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

Traveling Abroad: Setting up a trip with a 20-something grandchild.

Lucky You! Or so my friends tell me when I tell them my 22-year-old granddaughter has suggested we see a little of the world together.  Sounds like a delightful summer travel proposition, and it is. And yet, and yet. Not so easy.

If I were traveling with a friend, we might pick a group tour to take us where we wanted to go or sign up for a cruise or for some other organized means of getting from A to B to Z. We would have all transportation, hotels and sightseeing taken care of and someone in charge should there be mishaps. 

But a 20-something is not the right fit for an organized tour. Fellow travelers are likely to be much older than she is. Where's the fun or excitement for her in that? 

All of which means the trip is DIY.  We start our planning: She and I agree on some basics. We'll meet in Amsterdam where she'll be finishing a study course at a university there. Then we'll head north. I've always wanted to go to Scandinavia and my former travelmate (my recently deceased husband) feared being cold and would never consider Sweden or Norway--even in the summer! She and I settle on Oslo and Reykjavik. Destination determination is the easy part.

We will split the rest of the chores. She will research things to do, see, sip and eat once we get to Oslo and Reykjavik. She is of a generation whose fingers fly over their cellphone keypad. It will take her seconds to come up with a coffee shop near our hotel and the scenic walking route to the sculpture garden. She'll figure out the train or bus schedule for a day trip. Since I have the credit card, I will book flights and hotels.

Therein lies the rub. Booking everything is a week of anxiety, stress and confusion. Finding hotels with the right set up for sleeping arrangements, in a central part of the city, at an affordable price--and without the dreaded little line of red type: "Book now. Only 2 rooms left at this price."

At last, I have booked our flights from Amsterdam to Oslo to Reykjavik plus the flights to each of our home airports and the hotels along the way. To quote Thomas Jefferson (in Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton"): "What'd I miss?" Are all bases covered? Hotels and flights are still sending me alerts to buy coverage to cover mishaps. All of which feeds into my initial misgivings about traipsing around Europe without a guided tour. To say nothing of worries about infirmities of age--will I sleep OK when it's daylight all night? Will my GI system rebel against the changes to my diet? Will we find quiet places in the cities to sit and people-watch? Should we book day trips in advance? Ah, Oh and Oy.

I leave in two days. I'll let you know how it goes en route or when I get back. Stay tuned for Lessons Learned.

painting: Travelling Companions, Augustus Egg

 

Observation: Grandparenting advice in two words

This two-word bit of advice is a reminder that we walk around on eggshells when it comes to doling out advice to our grown children. Writing in Grand Magazine, Karen L. Rancourt zeroes in on grandparents and the urge to let our grown children (who are now parents themselves) know that there's a better, best or our way of caring for a baby, toddler or even a teen. After all, we've been there, done that. Why not share the benefits of our vast experience?

Not so fast. Rancourt lets us know that such counsel is not a positive path forward. Her advice, no matter the parenting issue at hand, is succinct and easy to remember: "Zip It."

Here's her fuller explanation

Why should you zip it? Because, as a grandparent, you are not in the driver’s seat anymore. You are a passenger ‘riding along’ at the pleasure of the parents. When you were raising your own children, you made the rules. Now your job is to enforce the rules set down by your grown children regarding your grandchildren, whether you agree with them or not. To use a common idiom, ‘There’s a new sheriff in town,’ and it isn’t you.

painting: Femme au café, Picasso 

Wedding Celebrations: Is it good news that Gen Z kids are thinking small and DIY?

I bumped into an old work friend, someone I shared office space with some 30 years ago when we were both reporters at a start-up magazine. He moved on to other media jobs, we lost touch except for an occasional Facebook sighting. That's how I knew his daughter had gotten engaged. When we turned the "bumped into" into a "let's have coffee," I got more details on the wedding.

He and his wife love their daughter's fiancé; they like his parents as well. The only minor flaw in the upcoming nuptials was that the bride's mother was disappointed that her daughter and her fiancé were planning their wedding celebration by themselves. Mother and daughter have a loving relationship so that was not the reason for exclusion. Rather, the young couple were part of a Gen Z trend: small, DIY weddings. 

According to an Axios posting about wedding trends, ballrooms are out, "micro weddings" are in. Axios had stats to support the observation:

 The average guest count nationwide was 131 in 2024, down from 184 in 2006.

Celebrations with 50 guests or fewer made up 18 percent of nuptials last year, compared to 10 percent in 2013.

There are both charming and practical reasons behind the trend:

Charming: Couples say small weddings in cozy settings let them spend more time with loved ones.

Practical: They're a lot less expensive. Micro weddings run up a tab that's about half the cost of traditional weddings.

More highlights from the Axios newsletter:

The trend is growing: Vegas-style chapels and businesses offering curated micro weddings and elopements have opened in Boston; Dallas; Portland, Oregon, Richmond, Virginia, and elsewhere.

Intimate doesn't mean boring. City hall ceremonies have their own trending aesthetic. Pinterest searches for terms like "city hall elopement" and "courthouse wedding dress ideas" have been surging among Gen Zers.

Then there's this dose of reality:

Many brides and grooms-to-be are bracing for pricier nuptials as tariffs could hike the $33,000 cost of an average U.S. wedding, according to The Knot, a planning and registry site.

As to my friends, I raise a celebratory glass of bubbly to them, to a bright future for the bride and groom and to the young couple's current and practical sensibilities. 

painting: Tarsila do Amarel, Brazil wedding

Wedding Blues: Who's walking the bride down the aisle?

Restructured families--divorced parents and step-parents--aren't easy for our grown kids to navigate, especially when their weddings roll around. Traditions and protocols that involve multiple parents and their participation in the ceremony can be a minefield of hurt feelings.

As young couples revise their approach to traditional wedding ceremonies, one ritual that has been inflicting pain is that of walking the bride down the aisle. Who's gonna do it? Should it be done at all? A few posts ago, we looked into the case of how a father felt when his daughter told him that neither he nor anyone else would be escorting her down the aisle. No man-to-man handoff of the bride. That was the bride's point: She was not chattel to be given away.

Now we have an instance where the dad is hurt because his daughter has asked her stepdad to walk her down the aisle. Like the dad in the previous post, he is threatening not to attend the wedding. He writes to the NYTimes Ask the Therapist that he and the bride's mother have been divorced for 36 years but during that time he has been "an active and present dad, and we have a good relationship." Nonetheless, the father writes, in addition to giving the bride away "I’m assuming he will also be the one to have a father-daughter dance. This has crushed me. I didn’t say anything to her other than, “Oh, OK.” But I was devastated."

Psychotherapist Lori Gottleib acknowledges the depth of his wound:

These traditional fatherly roles — walking the bride down the aisle, sharing a dance — can carry enormous emotional significance for some people. Perhaps for you, having your daughter’s stepfather perform these rituals feels like an erasure of your parental identity and all the years you’ve invested in being present for your daughter, as well as a referendum on your daughter’s love for you compared with her love for her stepfather.

Gottleib reminds the dad that there’s another way to look at this.

Given that your daughter wants her stepfather’s involvement in her wedding, it sounds like he has been a warm and meaningful presence in her life. Could you step back, and appreciate him not as a rival or replacement in your daughter’s life, but as a positive addition for her? Can you see both your fatherly roles as a collaborative investment in her life rather than as a competition?

Her main piece of advice is no surprise: The dad should not go AWOL for the wedding.

Skipping your daughter’s wedding would transform your hurt feelings into a story that only you are telling, one of not being wanted, or important to her, and rewrite the narrative of your relationship in ways you don’t intend.

One final piece of Gottleib wisdom to the dad and by extension to any of us who've faced situations where our grown children have inflicted pain on us, however unintentional:

The truest measure of your parenting is in the consistent presence you’ve maintained throughout her life. Don’t let one reactive decision erase that legacy. The wedding day will pass, but your decision to attend despite your hurt feelings will speak volumes about your character and your willingness to be the father your daughter needs. And that, I guarantee, is what she’ll remember long after the cake has been cut and the last dance danced.

Painting: Wedding March, Theodore Robinson

 

 

 

Sibling Rivalry: When you're caught in the middle of their spats

When it comes to growing up together, our kids are often jealous of and competitive with each other. There are power struggles between sisters and brothers. And sometimes our kids just don't like each other. Literature and real life are full of it. As parents, we wish it weren't so, especially when the dislikes between our adult children slop over into our empty-nest lives. All we want is peace and love, but, ah well, sometimes it is not to be.

How responsible are we to bring peace between, say, two adult sisters bearing grudges that date back to their kindergarten years? Should we be helping a son and daughter forgive and forget hurtful insults said in anger when they were in their teens?

 Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who treats, writes and speaks regularly about family estrangement--parent to child, child to child, grandkid to, well, anyone who crosses their path--has some answers. (So does Sheila Heen, whose suggestions I wrote about in a previous post and whose book on the topic is Difficult Conversations.)

In a Washington Post column, Coleman addressed a patient's plea for help. Her adult daughters, who had always had a fraught relationship, were refusing to be at the same party the mother was planning for her 75th birthday. The younger daughter said that if the mother didn't tell the older daughter not to come, it would prove the mother's preference for the older daughter. If the mother moved forward with the party, one of the daughters was going to feel hurt and ill-favored.

Coleman had some thoughts. Here they are, edited for brevity.

There are limits on what we can do:

Parents have limited ability to influence or improve relationships between their adult children. As children grow, they develop their own personalities, make their own choices and follow paths that can pull them in different directions. Even in emotionally attuned families, siblings can drift apart — or in some cases, grow actively hostile.

Dispositions differ:

Sometimes what we experience as difficult behavior in others is tied to underlying and partly inherited dispositions. Research on the Big Five personality traits — particularly neuroticism — can offer insight. For example, people high in the trait of neuroticism tend to be more emotionally reactive, more prone to anxiety, and more likely to dwell on perceived slights or injustices, which may be the case with one of your daughters.

When one sibling is easier to parent, that difference alone can unintentionally reinforce feelings of exclusion or comparison in the more sensitive sibling.

Aim for fairness

Research on differential treatment in siblings shows that when children perceive favoritism — real or imagined — it can have long-term effects on their mental health, and can also damage their relationships with each other well into adulthood.

The perception of unequal treatment can be just as impactful as actual differences in the parent’s behavior. From that perspective, a parent can reasonably believe they treated their children equally, while a child can credibly feel that they didn’t receive the same kind of care or attention, based on how they interpret and experience the world.

Show empathy

A parent may not have done anything they consider unfair, and yet a child’s experience of being hurt is real.  It’s more constructive to show empathy — not for the facts of the situation, but for the emotions behind them.

Actively listen and respond

Show that you care about their experiences in the family. Then gently pivot to a proposed solution of the conflict.

“You’re both invited to my birthday party, and I want nothing more than to have you there. But if it’s too upsetting to be in the same room, I understand — and maybe we can find another time or way to celebrate together.”

painting: Bonnard

 

Cellphone-itis: Do we have too much access to our adult kids and they to us?

A friend's college-age daughter called her in the middle of the night. The daughter had been out drinking with a couple of girlfriends; one of those friends passed out on the sidewalk and couldn't be roused. The daughter was in tears and wanted her mom to call an ambulance for her friend. The daughter was in Paris; the mother, in Philadelphia.

When I told my son the Parisian drinking story, he asked me, "Did you and dad know stuff like that about me?"

We did not, at least not until those stories had been honed--months or years later--into well-told anecdotes. I remind my son, whose 20s are well behind him, that we were not a cell phone generation. When he was studying abroad in the 1990s, he couldn't have called us at midnight from a street corner in Budapest no matter how drunk or sick he or a friend was. He had to solve problems without our help. Lessons were learned, presumably.

Which raises the question: Is the ease with which our adult children can reach us whenever there's a problem a positive or negative? Do we know too much or is it better to know too little? Between our 24/7 access by cell phone or our ability to track them via a phone app, are we hindering their growth toward independence or keeping them safe in a fraught world?

Studies of college-age and older kids suggest that frequent (several times a day) communication between parent and adult child can blur boundaries and undermine the development of independence. For parents, it could hinder the ability to let go. An article published a few years ago in Psychology Today suggested that the combination of teenagers, cellphones, and a constant connection to parents could produce a “nation of wimps.”

That seems a bit harsh, and yet it's another reason to think through the implications of constant cellphone communication and the use of tracking apps to know what's going on in our adult kids' lives all the time.

As to the Paris to Phillie call for help, it was resolved on the scene in France. Before the mom could launch emergency aid, four American college boys came by and helped the girls get back to their apartment. The mom, in Philly, didn't know this detail--the daughter's cellphone battery had run down so voice-to-voice communication was lost. But the mom used her cellphone app to track her daughter's arrival back at the Paris apartment.

In another year or two, mother and daughter will likely have a well-honed anecdote to tell about the incident. For now, the mom can't wait until her daughter is safely back home and with a fully charged cell phone.

photo credit: Palo Coleman

 

 

Wedding Blues Update: The joyous upside of a daughter's nontraditional wedding

Consider this the antidote. In my last post, I blogged about a mother of the bride who was distraught that her daughter was breaking all the traditional rules of a wedding (no bridal gown, no attendants, no celebratory dinner reception plus the father banned from walking his daughter down the aisle--the latter not an easy break to accept). The parents of the bride threatened not to attend the wedding.

On her substack, Deborah Copaken (author of Ladyparts, a book and a blog) takes her daughter's upcoming wedding (low on the usual trappings of tradition) and writes of the joy she finds in planning the wedding with her daughter and how that joy--any joy in our lives--should come before the deep distresses we may currently be experiencing.

Here are a few quotes from the piece, "Planning a wedding during the apocalypse," that parents (not just moms) of grown children might find relevant and comforting.

If I told you how many hours my daughter and I each spent searching every corner of the internet for the right “vibe” of tablecloth over these past several months, you might wonder, as she recently did, why bother? Why bother to care about whether or not we add a runner to a tablescape in a hellscape? Why create a DIY wedding canopy out of seven-foot birch logs and a piece of fabric from our former ally, France, when the protective canopies of NATO, Medicare, healthcare, and social security are being strip-mined from the fabric of our lives? ....how can you even think about what fabric of tablecloths should be at a wedding? 

But think we continued to do. And do. And do. Until we suddenly landed on a solution.

...Burlap: the fabric of both the people and potatoes. ... The fabric that says, I’m not trying to make a fuss here at my wedding, okay, I just want to be free to live, work, and love, is that too much to ask?

Copaken leans into religious tradition to unspool her feelings about the upcoming wedding and its rituals:

In Judaism, the Talmud teaches us that if a wedding procession meets a funeral procession at an intersection, the wedding revelers must always be given the right of way. And if a death in the family occurs on the same day as a wedding, the celebration of love takes precedence. Simply put, happy, future-looking events should always eclipse sad, backward-looking ones.

And here is how she acknowledges the importance of tradition, even if it's not celebrated in a traditional way:

So, this May, as spring flowers push through thawing soil, and Earth asserts its resilience while it still can, we will gather among her trees. And we will smile for the camera. And we will cover our tables with burlap and fruit. And we will don dresses and suits and comfortable shoes—my daughter’s encouraging all of her friends and family to wear sneakers to dance—to bear witness as two humans profess their love for one another, out loud, under a cotton cloth supported by thin logs held up by their best friends: a canopy that represents their home, the strength of their loving bond, the importance of community to help them uphold it, and an open-sided fragility to elements beyond their control.

painting: Renoir, Dance at Bougival

 

Wedding Blues: When the bride and groom break with family traditions

Some of us dream (this writer excluded) of planning our child's wedding, especially if our child is the bride. Oh the bridal gown we'll buy, the party we'll plan, the food we'll serve, the band we'll hire, the flowers we'll choose. And if we have clear and happy memories of our own extravagantly traditional wedding, we're probably even more excited to hit the same high notes.

Except, maybe our daughters (and sons) aren't. A very disappointed mom wrote to Nichole Chung,  Slate's Care and Feeding column, to complain about her bride/daughter's very different idea of what her wedding will be like. The mom and dad are threatening to boycott the toned-down event. Read on to get a sense of the mom's complaint [edited for brevity]

My daughter is engaged to a nice enough man but has thrown out every tradition that is important to us:  They refuse to create a registry, so my friends have no idea what to get them for wedding presents—turns out she is not even inviting my friends to the wedding, just their own friends and family. She isn’t having a bridal party, and her sisters are hurt because they wanted to be bridesmaids. I was so looking forward to shopping with her for her bridal gown, but she bought a plain white dress. Worst of all, she won’t let her father walk her down the aisle because, in her words, she’s “not property to be given away.”

There is no reception, just champagne (no bar either!) and wedding cake in the basement (!!) of the church. She and her fiancé are both refusing to do anything we want. They are both doctors and can pay for what they want. Her father and I are not sure we want to be there. How do we navigate this without alienating our daughter?

Here's part of what Chung had to say:

The only thing to do here is to get over yourselves. Your daughter and her fiancé are adults, they’re paying for their wedding, and they get to have the kind of celebration they want. Their special day is not about you; it’s about them and the life they want to build together.

They want to throw a smaller and far simpler affair than you’d envisioned—so what? This should be super obvious, but not everyone values the same traditions or wants a huge to-do. I understand feeling a little regretful that your daughter’s wedding won’t be just as you expected.

I don’t understand getting so worked up about it that you’d consider boycotting her day entirely. If you’re really willing to risk hurting and possibly becoming estranged from your child because she wants to get married without a bunch of arbitrary and ultimately unimportant “traditions,” your priorities are seriously, deeply messed up.

I stand with Chung. What would you tell the mom?

painting: Joan Vienot

Refilled Nests: Do we help or hinder our kids if they move home again.

Okay. So Gen Z kids are living under the parental roof again and in greater numbers and percentages than our generation did at their age.  I wrote about that in my previous post. The reasons are mostly economic--housing costs are high; they're saving money for their future. The good news from a Pew Research survey is that two out of three of our kids who live at home say they look to us for financial and career advice.

That's heartening of course. They're still willing to come to us for our pearls of worldly wisdom. Does that mean they're acting on our advice or that living at home is helping them develop solid financial habits and become independent--as in living in their own pad.

That's a question michelle singletary tackled in her column on adult kids who live at home. (Her three 20-somethings were living at home at the time she wrote her column.) She wanted to know where, as a parent, the help versus hinder, the supporter versus enabler line was and what to do if you're on the coddler side of that line.

Here's some of what she shared from her own experience:

Set up a situation where you’re helping, not enabling, your young adults.

Set goals. Make sure they have a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based plan (SMART goals). Are they living at home to pay off student debt? If so, they should have a reasonable plan in place that moves them to financial independence.

Set rules. For instance, in our home, everyone has a night to cook. If you are going to be out, you still have to provide dinner. It’s a home, not a hotel, so everyone has to do their fair share.

Make a deal. We carry some expenses to allow them to save. For example, my husband and I aren’t charging our children rent because they are saving most of their pay and/or investing it. That was the deal. We won’t charge rent as long as they are saving as promised. If we see wild spending sprees — rent will be charged.

Ask questions. We get to ask money questions within reason. We check to make sure they are meeting the goals they set in exchange for free rent. Trust, but verify.

Respect their boundaries. We are constantly checking in to make sure they are on track. When the kids think we are overstepping, they say so. And we back off.

Situations deteriorate. When is it time for the enabler to cut the cord.

 You are being overprotective when your adult child is eating out all the time and planning a trip to Mexico for spring break, but can’t find the money to pay for her own car insurance. Or he is not paying down his student loans at a reasonable pace because he’s overspending on entertainment or eating out.

Bad financial habits develop if your adult child is using all his pay for all play. The financial umbilical cord has to be cut if leaving it in place ends with an overindulged adult treating you like his or her personal ATM.

The bottom line for rolling out the welcome-home mat

It is important for young adults to learn to be good money managers, but it does not have to come at the expense of them spending their 20s setting up a household they can barely afford, even with roommates.

painting: Pierre Bonnard

Refilled Nests: Our adult kids are coming home to live with us again. What's up?

Our Gen Z kids are nestling into their old bedrooms, sleeping in our basements or otherwise making themselves at home in our homes. The post-college life is unfolding under the parental roof. It isn't just our kids here in the U.S. Parents in other first-world countries are finding their 20-somethings--and even  30s--reversing trends and coming back to live at home.

Many of us find it shocking. It's so unlike what we did when we were their age: We couldn't wait to break free and live independently. At least that's how I remember those heady days--I got a job, I rented a walkup apartment with my best friend, we furnished it with her aunt's cast-off sofa. We felt like we were living large.

Today our kids are migrating back to their parental homes in significant numbers. Here are the numbers:

87 percent more adults between the ages of 25 and 34 were living at home with their parents compared to 20 years ago, according to 2024 census data.

Nearly half of young adults live with their parents, a rate that hasn’t been seen since the 1940s; that’s about 23 million adults between the ages of 18 to 29.

American kids aren't the only ones traipsing home. Macclean's, the Canadian magazine reported, in a cover story entitled, "Why Gen Z Will Never Leave Home," similar findings. Here are the numbers from StatsCan.

46 percent of all twentysomethings lived with a parent in 2021, ; 30 years ago only a third of twentysomethings did.

Nearly a third of people aged 25 to 29 are still living at home compared to 11 per cent in 1981.

Why the push to be homeward bound? After all, many Gen Z kids have jobs that pay more than minimum wage; they could, in theory, eke it out on their own with a roommate or two or three. But other factors are pushing them home.

Bloomberg reports three top reasons young adults are choosing to live with mom and dad again:

To save money.

To take care of older family members.

Because they can’t afford to live outside of the home anymore.

 Axios expands on the first point:

Rent, especially in desirable big cities, is very expensive and not improving. So  staying home helps young people save money for a future down payment or future rent.

Bloomberg interviewed several young adults and found there was concern that the job market was deteriorating.

By remaining under our roofs, kids are, in effect, pushing off home ownership, marriage and parenthood.

Macclean's looked to  Jeffrey Arnett, an American psychologist who studies the transition from adolescence to adulthood, for some wisdom on what young adults are thinking.

In 2000, [Arnett] proposed that people in this life stage weren’t even full adults. Instead, they were “emerging adults,” finding their place in a world that no longer held just one or two possible paths. When he first coined the term, he set the age range at 18 to 25; he now considers this life stage to last until about age 29. “People are taking longer to find a stable place in the adult world,” he says. He’s experienced this firsthand: one of his 25-year-old twins moved home last year. 

The Gen Zers themselves seem to be less judgmental about living at home than we were. But the effect on us today is profound. Here's Macclean's take:

For parents, it means those heart-tugging memes of “only having 18 summers with your kids” are a load of crap. They’re emotionally and financially supporting their kids for much longer than expected, forcing them to reimagine their retirement years. Instead of an empty nest, they now have a roommate who keeps forgetting to empty the dishwasher.

painting: Edward Hopper

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing the Wealth: What do we owe our adult kids?

Do we have to share our wealth--be it a dollop from our savings, income or investments--with struggling grown kids? If we don't have to, should we anyway?

Many of us have answered the latter question with a "yes." That is, we want to if we can afford it. (Never mind the Boomer, Gen X or Millenial nomenclature: We are the Wealth Transfer generation.) Some of us have said yes even if we can't quite afford it.  But a woman writing to Slate's Kirstin Wong can afford it. A widow, she writes that her husband left her financially comfortable. She owns two homes, takes one or two cruise vacations a year and cares for two beloved French bulldogs that, in her words, cost more to maintain than a small child, which her only child has as well as a wife, a small apartment in a dicey neighborhood and health-related debts.

The grandmother/mother is in a quandry: Should she help them out if they have not welcomed her into their lives? Should she just write them off.

Before we rush to judgment, let's get more of the details she shared in her letter. 

--She and her son have been "extremely distant ever since he graduated college," she writes, "and especially since he got married. He didn’t even have a wedding to invite me to, and I’ve never met my 7-year-old granddaughter in person." 

--The granddaughter needed surgery shortly after birth and the parents have been paying that off as well as college debt. They would like to send their daughter to a more challenging school in a safer neighborhood but can't afford to do so.

--When she asked him recently why there was such a coolness between them, "I was shocked when he told me he and his wife have always felt that I don’t care about them because I’ve never helped them financially."

--Her daughter-in-law comes from a poor immigrant family, "yet they have a very close relationship with her parents, who watch my granddaughter every day after school. Apparently, if you can’t afford to give them anything, they won’t expect it!"

--She is thinking of leaving her worldly goods to her church instead of to her "greedy and materialistic" son.

The French bulldog reference pushed some hostile buttons for me, but Slate's Wong wisely moved away from the judgmental. Her advice revolved instead around the symbolic meaning of money and the importance of communication. Here are some relevant excerpts:

Money issues are rarely just about dollars and cents. Money holds symbolic value for all of us, and to your son and his wife, financial support could be tied to emotional support, care, or even love. It’s easy to characterize them as greedy and resentful, but consider another explanation: Maybe, given all their struggles and your relative ease, he feels unimportant and neglected.

Money is a resource, and it seems to be one that’s readily available to you, so I can see why your son is interpreting your lack of financial help as a lack of care. He and his wife might not expect the same from her family because they support them in other ways, using other resources, like time and child care—both of which are immensely valuable.

Talk to your son without holding judgment or making assumptions. Figure out what care means to him and what he needs from you to feel it. Chances are, it’s about not just money.

painting: "Bacchus and Ariadne" by Frank Auerbach

Good Manners: Who's to blame when grandkids don't say Thank You? What if they're step-grands?

When we don't get a thank you for gifts sent--holiday presents, birthday gifts, Confirmation, Bar Mitzvah, whatever--resentment becomes an unpleasant visitor in our lives. Why should it be an effort for our adult kids or grandkids to text, email or phone in a "Thanks"--never mind penning a note on thick vellum paper. (That's a wish too far.)

We can also be quick to enter the blame game. If it's the grandkids who haven't responded, we often point a finger at the mom, especially if she's our daughter-in-law. When there are step-daughters involved, it can get even trickier. Here's the complaint of one woman who is grandmother to three families. She writes to Sahaj Kahur that two of the families not only say thank you but are interactive with her, often bringing her their artwork which is hung all over her home. It's the third family that's the problem. Her stepdaughter--her husband's child--is not, in her eyes, bringing up her children to have good manners. There are no thank you's for gifts or other treats from the grandparents and no offers of the children's drawings to hang in the grandparent's house. The stepdaughter complains that the grandmother is not treating her children equally with the others. The grandmother writes that her husband promised to talk to his daughter about the problem but hasn't. What is the grandmother to do to stop her resentment from growing worse?

Here are three of the suggestions (edited for space and clarity) Kahur makes, some of which may highlight issues many of us have in our relationships with the parents of our grandchildren.

ONE: If there are two parents in the picture, it’s not just on your stepdaughter to raise the kids with manners.  Try to avoid zooming in on your stepdaughter being the problem.

TWO: Strengthen the relationship you have with her. Focus on the positives in the relationship you do have with her and her kids. If that doesn’t feel like enough, be honest with her. Just remember that you want to approach the conversation with care, not with the intention to “prove” that you treat all your grandkids similarly.

THREE: Kindly tell your husband that something needs to change and you would appreciate working together to create a realistic, yet more specific and time-bound, plan on approaching his daughter.

REMINDER: You’ve been stuck in limbo and the only way for something to change is for something to change. So take some time now to consider how you can approach your stepdaughter and her kids differently, or how to have a more structured plan in place with your husband.

painting: "The White Cat," Pierre Bonnard

 

Talking Points: Chats with our grown kids about our sex lives.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? What could be more uncomfortable--and possibly more inappropriate--than a chat with our grown kids about our sex lives and theirs? This is not the sex education conversation that we may have dreaded when our kids were teens or pre-teens. Talking about our sex lives--isn't that socially and familialy verboten or close to it? And yet, two Brazilian filmmakers have videotaped parents and adult children doing just that. The filmmakers suggest that we parents and our adult children be more open about our sex lives and eventually about "other lost opportunities for intimacy."

As the lead to the NYT story on the subject put it, "Most of us would probably rather die than talk with family about our sex lives."

Before we dismiss the idea out of hand, the NYT writer notes that the point of such a chat is meaningful. Here's what she says:

This film begins with all the giggly, seat-squirming cringe you might expect. But once the awkwardness subsides, the film quickly reveals something more profound: loved ones sharing real, meaningful moments from their lives. Sexuality offers life lessons about confidence, trauma and happiness. The film asks the viewer to imagine other conversations left unspoken, from family finances to death.

In making the video, the filmmakers provided questions to facilitate conversation and filmed as their subjects took the plunge. As one of the filmmakers said:

Listening is not only what you want to hear about or don’t want to hear about. Across all strong friendships and relationships, you need to be able to say hard things. You need to be there to listen.”

Although many of us think of our adult children as people we're close to, the filmmakers point out that "people that should be very close are actually far away. You are more likely to talk about sex with strangers.”

Can you see yourself talking to your children about your sex life--or asking them about theirs? I did an informal survey of several friends: The answers ranged from the expected "never" to one friend, the mother of two 20-something sons, who said the only thing she thought her sons would be interested in was how old she was when she first had sex. She then referred me to the father of the boys for further discussion of the question.

So I'm asking you, dear readers. Have you ever had such a talk? Would you ever? How would you begin?

painting: Picasso

New Year Blues: The pain of holiday visits with adult kids

The holidays were barely over when the calls for help started pouring into Jane Adams help line. Parents of adult children had had a rough time during the "joyous" December celebrations. Adams, a social psychologist, reports that she had more inquiries for coaching "from parents whose grown kids disappointed them by not showing up, blaming them for their own problems, calling them toxic, or ignoring them completely."

Ugh. Holiday visits can be devastating, especially when those visits go on for too long and there's over-exposure to--and resentment of--the role each family member plays in the family dynamic. Many adult kids regress when they're home for the holidays. As one psychotherapist put it, "It’s not a question of if the regression is going to happen, it’s when." Or as a NYTimes writer, writing from the adult child's perspective, put it:

Psychologists even have a term to describe the way we fall back into predictable, maddening behavior patterns when we’re with our family of origin. It’s called family systems theory — the notion that families have an equilibrium, and each person has a fixed role that “is in service of keeping the family system intact,” said psychiatrist Pooja Lakshmin. So whatever your established role is — whether you’re the appeaser, or the family clown, or the petulant one — you’re going to be thrown right back there the second you walk through the door of your childhood home.

And that's only one piece of the difficult stuff that can surface when our grown kids come to visit for the holidays..

No wonder that for most families there's what Adams calls "a mismatch of expectations and reality." The silver lining in this reality--and the hope held out by Adams--is talking through the issues but with a particular perspective in mind. Here's Adams:

Starting the new year with a thoughtful, honest, conversation about how to heal the relationship instead of a blow by blow recitation about what transpired and whose fault it was makes it more likely that 2025 will be happier for everyone.

Here's to a New Year graced with family peace, love and joy.

Credit: Pierre Bonnard

 

 

Mind the Gap: When our child's new love comes from a different background

Some of us count ourselves lucky. Our children find their future Mr or Ms Right next door. Or within the same time zone. Or in the same country. Or from a similar culture.  But what happens when none of that describes our child's important love interest. Instead, it's someone with a very different background and from a faraway country. If our child is living in that country and we're living here, that may complicate chances to get to know and embrace the person our child loves.

This is not just a thought problem. A reader of ask sahaj wrote to say her daughter is living abroad and is in a serious relationship with a man who lives there. He lives with his parents and the daughter has become close to the family. The reader feels an emotional gap growing between the boyfriend/daughter/second family and herself. She asks for advice on how to get to know the boyfriend despite the geographical and cultural distances.

Much of Sahaj's advice is specific to the reader's situation but it is also general enough to be helpful to any of us who are struggling to get to know our adult child's boyfriend or girlfriend from a seemingly different world. Here are some of Sajaj's tips, paraphrased and edited for brevity:

If you're worried about saying the wrong thing when you talk to the boy/girl friend: You can ask your child, “Are there cultural differences I should be aware of, or that would help me understand him or her better?” Or, saying something to your child like, “I feel nervous about saying the wrong thing and making things worse. I don’t want to bite my tongue because I really care about you. Can we talk about what I’m feeling?”

While it can feel like an unfamiliar situation, you want to be a support to your child. This may sound like, “I’d love to learn more about them. What are your favorite things about them?” And/or you might tell your child that you’d like to talk to the boy/girlfriend the next time you and your child have a call. Even if it’s just asking how they're doing, or learning more about them, this can build intimacy and comfort with them — and vice versa. 

Regardless of if there are cultural differences, remember the values that are important to you — kindness, openness and so on. These can help you have empathy while also finding micro ways to continue to nurture your relationship with your child — and by default her boy/girlfriend. These smaller moments, questions and conversations can help build the foundation for something deeper, and bridge that gap you feel.

painting: Frank Auerbach

 

Gift Giving: Bringing the warmth to cold cash.

Young adult kids and teen-plus grandkids are well beyond the Toys for Xmas stage. The Holidays and birthdays bring more of a gift challenge. Could we possibly pick out a sweater or shirt that would be appropriate in their world? A tech device they don't have or we could afford? A book they would read? Probably not.

Fear not. There is a gift that is useful, always the right size and never needs to be returned.  Cash. But there is a down side: Whether we're writing a check, handing out paper currency or sending the money via Zelle, a gift of cash can seem cold and impersonal.

Which brings up the question, are there ways to warm it up? With some suggestions/discussions I saw online, I found one that worked for me and-- bonus points--made it oh-so-easy for my Grands to say Thank You with immediacy.

Here's what I did. I sent each of my college-age Grands a text that started with some doggerel, "Your Holiday present is coming by Zelle/I think you'll find that works out well." Then I personalized each text with an upbeat rhyme or two for how they could use the gift--no strings attached, of course. I tapped send, opened my bank account's app and Zelled each one their gift. They no sooner got the text and the Zelle notice than a return text came back with a Thank You, heart emojis and a loving comment.

Bottom line: Gift sent, thank you received, don't have to think about it anymore.

Did any of you go the cash or gift card route this year? Did you find ways to make it look like the loving gift it was? Comment below with anything you're willing to share.

Credit: Louisiane Saint Fleurant

 

 

Grandparents and Holiday Gifts: Giving grandkids presents from our grown child's childhood.

Our social media feeds and retail websites are exploding with gift ideas for our grandkids--a dancing robot, AI Flying Orb, a remote-controlled spider. No wonder some of us are living a sentimental moment when we see in our attic or basement the adorable play kitchen our kids spent hours with or the 6-year-old-sized red roadster that once made its way up and down our halls. We've taken good care of these toys--even refurbished a dent or two--so why not offer them as holiday gifts to our Grands? Recycling raised to a delightfully nostalgic height.

The question is, can we--should we--unload the treasures from our children's childhood via holiday gifts to our grandkids?  They might make for a magical moment--and they might not.

 The "might not" falls under the heading of communication, as in, ask the parents if they think the gift might work. For instance, some toys may not trigger the happy feelings we think they should. Our kids may have had unpleasant experiences with neighbors when they took that roadster out for a ride on the sidewalk. Or they may think a toy they loved is not right for their child. Or their cramped city apartment may not have the space to house a play kitchen; there may be no storage space for large items. 

There's another point that toy historian Chris Byrne makes. That is, the toys our children played with when they were small children--and the way they played with them--helped form them as adults.  Stephen Sondheim, for instance, loved word games as a child. Playwright Terence McNally played constantly with a puppet theater. Byrne himself loved Matchbox cars. Does that mean the toys we saved from our children's youth are right for their children? Moreover, is there something to be said for keeping up with trends? Here's an excerpt from a Ted talk Byrne gave on the subject of toys and their ties to our personal history:

Widely popular toys are sometimes the first shared cultural experience many children ever have, and they can become cultural events as well. Think back of the fads of the past decades. We had Rubik's Cube, we had Cabbage Patch, Zhu Zhu Pets, Pet Rock, right? And now we're in the middle of Squishmallows.

But I truly think that when we look back at what we loved, we can see the seeds of who we were going to become,

personally and professionally. Now I grant you, this is much more an art than a science, but I believe that each of us has an inherent play style that's as unique as our fingerprints.

So before we tie a ribbon around it and lug the play kitchen over to our adult child's living room, we might want to talk to the parents about whether they want to impose their fingerprints on their child (our grandchild)--or just let them play with their mom's or dad's toys when they come to visit us. 

painting: Picasso

 

 

 

 

Gift Giving: Grrr. The frustration when a Thank You is not forthcoming.

Gratitude never goes out of season and yet, when it comes to our kids and grandkids, acknowledging a gift may not be "on trend" for them or, as the French so stylishly put it, pas au courant. The formal, hand-penned Thank You note has become outmoded for younger-than-us generations but neither an email, text nor cellphone call should be. Many of us have learned to accept the techie shortcuts. And yet, too often they too don't appear. It's particularly aggravating when it comes to kids and grandkids to whom we've sent monetary gifts. Since cash, gift card or Zelle are always the right color and fit, it's hard to accept that our grown kids or grandkids couldn't find a mini-minute to voice mail a Thanks for our largesse or text a Thx or TY.

It's a long-running frustration. You can read my previous posts on the point here, here and here.

I'm addressing the issue again because of an additional perspective I came across in a Michele Singletary (The Color of Money) column in the Washington Post.

Singletary starts off by standing by tradition: "Some gestures," she writes, "are timeless, such as sending a thank you note." But she also bows to the new reality and goes all-in for the teaching moment and the gentle reminder. Here are five of the suggestions Singletary offers for taking on a beloved giftee who has forgotten or failed to say Thanks.

Don’t compound the etiquette breach with a scolding. But it is appropriate to share your feelings.

Watch your tone. Approach it as a teaching moment, not a reprimand.

Also, explain that you’d like to know whether they received the gift. Postal mishaps and poor delivery might mean the gift never arrived.

If straight talk doesn’t work, be bold. The next gift could come with a box of thank-you cards.

Okay, maybe a handwritten note (or typed letter) or card isn’t necessary. But let the person know you still would like a call or even a text message.

Singletary ends with a droll take on the issue by Miss Manners (aka Judith Martin).

Reader's query: “I have heard that it is not proper to thank people for Christmas gifts. What is the official rule of etiquette about Christmas gifts?”

Miss Manner's reply: “Generosity and gratitude are permanently paired. Those would-be etiquetteers who declare expressing thanks to be no longer required have done only half the job. They must also then abolish the custom of giving — or, what always turns out to be the case with them — accepting presents.”

credit: painting by Frank Auerbach

Surviving Holiday Feasts: Getting the help you need

At a coffee with my friend C a week before Thanksgiving, she put her head in her hands and said, "I'm already tired." Now, C's husband does most of the Thanksgiving cooking but C does the cold dishes plus all the prep work--the constant shopping trips to supermarkets and farm markets and cleaning the house and the chef's spills--plus she sets up the table to accommodate a dozen guests (including two toddlers and one newborn), searches out the requisite number of plates and chairs for the crowd then arranges flowers and greens to beautify the table and the living room. Her bottom line: why couldn't her son and daughter-in-law take over the next holiday meal? They have a bigger house and more room for guests who are under five.

She is not alone in her forward thinking. In a November column Caroline Hax reported that she had just been on a video call with "multiple middle-aged women who all would preempt the holidays for exhaustion recovery."

Personally, I handed over the Thanksgiving dinner "privilege" to my DIL (and son) several years ago.  It was for practical reasons having to do with travel. But, whether it's practicalities or exhaustion, there comes a time when we pass the torch. In doing so we may find our kids simplify the festivities or change things up in a fun way. Our beloved traditions--the way we cooked the turkey; the heirlooms we used to set the table--may take hits but the world is changing and maybe the next generation's new way will take root and become a tradition.

A newsletter from Axios a week before Thanksgiving noted four ways to the week "a little less stressful and a little more joyful" --without veering too far from tradition or handing over the reins.  Here they are:

Shortcuts are fine — and delicious. Store-bought pies and dinner rolls are great, canned cranberry sauce is a classic, and Butterball even has a new cook-from-frozen turkey that comes pre-brined, so all you need to do is unwrap it and cook it.

Make it up! Don't feel limited by the traditional Thanksgiving lineup. If there's a side dish you often prepare and that feels easy and comfortable, add it to your menu. Tweak tradition.

Summon the troops! Whether you throw a BYOB dinner, ask guests to bring appetizers, or put them in charge of reheating the sides, lean on them to make your job easier. If you're a guest, ask what you can bring or if you're needed in the kitchen during crunch time.

Focus on the fun. If you're hosting Thanksgiving, there's probably one or two things about it that you especially like — maybe that's roasting the juiciest turkey, making a favorite family dish or decorating the table. Put extra care into the parts of Thanksgiving that make you happy, and use tips and tricks to get through the rest.

Hope these tips help ease your way. Happy Holidays.

painting: Cezanne

Surviving Thanksgiving Togetherness: 5 boundaries to keep the family in line during the "holidays"

Here they come again: The holidays and their feasts. As parents of adult children (and possibly as grandparents as well) we have our expectations of how joyous Thanksgiving dinner or the long weekend of togetherness will be--or how stressful and difficult. Whether we're hosting or another family member is, our grown children have their concerns too and they might be very different from ours. One thing we've got in common, though, is the need to set boundaries--about how much time we'll spend together, what are appropriate topics to discuss at dinner and how to deal with overly personal questions. No one wants to be asked how much weight they've gained or why their face looks so tired.

Psychotherapists suggest that setting a few boundaries ahead of time can help keep the celebrations wherever they take place pleasant and peaceful. In that spirit and hope, here are five suggested ways on how to work those boundaries into your family get-together. They are paraphrased and edited from this article in Bustle.

1. Set Conversation Limits: Talk around the table or pre- or post- dinner can turn tense when politics, religion, money or queries about the love life of a family member arise. Set limits on what's permissible and if anyone objects, remind them that everyone is here for a happy visit and we want everyone to have a good time. "Framing it as beneficial to them might inspire them to be more understanding."

2. Personalize Time Limits: Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holidays often come with various other family events or parties. It's easy to get overwhelmed, burnt out or stretched thin. So, decide how much time and energy you’re willing to allot to family events — and stick to it. The same goes true for understanding how much time and energy your adult kids want to expend.

3. Prepare Newcomers: If your kids (or you) are bringing a new partner or a guest, remind them to fill the newcomer in on family dynamics and traditions--things like dress code, topics of discussion and sleeping arrangements. The more you share with them, the smoother things will go.

4. Pre-Script Retorts: If you know the awkward questions specific family members might ask, be prepared with simple answers, such as "Thanks for asking, but I’m focusing on enjoying dinner.” Or if you know some family members are likely to comment on other family members' (or your)  weight, body shape and/or eating habits, you can be prepared with a universal rejoinder, such as  "Please do not comment on anyone's body.”

5. Take a Break: All of us need a breather when we're surrounded by more people and for longer times than we're used to. Give yourself permission to step away if you start feeling overwhelmed--and recognize that your adult kids, grandkids or other family members may have the same need. No need to take their stepping away personally.

painting: Norman Rockwell

 

 

 

 

 

Observation: An early 20th Century philosopher's take on parents and their grown children

We cling to the joy we remember from our early child-rearing days "in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality." Thus wrote Philosopher and Logician Bertrand Russell in his essay, "How to Grow Old."

The early 20th century "influencer" didn't stop there. He also touched on parents and their relationship to their grown children, writing nearly a century ago:

When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them … I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one's interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional.

He amplified his point about the personal dangers of being overly involved in our adult children's lives, and much of what he had to say--maintain your own interests; don't live your life around your children's lives--resonates today.

As to the dangers of not weaning ourselves from our day-to-day involvement in our adult children's lives, he wrote in his stiff and arch-like British prose:

But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realise that while you can still render them material services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

Russell was never one to sugarcoat anything, no less the parenting of adult children.

You can find even more about Russell's musings in this MSN essay What Do Adult Children Owe Their Parents?

painting: Bonnard, The Conversation.

Money Matters: Great expectations on gifts for new grandkids

A friend, C, called this morning. Distraught. Needing to vent. She was upset about expectations for a gift for a second grandchild who is due in a few months.  On a visit to her son and family over the weekend, C and her co-grandparent (D) had made an offer to their son and his wife: They would buy the basic room furnishings--crib and dresser--for the new baby, as they had for the first grandchild.

The son was appreciative, and the next day sent C a link to bed and dresser for their 4-year-old son--on the theory that the new baby would inherit the crib and dresser from their brother.

So far, so good--until my friend C opened the link. The bed and dresser were roughly five times what she and the grandpop thought they would spend as a gift--certainly, it was much more than the crib set they had sent as a gift four years earlier. True, there's been inflation and a bed and dresser for a young boy are more expensive than a crib and dresser for a baby. But my friend was outraged, in part at her son's expectations but also at the high-priced furniture he and his wife had chosen.

C is from the Midwest, born into a working-class family where money was tight and the idea of a gift for an adult child was a non-starter.  She admits her background colors the way she sees things. That said, she was stunned not only at the high price of the furniture but its cost in light of the upcoming expenses her son and his family faced for a new baby.

C told me that she and the grandpop had agreed that they couldn't afford the furniture the son and his wife had chosen and that they would instead offer a cash gift to be used for furniture or other expenses. This seemed like a reasonable and fair compromise. But then she went further: She wants to sit her son down and tell him his expenses are too high and that he has to trim down his choices for such items as a new bed and dresser for the older grandchild.

Does that cross a line? In today's world of parenting grown children, unless we the parents are asked to contribute in a major way, our adult child's family budget is none of our business. Not only that. Spending habits and pressures have changed since our generation and that may be why what seems a value issue ("They bought too expensive a house!") is more likely a financial fact of life. (Housing is more expensive today.)

The share of money going toward essentials like food, housing and medical care has dramatically changed in the past few decades. For instance, when some of us were our parents' young adult children, we didn't have to spend as much on health care, housing or education as young families do today. But we had to fork out more for food, clothing and transportation. This is according to a Washington Post analysis of Consumer Expenditure Survey data. And then, of course, there are costs we never faced: charges for Internet access, wi-fi, cell phones and all the accouterments of the modern digital age.

After C vented, she backed off the idea of intruding into her son's financial affairs. After all, it wasn't as though he and his wife were behind in mortgage payments, not paying utility bills or failing to provide food for the family. There were no red flags that would invite an intervention. It's just hard sometimes to sit back and watch our kids spend their money in ways we would not. But budgeting is an exercise in setting priorities. They have theirs and they may not be ours.

Painting: Vincent Van Gogh, The Blue Room

 

 

Grandparenting: Offering parenting advice to an adult child and family.

Our kids are having kids. We have grandkids! Such good news. But what happens when we believe our children are taking a wrong tack in parenting those children?

We know--or, if we've read any advice columns on the topic, should know--that the answer is, we keep our mouths shut. There are two important caveats to that rule. One is if there's abuse--physical or emotional. The other is, if our child asks us for our advice.

This latter exception can get complicated. We don't want to barge in (even with the door open) and tell the young parents what they're doing wrong or how we did it differently or better.

Here are some  approaches (edited for brevity) from Ask Sahaj  on how to respond if your child (let's say, a daughter) is struggling with parenting and asks you for advice:

Point One:

You want to let her know you are on her side, saying something enpathetic like. "You’re doing your best, and I see that.” Or responding to her emotional needs by focusing on her feelings, “What are you feeling right now?” Or, “It sounds like you are stuck and feel alone in this. What do you think will help you right now?”

Point Two:

Sometimes when people ask for advice, they might be seeking validation or help understanding the problem they are having. Clarify what she really needs from you by asking her, “I want to help you in whatever way is best for you. Would you like to hear my observations or would you like to vent about what’s going on?” You may even add, “If you aren’t sure what you need right now, maybe I can ask more questions to help us problem solve.”

Point Three:

If she wants to hear what you really think, consider naming your hesitation by saying something like, “I want to be honest since you are asking me to do so, but I worry that this will be hard to hear, and I don’t want to say anything to upset you.” When it’s time to give your honest opinion, be careful not to make blanket, judgmental statements (i.e. you’re always impatient!) and instead focus on specifics using I-statements to express what you’ve observed rather than making assumptions. This can sound like, “I know I don’t see everything, but I have noticed that you’ve been quick to get annoyed with the baby.”

To all of this Sahaj adds that it can help the young parent in your life to share a story about your own parenting struggles or something you read recently from an expert that's on point.

painting: by Berthe Morisot

 

 

On Estrangement: Joshua Coleman's counsel on reconciling with an adult child

What could be more painful than a deep and long-lasting rift with one's adult child? How does one bridge that gap?

 Joshua Coleman, a practicing psychologist who also researches estrangement preaches reconciliation. A key point he makes for parents in search of such a solution is for the parent to step up and make amends:

Parents are often confused by this recommendation, believing that making amends is the same as completely endorsing the child’s perspective. While sometimes that is required, more often amends should be viewed as a starting point; a frank recognition that there is something deeply wrong in the relationship with the parent that needs addressing.

How to go about it? Here's what Coleman advises his patients:

I encourage them to write a letter stating, “I know you wouldn’t have cut off contact unless you felt like it was the healthiest thing for you to do.” I say this because it’s true from the adult child’s perspective — even if not from the parent’s — and because it communicates the parent’s wish to understand and heal the distance.

...Yet, even if the cause of the estrangement lies more in the child than the parent, amends are still necessary from the parent to begin a conversation of repair. You don’t have to agree with your child to make amends. It’s about humility, not humiliation. While I don’t presume that a child’s perspective on their parent is accurate, I also don’t assume that a parent’s perspective on their child is either. We all have our blind spots.

For those interested in Coleman's line of thinking, his newest book is  “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict.”

credit: painting by Bonnard

Observation: Living within the limits of being a mother-in-law

I was lucky. My husband didn't get along with his mother but I did. She didn't interfere (as my mother did) and, unlike most women of her generation (my mother, again) she never had a negative word to say about my pursuit of a career.  Not that I sought her out as a confidant. But neither did I see her as an enemy or rival--or someone to be avoided. I was fortunate and so, I guess, was she.

What happens when we're not so lucky? When our child's chosen life partner doesn't like us--or makes themselves scarce whenever we appear at the door. Or sets limits on visiting hours. Or keeps us at a distance in myriad ways small and large.

This was an issue for a Carolyn Hax reader who wrote that his wife, who had had a challenging relationship with his parents (who were difficult and needed to be kept at a distance) was now struggling with boundaries set by their son and his wife. More specifically, as the reader/writer put it, the young couple were "limiting contact, contacting her on their schedule, etc. My wife ... complains incessantly to me that she does not hear from our son and daughter-in-law as often as she’d like, which would be multiple times a day. We do hear from them every week or so."

Hax beat right to the heart of the matter. What was past with the reader's parents was past. Today is what matters. Yes, the reader and his wife may feel hurt that the son and his wife don't call as often as they (the parents) would like--but they call. Maybe contact with the couple is circumscribed. But--and here Hax lays it on the line--it's up to the parents to comply with limits their adult children set. As Hax put it:

If you are on the cold side of a boundary, then there’s no better argument than to Back! Off! ....Respect for the couple’s space is the only answer.

credit: L. Saint Fleurant, Mother and Children

(I'll be addressing this issue again, in particular when it goes from the relatively benign (our adult child doesn't call often enough) to the truly malignant (our adult child no longer speaks to us). Psychologist Joshua Coleman has a book on the topic, "Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict.”  I'll  sum up some of his points, but I can tell you--reader alert--that we the parents don't get an easy pass when it comes to the healing part.)