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

Report on Virtual Thanksgivings: Zoomsgiving fun.

My friend Jo planned her virtual Thanksgiving with her three children, who live in three different time zones, around cocktails. She offered each child a time slot--5:00 their time zone on one of the days of the Thanksgiving weekend. She did not aim to bring everyone together--not with one child in Copenhagen, one near her on the east coast and another in San Francisco. Her aim was to ease the alone time of the holiday and add a few hours of family joy with a mock/cocktail hour with each of her children (and any spouses and grandchildren in residence).

How did that go? Her report:

I pulled off being the "host" on a zoom mock/cocktail party by going to "zoom school" a week before my "test." I set up my son's family in San Francisco (all of whom are technically savvy, so I wanted to "shine") for 5 pm their time, 8 pm my time. I sent them a box of snacks; they furnished their own drinks.  There's a 40 minute limit on zoom meetings if you're doing it for free. My grandchildren could tolerate that amount of time.

My daughter and granddaughter live in Denmark and usually host a Thanksgiving meal for their friends and assorted Americans they know, but not this year. Demark isn't playing around with the Pandemic. So no partying for them. We talk once a week on Facetime, and - as Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Denmark - it wasn't anything special. 

For my son who lives near me, we Facetimed at an agreed on time for dessert on Thanksgiving day, including my son's family's two college-age daughters who were home for Thanksgiving, me in my apartment and my son's father (my ex) and his wife in Cambridge. Oh, and their dogs! It went well.

My family zoomed its way through an elaborate day.  Here's how it went for three households living in three different cities but--lucky us--all in the same time zone.

I had spent the week obsessing about having a memorable holiday and that obsession meant pre-planning. It was worth the time and effort, especially since others picked up on the cues and added their own magic. We started with a noon-time 3-kitchen zoom where each kitchen (cooks and advisers) baked together, muting our mics when running the mixer, asking for advice on unexpected problems (I cut my apples too soon; granddaughter advised cinammon to keep them from turning brown) and showing each other our pre-baked efforts. Easy to pull off if everyone is on board and has recipe and ingredients on hand. It was more fun than you might think.

The best part of our zoomsgiving, though, was the late afternoon, pre-dinner get together for a family quiz based on photos of family members when they were younger than they are today. I had photo-texted a dozen to my son, my daughter sent a few and my son found some. He put together a slide show of the photos and posed "challenging" questions designed to encourage everyone to come up with over-the-top answers--the more outrageous the better. We laughed a lot and, key to it all, everyone participated. The chat function got a workout. I'm still giggling over some of the answers.

We turned off the zoom, took a break and ate our dinners without screentime or being together.

Later in the evening we zoomed again to eat the desserts we had baked together. We were all pretty tired by then. One of us (he shall be unnamed) dozed off on his living room floor. I rate the dessert-zoom as modified bliss. Maybe one event too many. But overall the three-way Thanksgiving "visit" was upbeat, comforting and memorable.

With the Christmas-New Years holidays ahead--and no clear sign that the pandemic will allow for safe travel and visits before the end of the year--I wanted to share what worked at Thanksgiving so we can build on that if we're still stuck in the same pandemic rut.

Love to hear from you about your Thanksgiving accommodations to the current realities.

painting: Cezanne

photo: Maia Lemov

Virtual Adjustments: We will have a memorable Thanksgiving even if it's digital.

Zoom is the answer. That's what we--me, my friends, our families--tell each other when we talk about how we'll be together when we won't be together this Thanksgiving.

But what will we do with Zoom--sit in front of a camera and tell each other Hello and Happy Thanksgiving? Eat our separate dinners together in front of the Zoom lens?

I have made an executive decision for my family--a daughter and her family in Massachusetts; a son and his family in New York; Paterfamilias and me in Maryland--that we'll use Zoom to have a memorable holiday. It won't be like our usual Thanksgivings where we gather at my son's house, pitch in to cook the many dishes that spell turkey, tofurkey and trimmings, and go for a walk before over-indulging on dessert. But we can still do things that we can look back on next year or years from now and say, "Remember the fun we had the year of the pandemic."

I can dream, can't I?

Putting dream into action, I have started on that road by asking my kids and grandkids to contribute ideas. Here's what we've got so far.

Meal Prep: On the morning of Thanksgiving we'll set up our Zoom cams in our respective kitchens and cook together. Right now we're thinking dessert: I'll do my German apple cake; my Massachusetts granddaughter wants to try pecan pie; my son's family will indulge his love of pumpkin pie. Different desserts but we'll be baking together and chatting as we preheat our ovens, grease our pie pans and get our hands full of flour and sugar and shortening.  We won't be able to share results or even the heady aromas of each other's kitchens but we'll still be together in the kitchen. It's my favorite part of Thanksgiving and I don't want to give it up.

Drop-Ins: We'll send zoom invites to friends we used to see at Thanksgiving and ask them to drop by to say hello. It will be fun to exchange greetings and see how their families have grown and they can see ours. The drop-in doesn't have to last long, but I feel lighter knowing we'll have visits from people we care about and who care about us.

Drama: As keeper of snapshots from our child-rearing years, I have been asked by my son to pick out a few old photos of him and his sister and scan them to him. He promises to create a slide show with commentary that his children and niece will find amusing--even if he and his sister are the butt of the jokes.

Fun and Games: We will, of course, do our usual routine of asking each one of us to talk about what we are grateful for this year. We might add a second round of something silly we're grateful for. But beyond that, we will play some campfire-style games like Two Truths and a Lie or 20 Questions. Here's a link to more suggestions for online party games.

More Thoughts: I suggested a family sing-along--surely there's an app with music and lyrics we could follow. My children shot that down immediately. We are not a family of singers; some of us are carry-a-tune challenged. But I put it out there for more vocal-oriented families. There are also apps that let you play card games together or watch a movie and chat about it. Both Disney+ and Amazon Prime come with built in watch-partying features.

There's also the great outdoors. A friend whose grown daughters and their families live nearby is avoiding indoor family gatherings of any size. Instead, she is planning to mask up and go on a hike with the willing. If the weather is foul on Thanksgiving day it's bound to be more hospitable at least one day of the weekend. Hike on, Joyce!

Still the Same: In years past the days running up to the holiday were filled with much inter-family texting, emailing and phone calling about details--spatchcock the turkey or not,  how many versions of stuffing/dressing to make, which desserts to buy and which bake. This year there is still a lot of messaging back and forth, only this time it's to plan the zoom side of our celebration. Doesn't matter what the details are, the important piece is that we're in touch now and we're looking forward to being together in whatever shape togetherness takes.

painting: Carl Larsson

 

 

Observation: A veteran health reporter puts this year's pandemic-afflicted Thanksgiving in perspective

He's a health and science reporter for the New York Times and was recently awarded the 2020 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism by the Columbia Journalism school.

All  that background noise is by way of saying that in an interview with a fellow New York Time's reporter, Donald McNeil put the current sorrows over curtailed Thanksgiving dinners in perspective:

The holiday season is just around the corner. What advice do you have for families eager to celebrate with their loved ones?

Do it by Zoom. Don’t let Junior come home and kill Grandma. Think of this like World War II — our soldiers didn’t get to fly home to eat turkey. My father was at Normandy. My mother was with the Red Cross in occupied Austria. They missed the holidays. Life went on. There were happier years later.

painting: Rebecca Lemov

 

Grownkids Parenting Their Parents: The pandemic threatens to make us our children's children.

The coronavirus has been novel in more than it's medical/scientific ways. There's also been a behavioral effect: Our grown kids are parenting us--or trying to.  They are not only worrying more intensely about our health and well-being but setting down guidelines for how we should take care of ourselves--what we should and should not do on a day to day basis.

One friend, who babysits for her toddler and infant grandkids three days a week, has been told by her daughter that she cannot sit outdoors at coffee shops or restaurants or otherwise socialize in person with friends. Her daughter has also forbidden her to see her dentist or go to supermarkets--the daughter shops for her and drops the groceries and other supplies at her door. My friend, who has no underlying health issues (except for being 71) doesn't want to give up her babysitting gig so she has taken her daughter's orders seriously and kept away from all of us.

The situation is understandable in that the daughter, who works in a downtown office three days a week, is doubling down to make sure the virus is not brought into her house. But sometimes our children overstep the mark and we need to assert our independence.

A  Carolyn Hax column carries a case in point of how some of grown kids try to control their parents' lives--or parts of it. It's not related to Covid rules but the situation applies.

A woman wrote to Hax to say that after her children and grandchildren moved far away she went through a difficult period. but now has a very busy life that is filled with responsibilities to others. One of her children insists her mother get away for the winter and has rented a place for her in a sunny clime--all expenses paid. The mom doesn't want to be away from her new life for such a long period of time. She wants to know how to say no to a "beautiful offer"without antagonizing a daughter who is " not one to take "no" for an answer."

Some highlights from Carolyn's answer:

The only way to go about refusing her offer is to just refuse the offer. That’s it. Prepare yourself beforehand to ride out the drama-storm that ensues.

Now, all this having been said: You do note that “I really don’t want to leave . . . for so long.” Is there a period you would be eager to spend in this sunny clime? If so, then you can also say, “I’m sorry, I cannot accept two months. A week, however, would be lovely. Let me know if that’s possible.”

Say this only if you trust yourself to hold that line. Otherwise don’t even suggest it — just stick to the “no.”

And if/when she flips out on you, remain calm: “This is not up for negotiation. Let’s either change the subject now or talk another day.” Be ready to hang up as needed. “I’m interrupting you, hang on — I’ve got to go, bye.” Click.

I know this probably looks/sounds terrible, but it’s not unkind. It’s letting an emotional trespasser know she needs to get back on her side of the fence.

photo: Palo Coleman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pandemic Fallout: Where did the family get-togethers go?

Thanksgiving is only one of the family get-togethers upended by the coronavirus. Summer vacations, family reunions, birthday celebrations, Father's Day, Mother's Day, even funerals--lots of us have been unable to celebrate or observe any of these in person with our children (and their families) since the coronavirus barged into our lives.

How are we coping with these losses? Some of us are more philosophical than others. Many of us are taking it one holiday at a time or thinking up innovative ways to use technology to shrink the distance.

Here's how one couple is dealing with the loss of an annual Father's Day reunion with their four grown children. The full interview ran in the New York Times. Here are pertinent highlights.

The situation: 

Every Father’s Day weekend, the four adult children travel from New York and Chicago to Las Vegas to visit their father, Mort, 82, and stepmother, Marla, 65, bringing with them grandchildren ranging in age from 7 to 20 years old. The annual ritual was postponed this year until August. And then, as the virus continued to rage, it was canceled.

How the parents are coping:

Mort I happen to like my family. But I’m not insane enough to risk death. The coronavirus is unfortunately dictating our schedule. You recognize what is possible and what is not possible.

Marla We tell them, ‘Well, maybe you’ll drive out here.’ But the truth is, as much as we’d love to see them, they have too much contact with too many people.

 

Mort I’m not going to rend my garments and cover up the mirrors because I can’t see my children. I’m lucky to be in sufficiently good health. ...

Marla I worry that the young ones are too young to have formed memories of him. And the ones in college — who knows how much longer they’ll want to come along on these visits?

Mort My grandchildren are in very good hands.

Marla We’re lucky, we have each other. But it feels like we’ve given up a tremendous amount during this time.

 

Marla He might come off as ‘it is what it is,’ but would he love to see them? Nothing would make him happier. [One of his children] said, ‘When am I going to see you?’ I said, ‘When there’s a vaccine.’

Marla And when will that be? I don’t know. I don’t know, and there are days I handle it much better than others.

painting: Van Gogh

A Removable Feast: Ways to enjoy Thanksgiving together when we can't be together.

Two more children have tested positive for Covid-19 at  a granddaughter's high school. Where there were none, three have come up positive at my grandson's college. Small numbers. Controls are in place. Not to worry. But my daughter-in-law sends me these reports--"Sheesh" she texts--to confirm how correct we were to cancel the three-family Thanksgiving get-together we usually have at her house.

I am probably full of more longing to be together for the holiday than my children and grandchildren are. That is why I have taken on the task of figuring out ways to have Thanksgiving together even if we aren't physically together.

A friend says she's asked her son-in-law, who's an outgoing person who runs large meetings as part of his job, to be an EmCee on a Zoom call. She wants him to keep it light and fun for six adults and five grandchildren who are spread out across the country. She figures thirty or forty minutes should be enough to make it a memorable Thanksgiving.

I'm thinking of asking my son, who has a robust Zoom account through his job, to set us up in 5-minute chat rooms where two or three of us can talk directly to each other and then reset the chat rooms so we can talk to others.

My daughter thinks it would be fun for everyone to sit down for dessert together via Zoom. We could even expand that further--to baking dessert "together" earlier in the day. We could watch a cooking clip and make the same recipe — texting to compare notes and challenges. I haven't checked this out but I understand Netflix has a “party” function that allows you to sync up your streaming and provides a group chat for gabbing. For me, Thanksgiving is more than the meal. It's also about the time I spend in the kitchen with the other family cooks--chopping onions, mixing batters and talking about everything and nothing.

If some or all of your grown children and grandchildren live nearby, you can organize a meal exchange. This NYTimes story  details how to add recipe links to a shared spreadsheet, sign up for dishes and deliver the goods. The spreadsheet helps keep everything organized so, as the reporter points out," no one accidentally makes the same dish twice--though too much stuffing is never a bad thing."

Anyone out there have any other bright ideas? Email me or post them as a comment. We're all in this together--trying to savor the joy of the holiday and still stay safe.

AND: Don't forget to vote, if you haven't already.

painting: The Boating Party,  Renoir

 

Holiday Decisions: The pandemic pushes around our plans for Thanksgiving

My neighbor Lisa has made her Thanksgiving plans. Her mother and her two grown children live in a town that's a six hour drive north from her home. For the holidays she has bought--and had delivered to her mother's house--one party tent with roll up sides that can comfortably hold 20 somewhat socially distanced guests plus the two restaurant-caliber outdoor heaters she's purchased. "If it's cold and miserable on Thanksgiving day we'll just postpone the big meal," she tells me, adding her belief that it will be nice at least one day of the long weekend. She and other guests plan to quarantine-light for two weeks before Thanksgiving. Lisa, who works for a health-care company, believes her plan is solid: an outdoor Thanksgiving dinner with flexibility on the actual date and guests who've taken extra steps to keep coronavirus away from their gathering.

I have also made my plans. I have called my son and daughter-in-law, who have been hosting our family Thanksgiving for the past decade, and let them know that Paterfamilias and I will not be there. We will not make the 1-hour airplane trip north to their city in upstate New York. It was a tear-inducing call, especially since a grandchild we haven't seen since last Thanksgiving will be returning home from college.

I am following the dictates of another friend, Jo, whose son is a research scientist at NIH and lives a mere 20 minutes away from her. Although he and his family usually have Thanksgiving at his house, he and his wife won't be doing it this year. He told his mother to wipe the holidays off her calendar--just forget about them. Wait till next year.

His advice is in keeping with that of NIH's leading virologist and epidemiologist, Tony Fauci. He has reiterated on TV news shows that if we don't "appropriately mitigate the risk of a COVID-19 infection," Thanksgiving festivities could become superspreader events.

The primary problems, he said, will be small to mid-sized gatherings held indoors with people from out-of-town attending. (That would be us.) Circulated indoor air could easily become a hotbed for virus transmission. The danger is heightened when some of the guests take public transportation like planes to get there. (Again, that would be us.)

Lest we think Fauci is immune to the deprivations of a no-thanks Thanksgiving, he says his children, who live in multiple different states, will not be returning home for the holiday, out of concern for their father and his age. 

One size does not fit all. Some lucky folks (and their guests) may live in areas where Covid rates are not on the rise, making it somewhat safer to gather indoors (with social distancing,  masking and open windows, of course). Southern and West Coast states where the weather is milder can avoid the indoor issue.

Here's how a professor of civil and environmental engineering explains the outdoor advantage:

If you’re [ourdoors] standing right next to someone else, there won’t be enough time for sun and heat to break the virus down before you breathe it in. But there is enough time for the wind to blow it away.

And a point on relativity the professor makes:

Neither “indoors” nor “outdoors” is universally safe. Indoors with a small number of people and a good ventilation system bringing fresh air in at least six times an hour is a different risk than indoors in a large group singing without good ventilation. Outside at a protest, masked up and walking, is a different risk than unmasked and packed side-by-side into a football stadium.

For more customized advice and guidance on making Thanksgiving plans, here's a link to the CDC's suggestions for celebrating fall and winter holidays during the pandemic.

Stay safe. And not too sad.

Safety Rules for Thanksgiving Dinner: It's not about the turkey

In ordinary times, Thanksgiving safety advice starts with the proper way to thaw the turkey. You don't want it to become a salmonella spreader.

These are not ordinary times. Safety now has to do with keeping the holiday get-together from becoming a Covid superspreader. 

Many of us have been following solid public health advice from the CDC and NIH's Tony Fauci: We limit our socializing to outdoor spaces where we can rely on breezes to refresh the air around our socially-distanted selves. We wear our masks and keep social, non-family groups to four people--oh, maybe with an occasional one or two more trusted friends or family who have been following the coronavirus rules as well.

That's what's helped get us out of the house and through the past three or four months without any devastating illness. We're also fortunate that the area in which we live has a low infection rate. That makes us feel safer about running into a Starbucks to pick up a coffee  or a Panera for a sandwich to eat in a park. But does that mean we should feel safe about our traditional Thanksgiving get-together with friends and family?

The CDC doesn't think so. Its director, Dr. Robert Redfield told an October 13 conference call of governors that the current threat "is actually acquisition of infection through small household gatherings." Then he added his worry about the future: "Particularly with Thanksgiving coming up, we think it's really important to stress the vigilance of these continued mitigation steps in the household setting."

Outdoor dinners would be a safe work-around. But for those of us in more northerly states, the warm, sunny days are dwindling. Heat lamps could take the chill off a 50- or 60-degree outdoor dinner but the 40s and below are something else. Plus there's rain and snow and other vagaries of late November weather. (Don't rule out hurricanes this year, either.)

As a Northeasterner whose children live in New England, I figure if there's a family Thanksgiving dinner in my 2020 future it's going to be indoors. But the odds of catching coronavirus are about 20 times higher indoors.

Is there a way to make Thanksgiving get-togethers safe?

Here's what I've learned: The two dealmakers (or breakers) seem to be size of the group and infection rate of the community. This informative article in the Atlantic wasn't focused on Thanksgiving directly, but the discussion in it applies to any indoor gathering. It offered this caveat from a medical expert who was in a quandary over what to do about an indoor dinner invitation she had: “It's just too complicated to figure it out on your own.”

We can try, starting with the simpler point of size: Smaller is better. Not just because it limits the number of people exposed to each other (and everyone they've been exposed to). Fewer people mean we can spread out and keep six feet or more distance while we pop chunks of candied yams, slices of cranberry bread and bites of turkey into our unmasked mouths. Forget about a meal at the dining room table. Think family room or living room with dinner plates on laps. 

The trickier issue is community infection rate. That is, how many new Covid-19 cases are in your area and the one you're traveling to. Public health experts don't agree on what level or rate makes one place safer than another. Some say safe is a test positivity rate below 5 percent and only 5 to 10 new cases a day per 100,000 people.  A health-policy professor at Harvard, Tom Tsai, peg the latter number slightly higher, at 25 cases per 100,000.

The real problem is that the numbers are hard to come by. There is no official centralized source. I've leaned on this New York Times daily counter to stay current on where the infection rate is rising or falling. You can poke around the site and get county by county cuurent counts. There are a number of other websites, such as GlobalEpidemics.org, that show the levels of community transmission by county. You definitely want under 5 percent; 1 percent would be beyond good--it suggests the disease is contained.

Beyond that, we have to trust that others at our dinner are behaving safely as well. We're all trying, but as the Atlantic put it:

...people generally don’t want to kill their friends and relatives. Most people want to do the right thing. But they can’t do it if they don’t know what it is.

painting:Peasant Wedding, Pieter Bruegel

 

Politics in the Time of Coronavirus: How it could effect Thanksgiving civility.

When economists philosophize, they'll tell you that the young start out liberal and as they gather worldly goods and status they mature into conservatives. In a maxim variously attributed to Winston Churchill, Victor Hugo and a slew of others, the thought bubble goes like this: "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." (A French philosopher put the line of demarcation at 20 years of age!)

It could also be true, as  two decades of Pew Research Center surveys have found, that generations carry with them the imprint of early political experiences. That is, those of us who came of age during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations (we're now in our 80s or older), have fairly consistently favored Republican candidates, while those of us who turned 18 under Bill Clinton and his two successors have almost always voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole.

All of which is a long way of saying, it's not unusual for our political alignments to be out of sync generationally.  That's what's led to many an unpleasant political conversation at Thanksgiving dinner. For those of us holding out hope for extended-family reunions around the Thanksgiving table this year, we may find the political divide is not so much generational as geographical. Compounding our differences is the unusual depth of feeling many of us hold about the current political situation and the deep divide between the left and the right. There is no longer any middle ground.

In a recent blog posting,  Carl E Pickhardt  writes about young adults and their rejection of their parents' political beliefs--and how hard that can be for parents to bear.

In these deeply partisan times, how can parents of one passionate political view come to terms with an older adolescent or young adult who is firmly wed to its opposite persuasion?

How indeed. And the same holds true for aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens. This year, many of us may easily avoid dinner time chats with relatives with whom we disagree--social distancing and difficult travel protocols may intervene. But that doesn't help when we sit on opposite sides of the political divide with our grown children whom we may see everyday or Skype several times a week.

When it comes to politics, what does Pickhardt suggest in terms of keeping the ties that bind intact and conversations civil.

*Rather than treat a political difference as a barrier to getting along and listening with their mind made up, treat it as a bridge, as a talking opportunity to better understand each other. 

*Rather than take personal offense, respect the individuality and independence of their grown child’s political convictions and the bravery to assert themselves in this displeasing way. 

*Rather than treat political differences as primary, keep them in perspective as only a small part of a person, and appreciate the abiding commonalities they still share.   

Solid advice. Good luck implementing it.

painting: Romare Bearden, Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, 1967, National Gallery

Pandemic Travel: Tips on a safe and comforting visit with grown children who live far away.

I have perfected the fly-by hug. When we finally made our way to the cities where our children live, I found I could not greet them with an awkward elbow flap of a hello. We have not seen in person either our children or grandchildren since last Thanksgiving, I could not deny myself hugs--even if they were quick and fleeting. 

So I started with my youngest--a 12-year-old. We were standing on the outdoor patio and I told her, "We'll run toward each other, grab a hug with our faces turned away from each other and move on quickly. And so it was with each member of the family. I found it immensely satisfying in a way that's hard to put into words--just to hold, however fleetingly, each precious member of my family was a joy and a reminder of the necessary warmth of physical contact.

To arrive on that patio we had to get to an airport and board a plane. This felt surprisingly safe. The airport was sparsely populated. Almost all concessions were gated closed. The airport was a depressing ghost town (and a reminder of the hundreds of jobs lost in just this one place). That said, we felt safer for the lack of crowds.

We flew on Southwest which has promised to control the sale of tickets on each flight to keep middle seats empty. Twas a pleasure not to be crowded in, but it was eerie nonetheless. Southwest also demands passengers wear masks. One man, seated a row in front of me and across the aisle kept taking off his mask. What to do? It made me feel unsafe. I signaled the stewardess and let her handle it.

When we landed and made our way toward baggage claim we were greeted by the staff at a "health desk." We were asked where we came from. When we said Maryland, a list was checked. "You're Okay," said the health checker. "Welcome to New York State."

We stayed at a hotel and asked for a room in which no one had stayed the night before. No problem. The half of the lobby where we used to order breakfast in the morning or a drink in the evening was dimmed-light dark with chairs upended on the tables. A gloomy sight. 

Our daughter-in-law was concerned about our spending time in her house. (Concerned for us, not for her family.) The grandkids had started back to school,  attending in person classes two or three times a week. That means they were now more exposed to the virus than they had been--a risk for us. Our DIL had planned in advance and borrowed a heat lamp so we could safely eat together outdoors. But a sudden cold spell--40 degrees at night--made sitting outside too chilly, even with the heat lamp. We went inside. Everyone stayed masked except when actually eating. We sat well distanced from each other, plates on our laps rather than on the table.

Despite the masks (with their muffling of sound) and physical distancing we had a wonderful time talking,  laughing at family stories and catching each other up on individual "adventures." At the same time I felt I was like a squirrel who needed to hoard these moments for a long winter of no visits.

Two days later we headed an hour east into Massachusetts for a 24-hour visit with our daughter and her family who drove west to meet us. We stayed at a small family-run inn in Great Barrington. Our rooms were the only ones in a small annex where we had a shared communal space. In the evening it was, once again, too chilly (and we were too tired) to try to eat outside. My daughter and I walked into town, picked up two pizzas and a big salad. We all sat in our communal space, dropped our masks to eat our pizza and otherwise stayed safe while we relaxed in each other's company. 

We are fortunate that both our children live in states (New York and Massachusetts) that have been able to keep the Covid infection rate under control. Our state (Maryland) is improving--we are no longer banned in New York State. Traveling within states that have very low infection rates and are making Herculean efforts to keep it that way made us feel we were taking controlled--and worthwhile--risks in traveling to visit our children. 

We dare not think ahead to the usual family gathering in Albany for Thanksgiving. Except to  squirrel away the memories of this visit to revisit when the weather turns cold and travel more challenging.

painting: Pissarro, Charing Cross Bridge, London

Traveling to See Loved Ones: Be prepared for Covid tests, extra masks and lots of sanitizers.

In August, a friend's daughter and son-in-law drove 10 hours from Boston to Maryland to visit their mom for two days. During the trip they focused on what we all focus on: stop only to gas up and use the facilities; pack the car with travel snacks and soft drinks  plus lots of Clorox-like wipes and hand sanitizer. When they returned home, they took Covid tests.

Other friends did the reverse trip: They drove 12 hours from Maryland to see their grown children and grandchild in New Hampshire. They stopped en route to overnight at a hotel, picked up dinner from a carry out and limited highway stops to gas and bathroom. They did not get tested but they quarantined-lite when they came home. That is, they stayed home for two or three days--before they got back to their usual routine, which was low risk anyway.

Now we are planning a trip to see our grown children and grandchildren. We are not driving. Our plan is to cover our faces and fly from Maryland to Albany to see our son's family, drive a rental car into Massachusetts to see our daughter and then reverse ourselves to come home.

We are lucky in one way: both states we are visiting have very low infection rates.  We are not so lucky in that neither New York nor Massachusetts welcome travelers from Maryland-- unless they quarantine for two weeks or, for Massachusetts, have a negative covid-19 test within 72 hours of arrival. The test requirement is a challenge. Rapid result tests are not easy to get in Maryland. Where we live (and where the infection rate is low), we have to be  symptomatic or have been exposed to the virus in order to qualify for a test. It took us more than four hours to set up what we think is going to be a drive-through test that we can use to enter Massachusetts.

We are not sure now if we New York will allow us to enter. The NYS website tells us that "enforcement teams will be stationed at airports statewide to meet arriving aircrafts at gates and greet disembarking passengers."  We may make our final destination to Massachusetts and ask our son to drive himself and his family an hour east to visit us there. The big risk we  face: Our grandchildren will have started going to school in person. We will have to be extra vigilant around everybody and they around us. My daughter in law says that if the weather turns cold enough to make us uncomfortable to sit outside, we can come into the house and everyone will wear masks, except when we eat and that will not be around the table but scattered 6-feet apart in the family room.

Then there is the question of what we have to or should do when we return home. Can we just unpack our bags as though this was just another trip to see our children, or should we quarantine? Get another covid test in two weeks?

This is what the new normal for travel is: Along with arranging transportation, making housing reservations and remembering to pack chargers for all devices, we have to add extra face masks, covid testing and sanitizers to our travel to-do list--and be prepared to quarantine ourselves.

As to the family visits themselves, we are assured by friends who've driven miles to see their children that even hugless, physically distanced encounters are worth the challenge of dealing with the plethora of pandemic limits.

 

 

 

 

Refilled Nests and Too Many Pandemic Promises to Keep

Back in March, when the coronavirus pandemic had most of us sheltering in place, some of us did so with our grown kids and even grandkids. Where they had been living independently, now they were with us under our roof or we under theirs--or we were within a pod of safe visitors. Who knew the sheltering would last so long or that the promises of aid and assistance--babysitting, room and board--would last so long and be so exhausting.

What to do about the problems raised by the over-stuffed nest and pledges of commitment to our now too-close loved ones? Our once-quiet, empty nest may now be filled with the chaos of multi-generation visitors. Did we really mean to commit to serving three meals a day to four adults and two children? Or be available to babysit while they worked? Or share our car, cross trainer and bandwidth indefinitely? How do we get our life back when the end to the crisis is no where near? Here are some suggestions from experts quoted in "How to Set Pandemic Boundaries for Relatives," an article that  reminds us that boundaries are necessary even when they may be hard to set and make us feel like we're being a bad parent or grandparent.

On feeling overwhelmed: Create a list of all of your responsibilities and then identify what you alone can do and what can be outsourced to your "guests." Examples: cleaning the bathrooms; grocery shopping; preparing meals.

Keep a relaunch in sight: Adult children who are boarding with you may have regressed into  dependency. One expert suggests saying to your child, "We know that you don’t want to be here forever. But what can we think about to give you, and us, a vision for how great it’s going to be for you to feel autonomous and free and empowered?” Tht could be the road to mapping out steps toward a relaunch.

Renegotiate commitments: Promises were made back in March, before we realized how long the pandemic might last. But a commitment to, say, babysit grandkids when in-person schools closed last spring may no longer be feasible. You are allowed to change your mind, the experts say, offering this suggestion as a way to open negotiations: “Just because we’ve agreed to something in one moment doesn’t mean we’ve agreed to it for life.”

Clarify your needs: Be clear in your own mind what you’re still willing to do. Let your grown kids know you are still there for them, but within limits. You might reassure them that you've been happy to help so far but "we all thought this would be over by now, and it’s not." Then, the experts say, tell the truth. As in something like this: 

 “‘I can’t be at my best at this level, so I need to cut back’, or ‘I need to take a month off,’ or whatever it is you really need....You let them know, without defensiveness, without guilt, that you want to help them come up with a different solution that works for them, because this one isn’t sustainable for you.’”

Be true to yourself: There may be an expectation on the part of your grown children that you're going to keep doing this because you're their parent and they need you to do it. Oh the guilt! Here's one expert's suggestion on this point:

“Ask yourself, ‘Do I want my kids and grandkids to love me because I do something I don’t want to do for them? Or do I want them to love me because I’m honest and I’m being myself?’”

It ain't easy:

“Tolerating uncomfortable feelings builds emotional resilience. And standing in our truth is hard, but it’s the key to honest relationships."

painting: Repose by J Sargent @ National Gallery

Thank You Notes: Why grown and grandkids fail to show their appreciation for gifts we give them.

I sympathize with the frustration: We send our grown kids and grandkids gifts and we get nothing tangible in return--not a word of thanks, no less an "I love it!" It may be that in these days of social distancing from our loved ones, the need to hear a thanks looms even larger. Pandemic or no, I hear about the thank you issue--or lack thereof--all the time. 

So does Philip Galanes over at Social Qs. "For years, every week has brought at least one new variation on this letter," he writes. The letter in question comes from a reader who sends her daughter monetary gifts that have long gone unacknowledged; she wonders whether it’s time to stop sending them, especially since the gifts are a strain on her budget.

Galanes starts by saying that the "central question is by far the one I hear most often. I’ve answered it a few times: We give gifts out of love, not to be thanked; speak up gently; if this really bothers you, stop sending gifts."

But this time Galanes doesn't rest there. He's interested in exploring the root of the problem: Why does this keep happening--to this reader and to many of us. Here's his answer:

My new theory: If a parent (or uncle or grandmother) sends a gift, year after year, without any acknowledgment from the recipient, maybe the recipient doesn’t experience it as a gift. Maybe your daughter and the others see these presents as their entitlement, like stock dividends or Social Security checks. The fact that the gifts keep coming, without further action, supports their belief.

That doesn't change the basics of his advice: Ask your child or grandchild to be more thoughtful. If they can’t be, trade the checks for greeting cards.

We're desperate to see our grown children--and to get away. What are the travel risks?

August days are tick-tocking down toward Fall with its school openings and flu season. Now is the supposedly "safe" time to travel--to visit children who live far away and to just plain get away. But is it safe? Some economists have suggested that we older folk should be part of a “targeted lockdown," and stay home since our age puts us in a high risk group for contracting Covid-19.

Some of us are in the no-go age group but our health is otherwise robust. We're physically active and have no life-threatening underlying disease.  Does that give us a pass to go forth and travel to see our children? I raise this question now since when I wrote a  June post  I looked at safety measures we should take if/when we traveled. But the spread of the coronavirus has accelerated since them. So I'm backing up one step and looking at what the experts have to say about evaluating travel risk. 

To that point, the Cleveland Clinic has developed a risk calculator to fine tune individual risks. Check it out but with this caveat. Cleveland Clinic doctors say the calculator was designed for healthcare professionals so that they could prioritize who to test. It is not, they say, "for use by individuals who are ‘curious’ about their risk....It is important to caution against consumers interpreting a low risk score as license to ease up on infection prevention measures such as social distancing and masking, as those decisions have public health implications beyond individual risk.”

Okay. Understood. But what about specific travel risks.

Some of us may be prevented from traveling because we live in an area where infection rates are high (above 5 percent) and we are unwelcome in states where the rates are low. If we are from a "safe," low-rate state, it might be an additional risk to visit with relatives from infection-surging states. The latest on how some states are adjusting to incoming travelers is in this article.

If we can make our way around these realities, there are other hazards to evaluate--which is what Paterfamilias and I were forced to do as we planned a trip to see our children. We bought airplane tickets to fly to the city where our son and his family live, made reservations to stay at a nearby hotel for a few days then drive a rental car three hours to another state to see our other child and her family. We haven't been able to hug our children or grandchildren since Thanksgiving. We were feeling hemmed in and in need of a change of scene. We were willing to take some reasonable risks.

Our flight would be only an hour or so. (Driving was not an option.)  I was comfortable with the short flight until I read an article interviewing a handful of public health experts, NIH's Doctor Anthony Fauci among them. They were all asked about their personal behaviors. Did they go to supermarkets to shop? Did they wipe down their groceries? The answers varied among the five. But there was one question in which they were all agreed. None of them would set foot on an airplane.  Strike one.

Next risk question: Where has everyone we would be visiting been and what have they been doing? As departure day neared I talked to my daughter-in-law about what safety would look like at their home. They live in a part of New York State that has a low infection rate. And yet. "You know the big kids go out," she told me. "They see friends. Plus they're coaches at a soccer camp." My Grands are responsible kids (they're 19 and 17); they wear masks most of the time; they understand how infection works. But they're teenagers! Long story short: My DIL didn't think it would be safe for us to spend any time inside the house. We could sit out in their backyard, splash around in the pool, take walks in the neighborhood and eat meals at their outdoor table. But what if it rains? Or it's beastly hot? Strike two.

Next hurdle: State quarantine issues. The third strike came while we were still weighing and wavering. Governor Andrew Cuomo closed New York State to visitors from 31 high-infection states. Our state of Maryland isn't in terrible shape--we're no California, Florida or Texas--but we were on the list of 31. We would have to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, and good social practice would demand that we do the same when we got home. One could say, the state is unlikely to police us. On the other hand, the policy is there for a reason. We are reasonable people. Do we have the right or legitimate reason to flaunt the policy? (I watched Governor Cuomo's press briefings everyday as he guided New Yorkers from epicenter of infection to a mere 1 percent infection rate. He listened to the scientists; shouldn't we continue to listen to him?)

All these decisions are personal and full of individual wrinkles and perils. Friends of ours are driving to New Hampshire (Marylanders are permitted to enter) to visit their son. Their grandson is pre-teen and has not been out partying. Their son's house has a separate bedroom on another floor where our friends can stay. The trip sounds safer than ours did.

So this is my rationale about the particulars on why we made the decision we made. It's personal but there is expert-driven guidance out there for help in weighing travel risks. This is one  that offers practical advice that touches on a range of travel issues, from the relative hazards of riding trains versus planes to assessing hotel safety. Here's what the CDC advises. It includes a lot of easy-to-follow practical travel tips and a "what to pack" list--i.e. hand sanitizers, masks.  Spoiler alert: The CDC would rather you stayed at home.

painting by Monet, "Bridge at Argenteuil" at National Gallery of Art

 

 

 

Leaving a Legacy: Is there ever a good reason for your Will to favor one child over another?

Here's a loaded question: Is it ever right or fair to leave your children unequal portions of your earthly gains and goods.

I've looked at this issue in previous posts. Mostly I've talked about situations where one child has done particularly well financially while the other, having devoted themselves to socially important but unremunerative work, has not. The answer I've come up with is that it's okay to tip the scales so long as you let your children know about the plan in advance--and assure them that money does not equal love, respect or pride in their accomplishments. 

But situations are rarely straightforward. There are always wrinkles. Maybe the wealthier child has grandchildren galore and the "needier" child has none, or vice versa. Maybe one child lives far away and rarely visits, while the other lives close by and is a big and helpful part of a parent's everyday life.

A wrong move can lead to posthumous ill feelings among your children. We may not be there to see or hear it, but it's not something we want to cause. The issue of fair distribution is an age-old one. In the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle points out that when people who are equal are granted unequal shares — or people who aren’t equal are granted equal shares — “quarrels and complaints arise.” 

How do we square things? How should we parse the issue?

Here are some thinking points raised by Kwame Anthony Appiah, who pens "The Ethicist" column for the NYTimes.

What does equal mean:

The challenge is to decide what, in some relevant sense, makes two people equal. The prospective heirs are equally children of the same parent. Some people think that’s the only relevant kind of equality; they leave their estates in equal shares.

Show me the love. Or not.

“To my beloved child, Jordan, I leave the bulk of my estate, as a reward for the great care shown to me in my declining years.” Isn’t there something unattractive about this? We don’t want to encourage practices that lead people to display care in expectation of a financial benefit. Indeed, one reason money is a troublesome idiom for expressing gratitude here is that it awkwardly suggests a mercenary motive for those years of filial piety.

The Indigence Argument

“To Jordan, I leave the bulk of my estate, in the knowledge that my other children are in no need of further financial assets.” Although this might be embarrassing to Jordan, it’s hard to see a basis of complaint from the other children. ...

Still, an economist might note that there’s an argument for worrying about needs-based inheritance, too. A child who knows that indigence will be compensated for at a parent’s death has less incentive to avoid that state. An economist might also point out that the same share of a parental estate is going to be worth more to the poorer child, in the sense of making a more significant difference to his or her life.

Posthumous parenting

The major considerations that move people to favor equal shares, I suspect, is, first, that equal shares can express the idea that parents have equal care and concern for each of their children; and second, that the practice requires no comparative assessment of their children’s lives, virtues or needs. Notice, though, that this posthumous approach doesn’t match what we think is appropriate in parenting. When we’re parents, loving each child equally entails paying attention to each of them, taking note of their different appetites and aptitudes and responding specifically to them. Our equal love would be evidenced by our giving our tennis-playing son a new racket and our golf-playing daughter a new golf club — not by giving them each a tennis racket.

Bottom line

If the estate were to be divided in a way that favored one child over the other, the parent should make it clear why doing so was consistent with each having an equal claim to the parent’s love.

painting: "Trytich" by Oliver Lee Jackson at the National Gallery

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.