll be sitting down by 6 or 6:30. 

It's a lot of time together, a lot of interests and concerns to cover. Beer and wine are available to the adults. Tongues loosen--or as a drinking friend of mine likes to put it: the governor comes off.

All of which is a long way of saying we had a "governor off" moment. An awkward question was asked by an aunt of a teen-aged niece. It was a mortifying moment. The tide of conversation moved on and was forgotten by all except the teen, who escaped further notice by lavishing an inordinate amount of attention on the bunny.

Would that question have come up if we had friends in the party mix? Would the conversation have remained far enough from the personal not to veer into mortifying territory? Would everyone have been more cautious about what they said? Who knows. Is it possible to have a multi-general, multi-family get together and not have an awkward moment, an "I wish I hadn't said that" minute. After all, it's the high and low moments that color our recollections, as in, Remember the year when the bunny got loose in the garage or the Thanksgiving when Grannie crashed the touch football game.

All I do know is that on the airplane flying home this year, Paterfamilias, who has occasionally been too frank or critical at our holiday dinners, leaned in and said, "Well, that was a nice Thanksgiving, wasn't it? We didn't make any blunders."

Score this year as a plus for us.

Grandparenting: Getting a thanks for the gifts we give

'Tis the season to receive Thank You notes. The present-giving is behind us. If we weren't present at the gift-opening moments--and that's true for those of us who live far from our children or whose children are spending their holidays elsewhere--we may be waiting for the snail-mail delivery of a much-desired  handwritten Thank You note. It's a tradition that is steeped in what our culture tells us is the proper way to acknowledge the time, trouble and affection someone--that's us--has taken to buy and deliver a gift. The note brings joy.

A lovely tradition, yes. But also one that's been disrupted by--what else?--technology. Our children and grandchildren are used to using email. texting and occasionally Iinstagram or Facebook to communicate and they also use it to let us know how much they appreciate whatever it is we've done for them. It's the thought that counts.

This year we here at Grown Children central have been lucky enough to see how that thought counted. Both of our adult children were thoughtful enough to photograph or video the opening of gifts we sent--and to text the moment to us minutes later. Oh joy.  In one photo, a Grand hugs our gift to her heart. In another--a video--our 11-year-old rips the wrapping off the present we sent and emits shrieks of delight. She then followed up with an email whose subject line read: THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH. Other grands texted lovely and loving thank you remarks right after opening their gifts.

It was so immediate. So pleasure-filled. Do we really need formal, handwritten notes after that?

Holidays without the Kids: Finding ways to make the best of it.

We are alone for the Holidays. Our children and grandchildren are elsewhere. This is the fallout from having children who marry spouses whose families have holiday traditions they want to honor with their presence. When our children were young, our tradition was to escape the hoopla and take the family skiing. But our children are grown now with families of their own, live in cities far from us and are creating their own ways of observing the Season.

We're not alone in this. There are lots of reasons why adult children spend their holidays with other parents or friends or doing something else. Many of us have found work-arounds. Some of our friends have time-shifted the holidays. That is, they pre-celebrated or are post-celebrating the holiday at a time and day more convenient to gathering everyone together. Good will to all.

But that still leaves the vacuum that is the day of the holiday itself. Christmas, in particular, can feel like the world has ghosted us, that everyone else is gathered around their living rooms, singing carols, opening gifts, eating Christmas dinner and thinking about peace and goodwill to man. (Well, maybe as an outsider looking in my imagination is over-firing.) But the fact remains that on Christmas day stores, restaurants, theaters, museums and other amusements have shut their doors. Shout out to movie theaters for keeping their screens lit.

What to do? Not all of us will over-compensate by crowding into Chinese restaurants. One set of friends whose children are otherwise occupied made reservations for Christmas dinner at a very chic--and fabulous--country inn. Friends of theirs--also without the company of the children from either his or her first marriages--will join them.

Other friends are leaving the country--off to Baja, Mexico to loll in the sun and enjoy water sports while their children celebrate the holidays skiing and hiking in the deep chill of New England.

And then there's always a good book, Netflix and freshly popped popcorn. Stream The Crown or Jack Ryan and, poof, before we know it, it's the day after.

Observation: Offering unsolicited advice to grown children is a no-win.

When it comes to raising their children, our sons and daughters are not perfect. Or maybe they are but their spouses have too heavy or light a hand. Correcting behavior or disciplining their children is a touchy business and when we get to see it up close and personally, we may not like it. We may even think they are taking the wrong approach--either too tough or not tough enough. We worry about our grandkids' pysches.

We need to get over it. When it comes to general advice, our kids rarely want to hear from us if they haven't asked. Child-raising advice doubles the ante. We can't win by butting in or making suggestions later.

Philip Galanes of Social Q's may or may not have to live with the zipped-shut mouth within his own family but he gives similar council more elegantly and with more practicality than I do. Here's his answer to a woman whose daughter-in-law yelled at and, from the grandmother's perspective, belittled her 17-year-old son during a family meal. After the event, the woman offered her daughter-in-law what she described as  "some advice you can take or leave.”  Result: daughter- in- law will no longer take her calls.

After advising the writer  to "Keep apologizing at regular intervals and hope for the best," Galanes offers this suggestion. It applies to all of us who have the urge to intervene when we see our grown children discipline their children and are sure we know a better way. (We may, but we've already had our shot.)

...If one person is treating another badly, the immediate need is comforting the victim, not asserting dominance over the aggressor. Better to have taken your grandson to a skateboard shop (or anyplace he likes), spoken to him kindly and let him vent. That may have done him some good and given you more context for understanding his difficulties with his mother, rather than starting a war with her that you can never win.

 

Emerging Adults: Big adjustments ahead as teenage kids morph into independent adults.

He's a psychologist who specializes in adolescence but Carl Pickhardt also has a lot to say about the next stage: young adults (roughly twenty-somethings)  and their natural and inevitable  independence from us, their loving and occasionally controlling parents. In a recent newsletter, he laid out the basic changes in our relationship with our grown-up young 'uns. This period of development, he notes,  is a time when our children have gained "functional independence and a sense of identity." That is, our newly minted adults should be able to tell themselves, "I’m on my own and I know who I am.” 

In the real world, young adults have their struggles coming to terms with this sense of independence and self awareness, but so do we. Let me quote Pickhardt on the range of losses we may feel as the transition takes place:

• Demotion: parents lose positional superiority. Interpersonal standing is now equitized.  “I can’t pull rank of ruling authority anymore.”

• Distance: parents lose central importance. Parents become more peripheral to young adult life. “I’m more of an outsider now.”

• Disappointment: parental expectations are unmet. Old dreams do not match the emerging reality.  “He didn’t turn out all the ways I anticipated.”

• Disapproval: parents don't like some daily decisions being made. In the young person’s place, they would choose differently.  “We don’t agree with her priorities.”

• Diversity: parents lose some old sense of similarity. The adult child life is increasingly unfamiliar. “Her lifestyle is so different from ours.”

• Despondency: parents lose accustomed contact. Primary intimacy and importance are found elsewhere. “I miss the old closeness we used to share.”  

• Deprivation: parents lose current information. They feel more out of touch with what is happening.  “I'm not regularly told what is going on.”

• Directness: parents lose spontaneity of communication. There is more talking carefully.  “I’m more diplomatic about what I say and how I say it.

How to adjust--while doing no harm. Pickhardt has a warning on how important it is that our children make the transition.

Proceeding as though your adult child will stay as family-centered as the adolescent usually doesn’t work too well. Instead, by emphasizing certain parental roles, more closeness can often grow. A few suggestions follow. 

• Parents can become cheerleaders – celebrating accomplishments.

• Parents can become supporters – providing listening. 

• Parents can become motivators – encouraging effort.

• Parents can become followers – expressing interest

• Parents can become mentors – advising when asked.

• Parents can become companions – providing welcome company.

• Parents can become independents – leading separate lives.

• Parents can become informants – sharing home and family news.

• Parents can become helpers – being on family call.

• Parents can become requestors -- asking for assistance.

It's the future we have been building towards--that day when our children will be independent, sentient beings who'll mature into adults who can, let us all hope, live productive lives and rise to the occasion of caring for us in our dotage.

 

Holidays with Grown Children: The good, better and stress of family togetherness

Why say it again. Here's a re-run from a year or two ago about the sweetness and the challenges of a "one big happy family" Thanksgiving.

            

 

Thanksgiving is a family get-together favorite--for the most part.

It's easy because there are no gifts, decorations or other "extras" to drive everyone to hyperventilate.

It's fun because it's a  gathering of several generations of family under one roof--plus the occasional "orphan" or two, which usually brightens the conversation.

It's simple because the meal is pre-ordained. In our family, we've settled into a routine of who will do what--especially the vegan variations. (Shout out to Whole Foods for its very edible vegan fruit pies and pumpkin pie.)

That said, Thanksgiving isn't all that stress free, especially for the parents of the grown children and the grandparents of their children. When the holiday means three to four days at the home of one of one's grown children--when the mantle of hosting has passed to the next generation--there can be a lot of uncomfortable "down time."

We who provide extra helping hands in the kitchen (the stuffing/dressing is my domain) do not feel it as much as those not drawn to kitchen duties. This was especially true this year when one of the Grands in whose home Thanksgiving now takes place turned 16 and was the very proud possessor of a brand-new driver's license. He was Volunteer #1 for any and all errands and store pick-ups. That meant Paterfamilias, who usually broke up the "down" time by running errands, was out of a job. Not fired so much as by-passed.

"Down" time aside, when our grown children and their spouses get together--our children don't live near each other or us--there is a lot of reconnecting. We see each of our grown children and their children several times during the year, but our grown children have fewer face-to-faces with each other. Long and short of it: We're a bit of a fifth wheel at the reunion. It is so wonderful to have both our children and all our grands together under one roof for at least 24 hours, but it is also a battle to feel relevant and be heard.

We should remember--though it's hard to reconcile ourselves to--Lao Tze's philosophic advice:

Your silence is as beautiful as the Harvest moon.

In another bit of poetic advice ("for the second half of life"), Lao Tze says this (as re-interpreted by William Martin in The Sage's Tao Te Ching):

Whatever your losses,

hope and happiness can be yours.

Act each day with compassion

for yourself and others.

Let each inhalation bring you peace

and each exhalation dispel your fears.

            

 

Thanksgiving is a family get-together favorite--for the most part.

It's easy because there are no gifts, decorations or other "extras" to drive everyone to hyperventilate.

It's fun because it's a  gathering of several generations of family under one roof--plus the occasional "orphan" or two, which usually brightens the conversation.

It's simple because the meal is pre-ordained. In our family, we've settled into a routine of who will do what--especially the vegan variations. (Shout out to Whole Foods for its very edible vegan fruit pies and pumpkin pie.)

That said, Thanksgiving isn't all that stress free, especially for the parents of the grown children and the grandparents of their children. When the holiday means three to four days at the home of one of one's grown children--when the mantle of hosting has passed to the next generation--there can be a lot of uncomfortable "down time."

We who provide extra helping hands in the kitchen (the stuffing/dressing is my domain) do not feel it as much as those not drawn to kitchen duties. This was especially true this year when one of the Grands in whose home Thanksgiving now takes place turned 16 and was the very proud possessor of a brand-new driver's license. He was Volunteer #1 for any and all errands and store pick-ups. That meant Paterfamilias, who usually broke up the "down" time by running errands, was out of a job. Not fired so much as by-passed.

"Down" time aside, when our grown children and their spouses get together--our children don't live near each other or us--there is a lot of reconnecting. We see each of our grown children and their children several times during the year, but our grown children have fewer face-to-faces with each other. Long and short of it: We're a bit of a fifth wheel at the reunion. It is so wonderful to have both our children and all our grands together under one roof for at least 24 hours, but it is also a battle to feel relevant and be heard.

We should remember--though it's hard to reconcile ourselves to--Lao Tze's philosophic advice:

Your silence is as beautiful as the Harvest moon.

In another bit of poetic advice ("for the second half of life"), Lao Tze says this (as re-interpreted by William Martin in The Sage's Tao Te Ching):

Whatever your losses,

hope and happiness can be yours.

Act each day with compassion

for yourself and others.

Let each inhalation bring you peace

and each exhalation dispel your fears.

Parenting Adult Children: Are we doing more for our grown kids than they want us to do?

oil on canvas, R. Lemov

We love to do things to help out our adult children. It may be little things like packing up lots of leftovers to send home after Sunday dinner. Or sharing access to our Netflix account. Or babysitting so new parents can enjoy a date night.

Little things mean a lot. But sometimes we step over the line. When my mother flew up from Florida for her semi-annual two-week visits, I would go off to work and she would give my kitchen a top-to-toe scrub, including re-organizing my pantry and re-arranging my plants. I resented it. This was not help I asked for or wanted.

Maybe that's why I reacted viscerally to a recent commentary cum question from a Social Qs reader about a mother-in-law who seemed to have lost her sense of boundaries.

Returning home from a trip during which my in-laws stayed with our kids, I discovered my mother-in-law had replaced our kitchen chairs with a set she bought at a neighbor’s garage sale. Who does that? .... I am appalled that someone would change my furniture without permission. BTW: I hate the chairs. What should I do when she comes over and sees that mine are back?--Anonymous

Here's some of what the Social Q guru Philip Galanes had to say, first about the chairs and then about the crossing of lines by "helpful" parents:

It is the greatest disappointment of my week that I can’t show our readers a picture of these chairs, for the sake of anonymity. (They are wantonly hideous!) Sadly, though, there is a bigger issue here: boundary-busting by your mother-in-law.

You don’t mention any history of inconsiderate behavior on her part....It also seems unlikely that she’d be respectful for years, then — wham! — new chairs appear without your blessing.

Acknowledge the germ of generosity here. Say to your mother-in-law: “Thanks for watching the kids and for your gift. I don’t care for the chairs, though. I like to choose my own furniture. Would you like them?”

Just a little reminder that we can be helpful on little things (if they don't like the left-overs, they can toss them out on the way home. No harm done.). But they are in charge of their homes and hearths.  Note to Self: It's their life.

When should our adult children be able to stand on their own financial feet?

By the time they're 22, our children should be financially independent. It's a milestone most of us think they should reach as young adults. At least, that's what a survey by the Pew Research Center finds.

The reality (now it's U.S. Census analysis doing the finding) is that only a quarter of today's 22-year-olds have met that milestone. That's a much smaller percentage than 40 years ago when many of us were young and in our 20s. Then, one-third of 22-year-olds had crossed over the point that is supposed to distinguish childhood and the comforts of the parental home from stand-on-your-own adulthood.

This slippage in independence raises the question: Are we over-coddling our kids, offering too much helping hand and not enough tough love? Pew finds that the public perception is that, yes, we're we're doing too much for them. Here's what those in the Pew survey had to say about today's parents of young adults:

When those who say parents are doing too much for their young adult children were asked in an open-ended format in what ways they are doing too much, 43% pointed to financial assistance. Some 37% said parents are trying to solve their children’s problems for them or are afraid of letting their children fail. About one-in-five (23%) said parents are doing too much for their adult children by letting them live with them. And 4% pointed to providing babysitting and child care for grandchildren as examples of how parents are doing too much for their adult children.

A lot of us are guilty as charged. Pew found that roughly six-in-ten parents with children 18 to 29 gave their children a lot or some help in the past year. While some of that assistance was a one-time shot, a good deal of it was for recurring expenses, like household, medical or housing assists or educational expenses.

In fact, educational expenses loom large in the breakdown of the reaons we give, though it reflects parental income. According to Pew:

High-income parents are more likely than those in lower income groups to say the financial help they gave was related to education. Two-thirds of parents in households earning $100,000 or more a year say the support they gave their adult children was tied to educational expenses, compared with 53% of parents with incomes between $75,000 and $99,999, and fewer than half of those earning less than $75,000.

To give those educational dollars some perspective, in the past forty years college tuition has grown four times as fast as inflation and eights times more rapidly than household income. The amount owed on student debt--whether it's the students or taken on by their parents--is estimated to be $1.5 trillion. That's more than what we Americans owe on our credit cards and auto loans combined. If our kids are one of those 45 million owing that debt, they're starting out their adult lives with a lot of I.O.U. on their shoulders. No wonder today's parents feel pressured to help out if they can.

(You can see more details on the Pew survey here , including the definitions the foundation used for financial independence and gender differences in the findings.)

Money Matters: Two tips about lending money to adult children

You've heard it--I've said it--over and over: It's a tricky and emotional  business lending money to adult children. We want to be helpful--if we can afford it, and sometimes even if we can't. But we worry about why they are unable to manage on their own. That said, financial advisers speak as one  in saying that if you do lend money to your grown children, do it like a banker would: review their financials; set the repayment contract in writing.

Ah well. Seems like such a cold thing to do when it's your loved one. Michele Singletary, who writes a syndicated personal finance column, also hands out that "get it in writing" advice, but her recent column on the subject of loans to adult children made two points about that lending process that may clarify your perspective:

On the importance of reviewing their finances:

Upon review of bank statements, you may find evidence that your adult child is living above his means, such as eating out a lot. Don’t lend money to people who earn enough to cover their expenses, but can’t because of mismanagement. That’s not helping. That’s enabling bad behavior. Why should they enjoy the fruits of your frugality while they are living it up?

On the need to find out why they're tapping the bank of mom and dad for loans:

This is not about being hypercritical of their lifestyle. Just because there’s a request doesn’t mean there’s a need. Perhaps your adult child is underemployed. Maybe your daughter and her husband bought too much house and need to downsize. If your adult child is constantly asking for loans, there’s probably an underlying situation that needs to be addressed. Your handing over money all the time prevents this analysis.

Extreme Helicopter Parenting: Are we still part of their doctor-patient dynamic?

There's helicopter parenting an adult child and there's Extreme Helicoptering of our post-adolescence offspring. Neither is healthy but the latter can be especially harmful. Extreme helicopter parents have been sited accompanying their adult children to job interviews and barging into the interview itself. (It does not leave an employer with a positive impression of the would-be employee.) Or calling their adult child's boss and explaining difficulties the child is having with a co-worker or insisting on a raise. (It is counterproductive.) We have been known to get carried away in the pursuit of helping our adult children navigate the world.

Now there's this: Accompanying a grown child for a medical check up and staying in the examination room. One physician, who was disturbed when it happened in his office, wrote an article about it. The child was a burly, 20-year old male construction worker suffering from fatigue; the concerned mother answered more of the doctors questions than the son did. The doctor eventually insisted the mom leave the room. Only then was he able to have a meaningful discussion with his patient.

Here are three key points the doctor, Tim Lahey who practices in Vermont, made in a Washington Post story about parental over-oversight of health issues:

--Let them speak up for themselves: "I worried the mother was unintentionally keeping the patient from learning how to advocate for himself. This wasn’t just a clinical intuition. A 2017 study showed that greater parental involvement in young-adult health care predicts lower young-adult independence.

--Give them room to talk about personal stuff: "A physician seeing a young adult [without a parent in the room]  is able to screen for behaviors that may require more discussion, such as drinking and drug use, self-harm, dangerous relationships, and mental health issues."

--Stand behind them: "Parents play a critical role in young-adult health. The trick is to provide support in ways that reinforce autonomy. Parents can encourage a young adult to bring up an issue before a doctor’s visit and even brainstorm with them on how to bring it up."

 

 

Power Shifts: Our adult children call the plays

We had plans to have dinner with friends last Friday night. They canceled. Their son asked them to babysit his 9-year-old twins.

Paterfamilias watches the football game every Sunday with his friend Lance. This Saturday Lance called to say he couldn't make it: He and his wife were invited to have lunch with their daughter and her family. Understood. Family takes precedence. On Sunday morning the friend called again. The daughter changed the invite to an early dinner. Game On!

This weekend, we were supposed to see friends whose work schedules even in semi-retirement are so complicated it took us weeks to figure out a date when we were all available. We canceled the get-together yesterday. Our son, who lives in a city far from us, suggested this weekend was the best one for us to come visit him and his family. When we emailed our friends to tell them we had to reschedule, they were nonplussed. "We understand completely," they wrote. "[Our son] wields the same power over our schedule."

So the pendulum swings. When our children were young they marched to the needs of our appointments, meetings and business trips. Now we adjust to theirs. In part it's because their lives are more complicated than ours--they are the ones juggling high-pressure careers, children's activities and social obligations. We're retired or our careers are on a less active plane; our social obligations less obligatory. We are able to be more flexible and adjust to a request for a last-minute babysitting assist. What's more important than helping out our kids?

But it's more than that. They have always been our priority but right now, as they raise families and come into the prime of their careers, we aren't their priority. So we fit ourselves into that new dynamic.

There's another reality. Our grown children are the access to our grandchildren.  Case closed.

 

Overlooked: Do our children talk over us at family get-togethers? It may be our fault.

As soon as I read the letter in Social Qs from a man who felt he was being "talked over and generally excluded" from dinner conversations with adult children, I started counting. How many friends did I know who had complained about the same thing. They had had successful careers, experienced the joys of parenting and proudly headed the table at family functions. From Thanksgiving dinners to Christmas feasts, Passover Seders to Easter breakfasts, they had steered the conversation and made sure the value of their point of view was heard.

And now? Well, now the adult children are in charge and it is hard to have our voices heard--no less to take command. "They're no longer interested in my opinion," one friend put it. This was after a Christmas dinner hosted by his son (from his first marriage) and attended by his wife and wife's kids (ditto), the adult children's spouses and the grandkids. It didn't seem to count that he had long provided wise business counsel to three of the four grown children, all of whom had gone on to succeed in business.

His brief lament mirrored the longer tale told to Philip Galanes' Social Q's:

I am fortunate to be in a great long-term marriage that produced a wonderful daughter and an amazing college-age granddaughter. But lately, they have told me, in plain English, that my opinions and standards (from my education at a parochial school and military academy) don’t count for much. The last time we had dinner, they talked over me and generally excluded me from the conversation. My opinions were dismissed, and my values were derided. These are the three most important women in the world to me. How do I get them to stop using me as a piñata?

Philip Galanes suggests the writer might be dominating conversation and not falling in line with the more democratic approach of the current times. Here's Galanes point:

We all have a right to our opinions, of course. But one of the interesting shifts in the past few years has been a greater public awareness of who feels entitled to speak up and expect their views to be heard — and who doesn’t. You may not suffer from blind privilege, but it’s a question worth considering.

If you have been holding the Talking Stick for too long, perhaps the women have become impatient for their turns. So, share it! And especially because they are so dear to you, make an effort to understand how their views differ from yours. In my experience, the respect in that gesture is often reciprocated.

 

 

 

Empty Nests: When you don't really want them to move back home

This is the emptying nest season. A lot of our kids have left for college and parents are wistful and lump-in-throat sad to see their empty place at the kitchen table. We wish they were still youngsters living under our roof. Or so we think. But four years hence, we may not be so thrilled if the young adults return and set up headquarters in their former bedrooms (now our guest rooms or dens).

We were devoted parents while they lived with us but we may not be so happy to see them come back. That's the gist of a column by Charles Blow, an oped columnist for the NYTimes who usually writes about such weighty matters as racism and immigration. But Blow, a single dad since his son was six years old and his twins were three, has taken time to fill his column space with an essay on parenting. He acknowledges that when the twins went off to college a few years ago he felt "free, that I was entering a new life of my own, and I felt absolutely no guilt about that."

When the twins graduated from college, they moved back into his house and settled in as they searched for jobs and looked for their first apartments. Blow admits to, well, being less than happy about their return. 

I will say the thing that we as parents are not supposed to say: What happened to my empty nest? The very definition of home has changed. Mine will always be their family home, their spiritual home, but it cannot be their primary home. This is now my primary home, alone.

I know that this arrangement is temporary, and I want to help my children out in every way possible, but it would be dishonest to say that their reappearance in “their rooms,” which I now call guest rooms, has not been jarring.

Then he addresses the conflict many of us feel when our kids refill the nest and our culpability in making it oh-so-comfortable for them.

No matter how much I try to resist the urge, I’m reverting to my last-phase parenting mode — worrying about whether they’re eating enough and eating healthfully, washing their clothes and taking them to their rooms.

These are young adults and not children. I have to remember that. I also have to remember that this phase is temporary. But, I also have to prevent them from dragging their feet leaving home and starting their own lives.

When your children return to your empty nest, it is a good thing to firmly nudge them out. That, too, is what love looks like.

Young Adults: What if they call home from college and they're miserable.

Photo: Palo Coleman

They're off to college. The empty nest looms or maybe just the diminution of the number of children at home. Paterfamilias and I have been there, lived through that. Now it's one of our grown-up children whose oldest child has bounded off happily for college.

So maybe this is as good a time as ever to talk about a blog post Dr. Carl Pickhardt wrote for Psychology Today. It's not about children leaving the nest or parents having empty-nest longings. It's about a surprise call parents may get from their child while he or she is presumably taking notes in classes, trying out for various activities and figuring out how to fit in. Even if our kids go off to college happily, we parents may find all is not what it should be with the new experience. Pickhardt's post is about what to do if the child you've dropped off at college calls home weeks later and is in crisis. 

Let me let Pickhardt set the scene:

Most young people making this transition into more independent living have at least a few times at the outset when they feel truly unprepared and overwhelmed.... Consider some hard adjustments of this challenging time.

Some of the adjustments Pickhardt ticks off are missing home and family; feeling lonely; disappointment at  not coping well; concerns about living up to parental expectations; incompatibility with a roommate.

So how parents can parents handle the situation. Here's Pickhardt's five-step process should that "crisis call" come. 

1.   WELCOME the call. “We are so happy that you thought to call us; we love hearing from you, whatever you have to share.” Show that the loving family connection is unbroken. 

2.   EMPATHIZE with the upset: “Yes, if sounds like you are going through a really difficult time. Tell us more about it.” Provide emotional support.

3.   OPERATIONALIZE the problem. “Can you tell us specifically what is happening and not happening that has contributed to your feeling this way?” Bring the problem into practical and objective focus.

4.   STRATEGIZE about what to do. “What might be some constructive actions to take that would ease your current unhappiness, and would any outside help be useful at this time?” Explore problem solving possibilities.

5.   ENERGIZE with faith in finding ways for moving forward. Declare: “We believe you have what it takes to meet this challenge and will come out stronger on the other side. Please keep calling us, and we’ll keep checking in if you like, so we can be with you as you work this through. " Provide confidence and optimism. 

Depending on how fragile your child might seem, Pickhardt notes the possibility of seeking professional help from on-campus sources.  But not too fast.

When a college crisis call does come in, it may help to remember that quote from John F. Kennedy: “When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” 

So, parents need to thread this needle: Take action if endangerment is communicated; but short of that, provide listening, empathy, and advice if asked, but do not intervene and interfere in this opportunity for the young person to grow.

What it feels like to send your first born off to college

I will not name names. But this was a Facebook post written by a dad I know who drove his oldest child--his son, who happens to be my grandson--to college a few days ago and managed to keep those lump-in-throat emotions in check--for a while:

And for those who are asking the obvious question, by some miracle I did not cry. (No one will believe that.)

At least not until I got home and found a letter from him on the kitchen table. Then it was full-on runny nose blubbering.

He will be so happy there and I will still miss him so much.

On-The-Job Advice: Helicopter parenting and your adult child's work place.

photo: Maia Lemov

Once our kids graduate--be it from college, graduate school or a specialized program--we're pleased when they land their first "career" job. They're launched. It's more than pleasing. It's thrilling.

But some of us have a hard time letting go and recognizing they are now on their own as professionals. I've written about parents who contacted their child's boss when they didn't like the way the company was treating their child. I think we can all agree that is a major overstep. I've taken note of other over-steps in the job search and work place here and here

How about this one? A parent wrote to the New York Times' Work Friend columnist, Megan Greenwell, that her daughter asked her for advice on a workplace issue and now she was asking the columnist to weigh in.

My 24-year-old daughter works for a small nonprofit. She has recently started to see a therapist one day a week, so she arrives an hour later than normal and stays an extra hour that day. She puts her arrival time into the organization’s calendar, which is the protocol if you have a doctor’s appointment, but since this is a weekly appointment, she wasn’t sure if she needs to explain where she is to the executive director. My initial response is that her therapy appointments are none of the director’s business, but now I wonder if I am just being old-fashioned. What do you recommend for her?

Megan Greenwell wasn't treating this as a "tell" or "not-tell" issue. She took it as a deeper incursion into the daughter's independence and autonomy. Here, in part, is what she wrote the mother about her daughter:

I’d recommend that she draw sharper boundaries with her mom. Asking family members for advice is entirely reasonable, but your outsourcing the question crosses the line into helicopter parenting. A 24-year-old is more than capable of navigating her own office politics.

"Over-parenting" can be a fine line. Is asking advice about the advice to give an adult child who has asked for advice crossing into the dreaded territory of helicopter parenting? Does it suggest we're making too much of the issue, of over-reacting to our adult child's situation?

Got an opinion on this? Please share.

(P.S. Here's how Greenwell came down on the actual issue of whether or not to tell:)

It sounds as though her boss has already agreed to her schedule change one day a week, so I don’t see a need for any further discussion about why. If arriving an hour late isn’t causing any problems, she can just keep filling out the calendar. She absolutely shouldn’t feel any shame for going to therapy — everyone should try it! — but she doesn’t need to go out of her way to make sure everyone knows, either.

Vacations and Adult Kids: Outgrowing a family tradition

We are not vacationing with our grown children this year. Lots of people don't ever do it, but we did. We stayed in rustic condos in a resort in Vermont. We hiked mountain trails, we biked protected pathways and we splashed in mountain creeks. We taught our grandkids to skim rocks and to play tennis; they taught us Uno and the joy of an after-dark swim.

Paterfamilias and I are sad to see it come to an end. Was it something we said? No. It's that our grandkids are now teenagers with busy, complicated lives--and friends. They still love their PenPen and BaPa (that's me and Paterfamilias), but now they like to have a friend come along--someone who can mountain bike with them and dive off rocks or go for a run in the valley. Our oldest grandchild is getting ready to go to college in the fall and he has a summer job--which makes scheduling time in Vermont as a three-generation family daunting--even more so than factoring in our grown children's work schedules and business travel demands.

Time moves on. We're going to Vermont for a week anyway--without the kids or grandkids. We love the rugged mountains, the crisp air, the ease that comes with not having to lock your door. You can play tennis at noon in Vermont and not die of the heat. We'll take some hikes--not as challenging as the ones we did with them but we'll still be walking along leafed-in paths that inevitably climb to yet another, sigh, waterfall. We'll enjoy it. But it won't be the same. The heart of the vacation will be missing. Just another of those adjustments we make as parents of grown children and grandparents of their almost-grown children.

Change stirs things up; it adds excitement to life, right?  I'll know more about that when we get back from our vacation for two in Vermont.

 

Money Matters: The Wisdom of the Crowd on loan versus a gift to adult children

Okay. So crowdsourcing wisdom is just another way of saying Reader Comments on an issue that cuts close to many of our hearts and pocketbooks. Often, though, those comments are more than passing remarks. They carry kernals of wisdom based on years of experience. So here is commentary from my readers responding to Michele Singletary's advice on when to cut the financial aid to adult children and from those who responded to a New York Times article calling for tips on managing household finances--with loans/gifts to family members eliciting commentary from two readers. 

First up: General advice from a New York Times reader on financial assists, whether it's your kin or someone else in need:

“If you do give money to someone, you have no right to dictate what they do with it....This principle works for all kinds of donations. If I decide to give money to a family member, a person experiencing homelessness, or an institution, I have decided to trust their judgment, and I never think about it again.”

From a Parenting Grown Children reader responding to Michele Singletary's comment that, if you give to an adult child, the giving should help push that child toward financial independence:

"I like the quote from Singletary. Every child and every situation is different. We can cut those cords but sometimes we need to tape them back together for a short while in order to keep our children making forward progress."

While this reader doesn't address lending money to adult children per se, her comments could apply across the board. She wrote to the  New York Times to say that when she was 10 years old, she lent a nickel to a classmate in Sunday school, and never got it back.

“I decided that I would never loan money to anyone again. I’m nearly 65 and I’ve kept my vow. I only give money away. I let people know it’s a gift and nothing is owed, in any manner. And I do it with a smile and graciously.”