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

Gifts to a Grown Child's Loved One: Can we take them back when they leave the family?

In the best of all possible worlds, we give our children gifts freely. We attach no strings--unless there's good cause and that, of course, is not the best of all possible worlds. We may be willing to loan/gift our child money to help them keep up on mortgage payments or add an addition to the house. We might specify that is what the money we gift them is to be used for--and not for anything else. Or we can just give them the gift and trust they will use it appropriately.

But what about the valuable sentimental stuff? Let's say we give our future daughter-in-law an heirloom piece of jewelry--a string of pearls our mother used to wear or the diamond from our father's pinkie ring. What a joy to see the jewels out and about with a future member of the family. But then, what do we do if the romance falls apart and the future DIL is the past. Or there's a divorce. Now it's hurtful to see that necklace set off on a sweater of a person who is no longer part of or welcome in the family. Or we want to give it to the next daughter-in-law or a grandchild. Can we attach a post-gift string and ask for the return of a gift?

Philip Galanes dealt with that touchy issue in a recent Social Qs. A woman wrote in to say she gave as a Christmas gift an aquamarine necklace worn by her mother to the girlfriend of her grandson, who had assured her the relationship was serious. The following Christmas she gifted another heirloom piece to the girlfriend. And then the couple broke up. The woman writes: "I asked my grandson to retrieve our family heirlooms, but his ex-girlfriend refused to return them. What can I do?

Not much, although Galanes suggests two possible solutions, neither of them dependent on the grandson.  Here's his full reply:

I’m sorry you mistook a “serious” relationship for one that was permanent (or might yield great-granddaughters). That doesn’t always happen, as you now know. The ex is under no obligation, other than a sympathetic one, to return gifts that were freely given to her. Givers retain no ownership in gifts.

But perhaps a call from you to the ex about the sentimental value of the jewelry may help? When something similar happened in my family, my mother agreed to buy back the heirlooms. (She was furious about it, but she did it.) Is that possible? And next time, think twice before handing over a tiara you intend to take back if circumstances change.

The Good, Bad and Wondrous: Our grown kids are sheltering with us during the pandemic. Is multigeneration housing the future?

Friends spent the first five months of the pandemic housing their daughter, her husband and three-year-old Lucas. The young family had been living in Manhattan when New York City became the hot zone for the coronavirus. They felt unsafe and moved in with her parents in suburban Maryland for what everyone assumed would be a few weeks. It was months, and in the interim--while Lucas ran through the sprinkler in granny and poppy's backyard and all four adults worked remotely--the daughter and SIL sold their New York apartment and bought a home in a New York suburb. They moved a few weeks ago. Despite our friends' irritation at their daughter's parenting style (no discipline!), the exhaustion of keeping the refrigerator full and the inconvenience of an overextended bandwidth, my friends miss the happy noise of a full house, the warmth of a 3-year-old's afternoon snuggles and the deepened bond with their grown child.

I was reminded of their experience by a moving op-ed  Timothy Egan wrote about the few months his daughter, her husband and their 1-year-old twins sheltered from the pandemic with him and his wife, a time he described as "exhausting, kinetic, cramped, and one of the few consistent joys in this awful time." Egan's daughter and her family needed a safe place to hunker down in between a move from one city to another. 

Now that his daughter has moved her family 1,000 miles away, Egan writes of missing her and the toddlers "who have no sense of gravity, and would as soon walk off the deck into thin air as eat a dirt clod." The multigenerational experience has Egan believing the future points to parents and grown kids  bunking in together once again. He notes housing trends that were already underway: For the first time in 160 years the average number of people in the American household went up instead of down. Pew found that the number of Americans living in multigeneratinal households has increased by almost 70 percent since 1980. He sees the pandemic accelerating the trend.  A Zillow analysis found a 10 percent year-over-year spike in April in the number of young adults living with their parents.

We don't know what the economy will look like on the other side of the current crisis, but I wonder:  if there are hard times ahead, will that encourage more of us to live with our children?

As to Egan, he lamented the loss of intimacy when his daughter and her family moved away. "Our house is still and aimless," he wrote, "three generations back to one, and we are left to wonder how so many of us can live like this."

Should we reboot the tough-love rules on loans to our kids during the corona crisis?

As we welcomed in the new year of 2020, our adult kids were on a steady financial path: working, paying their rent, fiscally independent. Or they might have been in mid-struggle but showing promise. Then along came the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating effect on the economy. Our adult kids may now be in financial trouble. Some have moved home to shelter with us--and to save money on rent. Some are keeping their physicial distance but asking for tide-over loans.

Should we apply the same rules to helping them out now as we did pre-disaster? Is the Coronavirus crisis a time for stronger-than-usual doses of compassion?

To judge by anecdotes that are on the loose in the media and statistics from Pew, whose pollsters follow inter-generational issues, most of us are welcoming--or allowing--our grown kids to move back in with us. More about that fiscal helping hand in a future post.

What about a loan to help them survive during a failing and flailing economy? According to a survey by Commonwealth taken in the relatively optimistic days of April,  more than half of Americans are worried about the virus’ impact on the economy and their financial lives.

If one or more of your grown kids needs help in these extraordinary times, here are some points to pop into the decision hopper:

A run on the Bank of Mom and Dad. That is, one of your grown children could ask for a loan that's a reasonable request and that you want to fill. But our finances have their limits. Are there other children or close relatives--a brother, a parent--who might need help as well. A loan should be seen in the context of how much you can afford to lend and how many key borrowers might have needs.

Lower expectations. You may want to make the loan a loan--not a gift. You may even write out a loan agreement with interest rates and repayment schedule attached. But gird yourself for disappointment or, better case, lapses. These are truly hard times, even panicky ones for those who don't have money in the bank but do have a family to raise--even if income has been reduced or jobs lost. Unexpected expenses and setbacks happen.  If we're the ones with resources that can survive a hit, we may not like it but we should be prepared to realize the hit may be permanent. Here's a word of advice from a financial counselor: If it's a loan and not a gift, formalize it with a note about terms and then let it go. "Don’t bring it up at holiday dinners. Don’t give reminders. If you can’t do that, we suggest you not make the loan at all.”

Guarding against a default. Repayment is a bigger issue than ever (see above) but if you've been more generous than you can afford to be and this is money you absolutely need repaid, let your borrower--your grown child or other relative--know the financial reasons in detail. It helps to share why you need this money back, what it has been earmarked for, what setback you would face if the money isn't repaid. Nothing beats communications and transparency.

 Sibling rivalry's ugly head. Lending money to one child  may make the other feel left out, or loved less, or that their eventual legacy from you is being diminished. They may figuratively stomp a foot and whine, "It's not fair!" All kinds of ugly thoughts and emotions can rise up and strike our kids.  Which is not to say such behavior should be honored.  Instead, try a pre-emptive strike via communication about why you're doing what and how it will or will not affect the non-borrowing child. It won't hurt to mention the stress we are all under during this national crisis.

A grudge against your spending  habits.  If they're in need and have to pay you back--or if you decide not to help them out--resentments about how you spend your money can pile up. They may point an accusatory finger at your going on a covid-safe vacation or buying a new car.  What do the experts advise? It's your money to do with as you wish. But you might want to reassure them you're not going to let them starve.

 

 

Grandparenting: The "Thank You Note" rears its head. With consequences.

A reader has been in touch about the "thank you" note issue, especially as it pertains to grandchildren and more especially to older grandchildren who may be gifted with a check on a birthday or during the Holidays. It is not surprising that the issue would rear its head again since, in these days of covid-19 shelterings, it is less likely that gifts will be presented to our Grands in person where they can thank us directly and in the moment.

The reader wants to make clear that an acknowledgement counts. She is not hung up on form--at least to a certain extent. She'll accept email or a text or a personal phone call. (A handwritten note? That's a wish too far. but see Gold Standard above from Grand still young enough to pen a note.)  What the reader is against is the lack of any response or of receiving only a background shout out when she is on the phone with other adults in the household. That is, she has been on the phone with her grown child when a teenage grandchild in the background will shout out, "Thanks for the check, Grandma." 

She does not consider a shout-out an acceptable form of acknowledgment, and this grandmother has taken action to support her belief. She has warned her grown child and her grandchildren that there is a price to pay for the lack of a thank you that shows some thought and appreciation. She told them she would reduce the amount of the gift if acknowledgements weren't forthcoming. She has been as good as her word. She has sent checks in smaller and smaller amounts as a teenage grandchild fails to make even a feeble attempt at a personal thank you.

Kudos to her for not making empty threats. And for taking a stand on what's important to her: an acknowledgement that neither she nor her gift should be taken for granted. It's a life lesson as well: When people help you out or are especially kind--be it a co-worker, friend or a server in a restaurant--a bona fide "thank you" goes a long way.

When Nana and PopPop Divorce: Explaining the new normal to the grandkids.

Their marriage had always been rocky, J tells me. "Constant arguments with moments of pure rage," all of which accelerated as their sons left for college but was in full bloom when they came home. The tension was such that J and G's kids moved out of the home as soon as they could--one taking himself off to Oregon and putting down roots there.  When he came to town to visit friends he stayed with his brother. "The boys didn't want to be with us," J says. "We were always at each other's throats."

All this is by way of saying that when J and G divorced last year, their adult sons, now nearing their 40s, were neither shocked nor rattled.  Their granddaughter--the child of the son who had been living nearby but whose job had moved him to Colorado--was another matter. The five-year-old loved spending time with her Gammie and Grampa. Now J and G were unlikely to be coming to see her together.

This became a major concern for J, even though she had a lot of other adjustments on her plate.

How she chose to handle the issue of divorce with her grandchild--with the help of her therapist-- sounded simple and sound to me. So I thought I would share what she told me:

"My son and daughter-in-law had already talked to Evie and told her Gammie and Grampa were getting a divorce, that they were separating because they fought all the time--not arguments like mommy and daddy had but much, much worse. I thought their explanation was wonderful.

On a FaceTime call I told Evie she could ask me anything she wanted about the divorce. She wanted to know what it would be like after her grampa and I separated. I assured her that her grandfather and I were still talking to each other, that getting divorced meant grampa and I were no longer going to live together but that both of us would still spend time with her. Of course, with Covid-19 limitations on travel--I'm not ready to take an airplane anywhere--visits to her have been on FaceTime--and separately so far.  We'll see if we do a zoom call for her birthday where my ex and I are  online together. My son doesn't trust on that, yet.

Mostly I wanted to validate her feelings about the divorce. It was important for me to let her know she's being heard. It's important with kids to be open and honest at their level so they can feel trusted and trusting with adults as much as possible."

 

 

 

Our Birthdays in the Time of Coronavirus: How we celebrate togetherness from afar

Renoir at Phillips Collection

I'll say this for my most recent "uncelebrated" birthday in May: At least it wasn't a Big One--one that ends in a zero and calls for a larger acknowledgement than usual. This year it was just another year older. Yet, in this time of Covid-19, self-isolation, quarantining and sheltering at home, birthdays can feel less than raise-a-glass occasions. They can get subsumed in sadness, given the uncertainty of the time we are now living.

Still, I wanted there to be something special about the day of the birthday. My son and daughter live 400 and 450 miles away, respectively, so a backyard visit with kids and grandkids seated 6 feet away wasn't going to happen.  In the past two years, my birthday coincided with a soccer tournament my grandson's team played in and that brought my son and his family from his city to mine. The tournament may have been the reason for the trip, but the visit included candles, cake and the joy at having them around for my birthday. Other years, my daughter and her family  made their way hither and we did something special together--a show, sushi dinner, visits to friends.

This year, none of the above was possible. (Certainly not the soccer: My grandson graduated from high school and the tournament team.)  Covid-19 was casting its pall and neither child nor any grandchildren would be coming to my house for my birthday--nor me to theirs. Even a festive dinner out was out. The concern, of course, is that these inhibitions will continue for a while. They could even be in place for my next birthday.

And yet this year's birthday was a joyful one after all. One of the silver linings of the corona misery is that life has slowed down for many of us. For me on my birthday that meant there was time for each of my grown children to hang around the cell phone and have longer-than-usual FaceTime chats with me. No need to rush off to a meeting. Even if there was a meeting, it was by zoom so no need to get up and go someplace.  There were bouyant texts from each of my grandkids (lots of colorful emojis and balloon bombs) plus a call from a nephew who had been out of touch for nearly two years. I had a birthday lunch in a friend's backyard--three of us, seated six feet apart, eating our individual orders of sushi. 

All told, I not only can't complain, but I had a wonderful day filled with friends and family--some only tech-chat available but nonetheless very much present. I have experienced what may be the future and it's not so bad.

Observations: Novelist Emma Straub looks at the doubts we might have about our parenting skills--now and when our kids were small.

I've just turned the last satisfying page of Emma Straub's All Adults Here. One of the novel's  remarkable aspects is how the author toggles back and forth between the mother's (Astrid, the matriarch) and the three grown children's perspectives and cause/effects of her parenting--when the children were small and now, when they're 30-something grown ups.

It's a book about family life with the widowed mom/grandma still living in the Big House where her children were raised in a small, fictional upstate New York town that's a summer retreat for privileged urbanites. Two of the children have put down roots in homes and businesses of their own in the town; one has taken himself off to New York City. The plot, what there is of it, is besides the point. For me the book is about Astrid and her feelings of alienation from her children, second guessing why they don't confide in her or turn to her for advice or guidance.

Many of us can identify. For your reading pleasure, here are a smattering of Astrid's observations about parenting her grown children.

On her New York City son's unexpected request to have his 13-year-old daughter live with Astrid for the upcoming school year.

It had been so long since there was a child in the house, Astrid had spent days shopping and baking and cooking. ...Astrid had baked zucchini muffins with walnuts, an enormous casserole of macaroni and cheese, turkey meatballs, chocolate chip cookies, granola bars studded with plump raisins. She'd bought eight bananas. There were enough tomatoes to can and freeze soup and pasta sauce for a whole winter....

The blessings of being a grandparent was knowing all the things that had to be done and having the time to do them. Some of her friends thought that extra patience came with age, but that wasn't it, of course. Their calendars just weren't as full. Astrid was clear-eyed about her position. Nicky [her son] hadn't said, Oh, Mom, please talk to Cecelia [his daughter] about everything, please help. He'd said, Can she come? And the answer was yes. Astrid was an able body; she was a safe house. He was complimenting her ability to keep children alive, not her parenting skills....

 

An awkward lunch with a busy son whose family life with rambunctious pre-school twins is "difficult" at the moment:

She had wanted to talk to him, to really talk to him, but it was so hard to know where to start. All of a sudden--forty years of parenting in!--she felt like she was on shaky ground. If her son felt this way about his children, if they were making mistakes, how many other mistakes must she have made without admitting them to herself? Her children were the way they were because of all the things she had done and all the things she had not done.

Contemplating her 13-year-old granddaughter reading a book at the kitchen table:

Still, it was nice to see a small face tucked behind a paperback, elbows splayed on the wood. Astrid paused at the counter and just watched. This was what she'd wanted--this was what everyone wanted. To have your children's children around, to be young enough to watch them grow, and for them to be self-sufficient within reason. Grandparenting wasn't the same as parenting, thank god, even in cases like this....Cecelia was right here, an easy guest. It meant that she'd done something right with Nicky after all, whether he'd admit it or not.

 

Rightsizing: How I cleared my closets and dumped all the stuff my kids didn't want.

National Gallery, Hannah Steele

“You are my inspiration,” my friend Eva tells me. She’s not referring to anything creative or ingenious I’ve done. The reference is to the method that helped me downsize/right-size from a sprawling 4-bedroom suburban home (where Paterfamilias and I brought up two children) to a tight, two bedroom urban apartment that’s short on storage space. It's a method that would work for anyone who wants to lighten the storage load in their house, whether or not they are moving out or just tackling the untackleable during the corona quarantine.

My inspirational mantra--You won't need to know Sanskrit to follow it--is this: A bag a day.

Prosaic, perhaps. It's not the full Marie Kondo, but it worked. Every day I would fill a bag (the gold standard: a large black garbage bag) with stuff to either give to our children, gift to charity or toss in the garbage. No matter how tired I was after work, I would head for a closet or a file cabinet or a dark recess of the basement and fill a bag—sometimes it was only the bronze standard of a brown paper lunch bag. Consistency was the point: a bag a day.

Sometimes it was easy. I came across file drawers full of old photographs—from the days when camera shops processed your film and gave you doubles of all your photos.  All duplicates in my file drawer were dumped in a bag, along with both sets of photos of the backs of the heads of my children, or a fuzzy focus, or of people I no longer knew or cared about. Ditto for the negatives. Thumbing through envelope upon envelope of old photos was an emotional trip down memory lane but the save/no-save decisions were mindless.

More mindful was the china, glassware, porcelain figurines, silver-plated candelabras  and other objects we inherited from both sets of parents. When our mothers were young women growing their families and enlarging their households, they both collected the same sorts of things. Though one set of parents was more affluent than the other, both mothers had accumulated sets of silverware—8 places setting for one, 18 for the other. The candelabra was smaller for one than the other, which was not only large but had many Rococo branches. (Whenever there was a storm and our house lost its electricity, the candelabaras and their three candles apiece lit our way through the dark evening.) Both mothers had collected sets of hand-painted tea cups that had been displayed on bookcases and side tables in their homes. Both had porcelain figurines—peasant figures playing the flute or herding one of Bo Peep's lost sheep—that graced their bookshelves or sat on coffee tables and end tables.

I’d had these objects in storage in my basement since we inherited them. Would my children want them? I took out my iPhone, snapped a shot of my mother’s gold-rimmed dinnerware and texted it to my daughter-in-law. “Would you like this?” I asked this mother of three of my Grands. Within a minute her ping came back at me: “I haven’t used my wedding dishes yet.” 

For sentimental reasons, my daughter took a few of the hand-painted tea cups but the porcelain figurines and candelabras met universal resistance. I closed my eyes, held my nose (figuratively speaking) and put it all in bags for charities that, presumably, will sell them to pay some of their bills. My one flirtation with "monetizing" these treasures came when I opened a box filled with fur jackets and stoles my mother had amassed. (My father was a furrier.) I went up on eBay to see what the market was for them. The answer: Not worth my time or effort to sell. They got packed up with the porcelains.

It was guilt-inducing but easier to part with the inherited items. What of the things I had collected or amassed? I had written regularly for the Washingtonian Magazine for a dozen years back in the 70s and 80s. I had every issue of the magazine from that time in my basement. I asked myself, Would my grandchildren read these? Would they even look at them? We all know the answer. I tore out a few articles that represented the variety of stories I had written, promised myself I would digitize them for posterity and recycled the rest of it.  Ditto with other clips from my pre-Internet, freelance years: save a few; dump the rest.

Paterfamilias's boxes of law briefs from big cases he had worked on met the same fate. He had to do a lot of shredding, but he made his way through it slowly and methodically.

We started our purge a few months before we put our house on the market so there was no need to rush. Just a bag a day. That held for serving platters, pots, pans, small appliances. I had to harden my heart, but I was amazed at what I could part with once I set my mind to it. Add it felt good to know I was fulfilling part of my legacy to my grown children: clean closets. That is, when the time came and I was no longer around to do it, they wouldn't have a mess of stuff to clear out.

We moved into our apartment nearly four years ago. I have yet to miss a pot or platter or candlestick holder.  Come Spring, what I miss is my garden. But I saved a few pots for that.

 

 

Grandparenting during the Coranavirus: Seven tips for keeping long-distance visits safe

Many of my friends who have grandkids living nearby have loosened the visitation rules: The Grands and Grownkids can come to their backyards--outdoor visits only!--but no hugging. They can have a meal together--at separate tables with separate food, preferably cooked in separate kitchens. There may even be a BYO plates rule.

What about little ole us whose kids and grandkids live too far away for a casual backyard visit? One friend was invited by her son and family to visit for a long weekend at a small, rented house on Cape Cod. Sounded delightful--despite the 6 hour drive. But. But. But. The daughter-in-law had gone back to work as a physician assistant at a clinic whose patients were under court orders to attend drug rehab programs. My friend's antenna went on alert. She wasn't sure what safety measures were in place for personnel at the clinic. She decided a small house and loved one who was working at an essential but possibly Covid-exposed job were not the best mix for her.

If it seems like it's safe to go on a visit, the grandparents I know or have read about have gotten in their cars and driven straight through to wherever their grandkids are--be it a 3-hour drive or one that's 10+.  The stays have been brief--only a day or two when the drives are on the shorter side. They've kept their masked distance--not wanting to pick up any virus from their grownkids or grands and taking pains to ensure that they don't bring something untoward into their child's house.

We are hoping to see our children and grandchildren this summer. They live 400 and 450 miles away from us but 150 miles from each other. Long-distance driving is not a viable option for us--even though it is supposedly safer than flying. So our thinking is that we would fly to one child's home city, rent a car, visit and then drive to the other child before flying home. Sum total: 2 airplane trips, one 3-hour drive, 2 pet bunnies, 4 grandkids and 4 adults seen and hugged. Yes hugged. There are ways to do it safely. We can do it! But. But. But. How safe is air travel? Would we be endangering ourselves or our  children and grandchildren by moving through an airport and sitting on an airplane with other passengers.

We've gone as far as to check out safety tips.  One thing I learned is that I don't have to worry about the air in the planes. When the ventilation system on planes is operating, planes have a very high ratio of outside fresh air to recirculated air — about 10 times higher than most commercial buildings. Plus, most planes' ventilation systems have HEPA filters. These are more efficient at removing both smaller and larger particles.

In addition to the usual--and important--advice to wash hands, wash hands, wash hands, here are seven other safety tips if, like us, fly you must.

Social distance seating. Best bets are airlines that are minimizing capacity and spacing passengers by not using middle seats and having empty rows. Call airlines to check on their policy.

Short flights are safer. That is, they minimize risk by making it easier to avoid using the lavatory and cutting down on exposure time to an infectious person if there's one on board.  (That would mean cross country trips taken in two or three separate legs, which sounds like additional exposure to me, plus using the lavatory in the airport. But that's what some experts recommend.)

Choose a window seat. Since there's a wall on one side it helps reduce the number of people one is exposed to during the flight--not to mention all the people going up and down the aisle.

Question the airline. Does it have engineering controls to isolate hazards. These include ventilation systems, on-board barriers, and electrostatic disinfectant sprays on flights.

Bring your own. Travel with hand wipes to disinfect every surface you touch--including the seat belt buckle--plus carry along plastic zip bags for personal items that others may handle, such as a license or passport.

Stay put: Once settled into that window seat, stay there until the plane lands. 

Wear a mask. We owe it to each other. But don't trust what the airlines say about requiring masks. Recent newspaper reports indicate that the airlines may request masks and even say they insist on them for crew and passengers alike. But they don't enforce the use of them.

 

 

The New Rules for Grandparents during the Corona Crisis: The where, when and how of visiting hours

Pieter de Hooch@National Gallery

Is it safe for our grandchildren to visit us or for us to visit them? For the past two and a half months of the coronavirus pandemic, visits have been limited to waves from backyard windows or FaceTime calls.  For most of us--those of us who don't live with our grown children--in person contact has been verboten. As state economies open up and Phase 1 morphs into Phase 2, some of those visits are moving toward in-person get-togethers: socially distanced, well-masked and one family group at a time.  No hugging allowed.

Some of us are willing to take the risk of mingling with our Grands (and our grown kids), even as our grown children are hesitant. (They look at that ugly CDC statistic: Eight out of 10 deaths from Covid-19 are in people aged 65 and older.)

Surely there are ways to make in-person visits safer. After all, we need to take into account not only  our physical well being but our mental health as well. We get lonesome for our loved ones; isolation is depressing.

The experts have some advice about how to make visits with Grands and their parents less threatening to our well-being. Tara Parker-Pope provided such guidance in her story “When Can I See My Grandkids?” Here are some of the tips:

--No one self-evaluates as reckless. Do a reality check about the actual level of vigilance by every member of the visiting household.  Some questions to ask every member of the household would cover: How many times did someone go to a store or meet a friend for a walk.  Did a teenage boyfriend/girlfriend stop by for a visit? At the park, did the grandkids run up to another child before the parents could stop them? Does everyone wear a mask?

--There's no perfect. But greater vigilance should be hyped up for 14 days before a visit.

--The al fresco answer.  The transmission risk is far lower outside than inside. But even outdoors, everyone should wash their hands and stay at least six feet apart (10 to 12 if anyone has a chronic health condition). Everyone over the age of 2 — and not just the grandparents — should wear a mask. Children are more likely to wear one if they understand that it’s to protect someone they love.

You've heard it before on the importance of masks, but here it is again from an expert with enough research and hands-on experience to know what he's talking about, Dr. Asaf Bitton. 

“A sneeze without a mask can spread up to 20 feet. It’s also the act of speaking — we expel droplets even in quiet speech. The mask really contains a great amount of them. The mask is protecting all of us from each other.”

So in-person visits from grandkids who live nearby are possible for those of us lucky enough to have backyards or access to outdoor parks. But the hugging part--that will have to wait.

Refilled Nests: Coronavirus, adult children and our no-longer-empty guest bedrooms

                                         painting: Edward Hopper (at National Gallery)

Some of our grown kids have come home to ride out the Covid-19 crisis. We may be happy to have them under our roofs again and to provide safe shelter in the corona storm. But the impact on us is not negligible: Keeping the refrigerator stocked. Cooking bigger meals. Sharing bathrooms. Overhearing conversations. Feeling frustrated by online habits. Dealing with their hygiene and laundry. Plus, the diminished privacy of having another adult in the house all the time. We love our adult kids but we don't necessarily want them living with us again.

This is an issue addressed recently in the New York Times, with a headline that acknowledged the reality: "Young Adults Take Refuge in Parents’ Empty Nests." The article also notes that some parents are moving in with their adult children. For some single parents, it means avoiding the loneliness of sheltering alone. It can also be helpful to children who are raising young children and can use an extra pair of hands, especially if they are telecommuting to their jobs.

There are all kinds of situations and reasons for re-habitating with our grown up children or them with us. Here's a link to the full NYTimes story, but if you don't want to read the whole thing. here are three highlights:

One mother summed up the reality of her refilled nest this way:

We have to rethink everything. What we've worked really hard to get to--our independence, their independence--is just gone."

An economist's observation on the impact on careers, particularly of children who have moved back home and left their jobs behind.

There are lasting consequences, a qualitative impact on workers who are forced to take a step backward, and that can really perpetuate a downward career spiral.

An historical perspective on multi-generational co-habitation:

Multigenerational households have been on the rise since 1980, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center report. In 2016, a record 64 million people, or 20 percent of the U.S. population, lived with two or more adult generations.

FOR ANOTHER TAKE on what it's like when a college student moves back home, here's an essay from The Atlantic. Stuck at Home With My 20-Year-Old Daughter

The author, Todd Purdum, writes about his own reactions (The family of four together again for family dinners.) and talks to his daughter about what the adjustment has been like for her. Here's some of what she told her dad:

“One of the hardest things has been going—and for better or worse—going from being independent to suddenly living in my childhood bedroom again. I would go to the dining hall or I would cook for myself, but I would be on my own to secure three meals a day. And I would do my own laundry—and wouldn’t have to do other people’s laundry!”

“I just miss being a college student and making, you know, a fine but maybe mediocre dinner in someone’s communal kitchen. And having a sense of purpose.”

 

 

 

Mother's Day, GrownKids and Guilt: Does anyone else dislike this "Day"?

I'm not sure what possessed me, but when I was a youngish mother of 'tweens I told my kids not to do anything for me for Mother's Day. It's not a day for me, I told them.  At the same time, it was a day when I had to call my mother and make sure the card and a gift were in the mail. Ditto mother-in-law.

Well, now I am the mother of mothers--my daughter and my daughter-in-law.  I still feel Mother's Day is not My Day. Now I see it as a day that's just a pain in the neck and a source of tension. It is such a struggle to be a mom today. I don't want my grownkids-mothers worrying about whether they sent me a card (the cards are too treacly anyway) or calling me because that's what you do on the second Sunday in May. I'd like to send them daily bouquets of flowers to  honor the job they've done so far. (They are a major reason I have such wonderful grandchildren, if I say so myself.)

I'm ambivalent about this holiday. I see it as a guilt-maker, as a day of emotional demands suggested and policed by outside forces. It's not as though it's a day specific to someone--like a birthday or a remarkable day in their life. 

I'm reminded of these queasy feelings by a Carolyn Hax column that appeared close to Mother's Day.

The Dear Carolyn writer, like me, seems to be pulled in many Mother's Day directions. Her story: When she was younger, she had  "felt the Mother's Day guilt of wanting to make my mother and mother-in-law happy." Now, she sees how overwhelming it is "for young mothers to be pulled in many directions" when it comes to dealing with Mother's Day.  Since she once felt that emotional workload, she has asked Carolyn, "What is the best solution for mothers of adult children with their own families? "

Here's part of Carolyn Hax's answer:

[You] can tell them that [your] Mother’s Day gift to them is an unconditional release from all obligations on Mother’s Day. Say you’d love to see them (if true), and will be happy to plan or play along or observe it on the day of their choice, or babysit so they can have time alone, or whatever else (if true), but you will not be a duty they have to fulfill.

To that I say Amen.

Here's a further point a reader made:

Don't just free them for Mother's Day. Do it for all the holidays.

Wouldn't you rather have a sweet phone call a week after the fact than hear, "Why didn't you call?" So would your children. The benefits are enormous for everyone. No worries, no guilt.

I give that another Amen. And a thanks for helping me feel less alone in my perverse reaction to Mother's Day--although I have good company in painter Mary Cassatt.

Here's this from the National Gallery expert on Cassatt::

When I curated the Gallery’s exhibition Degas/Cassatt in 2014, I learned that Mary Cassatt—known almost exclusively as the painter of motherhood—was dismissive when the idea of creating Mother’s Day was first proposed in 1913. As a staunch supporter of woman suffrage, she thought granting women the right to vote was a far more pressing issue than a single day celebrating mothers. Two years later, Mother’s Day was established by an act of Congress. Women had to wait five more years for access to suffrage, much to Cassatt’s disappointment.

 

Grown Children, Us and Covid-19: Updating Advanced Directives

                                             Romare Bearden Tomorrow I May Be Far Away

I am no longer a New Yorker but, in this time of coronavirus, I am a regular viewer of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's daily press briefings. When he reports those stress-inducing intubation statistics, he reminds us that 80 percent of patients who are intubated and placed on a ventilator don't have what he calls "a good outcome." He doesn't spell it out but the data shows that those who survive the worst trials of Covid-19 may have continuing, life-altering struggles.

The decisions about what to do  if we were on the cusp of being intubated will fall into the laps of our children, spouses and siblings. A friend of mine's daughter-in-law who is a hospice doctor says she now spends a lot of her time counseling families who have to deal with these very difficult ventilator-related decisions.

Which brings me to this point: We may have left our children general guidance (advanced directives) about how we want to be treated if we can't make decisions for ourselves, but in the Age of Coronavirus they may need an update on what we want done for or not done to us. I  brought up this question briefly in a post that ran a few weeks ago. Since then a NYTimes article has been even more blunt, headlining its story: "Do You Want to Die in an I.C. U.? Pandemic Makes Question All too Real."

The article starts off with what a 69-year-old retired teacher told her son--her health care proxy--about whether or not to put her on a ventilator should she become ill with Covid-19. Her son, who happens to be president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, said his mother discussed her concerns with him. He was able to understand the pragmatism behind her directive. He knew what she would want him to do it worst came to worst. Beyond the particulars of his own situation, a point he made was this: “It’s the kind of conversation everyone should be having with their loved ones.”

The article also brings up an issue that, even if months or years ago we gave our children general Advanced Directives, there's one point that may not have been covered in that guidance:

When seniors and their families engage in what’s called advance-care planning, they often focus on the D.N.R. question — whether patients would want to be resuscitated after cardiac arrest.

But because Covid-19 is a respiratory disease, the more pressing question will likely be whether a hospitalized patient who’s seriously ill will accept intubation and ventilation.

It's never easy to discuss these kinds of issues with our children--they resist; neither they nor we are keen to deal with our mortality. We figure we'll talk about it 'one of these days.' But with coronavirus cases still on the rise in the U.S. and treatment more complicated and drastic than anyone imagined, that day may be here.

 

 

 

 

What our grown kids don't understand about us and the coronavirus

Some of my friends are strict isolationists: They're locked down, venturing out only for a walk around the block. Food is delivered. Groceries wiped down. Family visits via FaceTime, Skype or a wave from the backyard. It is a point of pride that their grown children have laid down isolation rules for them--and insist they keep. And well they should: Many of them have serious underlying conditions and need to steer clear of any exposure.

Clearly, our children are worried about us. After all, adults over 65 account for 8 in 10 coronavirus deaths. No wonder they are scared that something dreadful may happen to us, and they won't be able to be there to come to our aid. So they have, in effect, become our parents--the ones who tell us what we can and cannot do. They're grounding us.

But there are those of us who find our backs stiffening when our grown children try to set limits on our activities, when they insist we stop shopping at supermarkets or taking long walks in public parks--even though we have no underlying conditions with the exception of our age.

The pressure to isolate ourselves comes from everywhere and is internalized in different ways. I  went to my local farmer's market on Sunday (limited access to the grounds, masks on all) and overheard this little, old, grey-haired lady complaining bitterly to one of the vendors: Neighbors keep offering to pick up groceries (the nerve!) for her when she is fully capable of doing so herself. "There's nothing wrong with me," she huffed. "I don't feel I'm an old person. I can do anything they can do." Her children are pleading with her to stay home and not go out at all. "Why shouldn't I go out for a walk?' she complains, visibly shaking with anger. She was on a rant--too long and strident for my comfort.  (I was next in line, so tick-tock.) But I understood what she was saying--and agreed with some of it.

Enough of us do that our grown children have taken to meeting in Zoom-rooms or other online chat spots to grouse about how ungovernable their aging parents are. They hear the statistics about deaths among the elderly and are sick with worry that their mom or dad will fall prey to the disease and they won't be there to comfort us. It's just like when they were small children and we worried they would run out into traffic.  Only the roles are reversed now.

Although people our age are dying disproportionately from this dreadful disease, many of us are fortunate enough to be hale and healthy. We don't feel we need to live by more stringent rules than our neighbors. So, why are we less worried about ourselves than our children are about us?

I got a partial answer to that questions in a piece in the New York Times. There is, evidently, scientific research that explains why some of us seem almost cavalier in the face of the coronavirus death threat.

One finding is that, as older adults, we may not experience the same level of threat as younger people do. We have become, in effect, sunny side up. According to researcher Claudia Haase, there are "age-related shifts in the service of making negative emotions smaller and positive emotions bigger. Older adults are often masters in turning their attention away from information that is threatening, upsetting and negative.” The priority of older adults, she adds, is to make the most of their limited time on earth, and their highest value is social connection.

And then there’s this: We older adults may not see ourselves as old, even if we're well into our 70s and 80s. Here's Haase again:  “Older adults may not think of themselves as being at heightened risk for Covid-19 because old age carries a lot of stigma. There’s a huge reluctance to view oneself in those terms.”

There may or may not be scientific research on another point: Some of us look ahead to the ills that could fell us and we think, "Better to go this way." That was a sentiment expressed by a friend of mine who lost her mother to breast cancer and who's faced several rounds of chemotherapy for the disease herself. The author of the NYTimes article, Julie Fingersh, reported a variation on that thought by her 88-year-old father. When she asked him if he were afraid of becoming sick from the virus, he answered, "What's to be afraid of? If I get it, Sayonara!"

The article was not written with us in mind. It was fodder for middle-aged children who wanted to "persuade blithe parents to respect the threat."

Good luck with that. Tara Brach has this zen-like advice for our grown children: "There has to be a letting go, because ultimately, you cannot control them. They're responsible for their living and dying."

 

Love in the Time of Corona: Being sheltered by your grown child? Calvin Trillin rates it ***

Like most of our friends where we live, Paterfamilias and I are sheltering alone in our apartment. Our grown children live in cities far from us. Unlike our friends with children living nearby, we do not get picture window visits--blown kisses from our children or grandchildren standing in our backyards or on sidewalks below our windows.  Groceries with love notes in it are not dropped at our door. We are strictly in communicado via FaceTime, which does the job--except for the hugs.

Unlike some people we have not been whisked away by our grown children to shelter with them in their remote second homes. Calvin Trillin has. I have been alerted to his adventure by my very own grown child, who has no second home to offer but who sent the link.  Trillan's New Yorker piece is comic relief for those of us who need it.

Here's a taste of what's to come.

Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate my daughter, Hilda, arranging to have me snatched from the dangerously crowded city and harboring me at her house in a semirural part of the state. I appreciate the efforts of my son-in-law, Desmond, who drove the getaway car, and of my teen-age grandsons, Jason and Justin, whom I now refer to as my tech-support team. So you must be wondering why I intend to give the establishment run by Hilda and her family only three stars on TripAdvisor.

Enjoy.

Covid 19, ventilators and a guiding message for our grown children

I am thinking out loud here. I have just been on a walk with a friend--6 feet apart; masked (scarfed in my case). We started talking about the wrenching decision a cousin of hers had to make. The cousin's 70-year-old brother, who lived in a group home and had a severe speech defect, was in the hospital with coronavirus. Doctors had called her, the sister, for permission to put her brother on a ventilator since he was fighting any attempt to put anything on his face and couldn't articulate his wishes. Brother and sister weren't close; she didn't know what to do. My friend is a doctor; so is her husband. They couldn't make a decision for the cousin, but they talked her through what might happen given his current health. The cousin called the next day; her brother had died before she could get back to the doctors with her decision.

Ventilator decisions are ones families, ICU doctors and nurses are faced with every day. As coronavirus cases keep spiking and ventilator availability may not be able to keep up with need,  hand-wringing discussions are taking place in medical circles: How, if it comes down to it, to make the decision of who gets one and who doesn't.

The decisions health professionals may have to make may get down to one of life's basic ethical questions:  what is a life worth? More specifically in this time of the corona, whose life takes precedence when it comes to ventilator decisions. What a time we are living through--not only a pandemic but a crisis of supply (of both machine and medical personnel)--that we may have come to a point where medical professionals have to make decisions like this.

My friend and I talk about directives we have given our families--our spouses, our grown children--about what we want done should we suffer debilitating diseases and not be able to make resuscitate decisions for ourselves. The question we debate on our walk is whether these directives--written months or years ago and meant as guidance during a personal health crisis that affects only us and our loved ones--apply to today's situation. What if we become ill with coronavirus and become sick enough to need aid in breathing. Do we want medical personnel to make the decision about whether a machine should breathe for us--possibly at the expense of someone else. Where do we want our loved ones to draw the line. What do we want them to tell the doctors and nurses overseeing our care? "Yes, do anything to save her," or "No, she feels she's lived a good and long life, and she wants you to use your resources for someone with their future still ahead of them."

We ended our walk in total agreement on what we want to tell our spouses and grown children. But when I got home and brought up the question, my spouse had a very different answer.

It is a very personal decision. I would never tell anyone beyond my grown children and spouse what I want done. There is no right or wrong here. But there is some thinking to do. If it should come down to it, our children deserve guidance from 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?