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

Money Matters: What If They Ask Us for an Advance on Their Inheritance?

Many of us--well, those of us with the wherewithal--are inclined to help out our grown kids in the here and now, rather than have them wait till our last will and testament is read. The down payment on a car or a house; the tab for day care for a grandchild--these are some of the things we may offer to help with--by gift or loan--and that give us a measure of pleasure to underwrite.

But what if it's not us offering the assist but them asking for an "advance" on the money we'll be leaving them? Does it matter what the ask is for? Does their asking, rather than our offering, put a different cast on the "feel good" moment? Are they presumptuous in their expectations?

It's complicated. A woman who wrote to Social Qs for advice on whether or not to ask her elderly parents for an "advance" to make it easier for her to buy a house, be able to underwrite family gatherings and otherwise "enjoy some of it while they're alive." The letter writer also noted that her parents had willingly paid for the education of her sister's children and that an "advance" would more or less even the financial-legacy scales.

Philip Galanes advice to the daughter in question is one we might take into account if such a request comes our way.

If you are sure that [your parents] are still competent to make this decision and can afford it, ask for a loan. Let them decide whether to make it a gift. And drop the tit-for-tat with your sister over her children’s education. That help was given at another time and probably long planned.

My biggest reservation here is that many parents I know would go without to help their children (even deep into adulthood). If that sounds like yours, stick with your original plan to pay for the house yourself. There comes a time to put our parents first, after years of the reverse arrangement.

 

 

Supporting Grown Children: Golden Handcuffs Edition

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to be financially generous to our adult children--to support them if an unexpected need arises or to indulge them so that they can do or buy something they've always wanted. If we've got that bit of extra to spare, there's a deep pleasure in seeing our children enjoy it now rather than later--when we're no longer around.

And our kids are grateful. Why shouldn't they be? We've offered them support out of love for them and respect for their ability to handle the resource well. But sometimes, there's a little less of a heartfelt thank you. There can even be resentment, especially if there are strings attached. This letter that appeared in an advice column in a local Colorado newspaper spells out the dangers of attaching those strings--even if we do so indirectly:

When I met my wife five years ago, I had no idea of her financial status. I knew that her parents had a nice home and spent a lot of time traveling but she lived frugally and worked hard. When we got married, I learned about the extent of her family's substantial resources. Admittedly, they have been very generous — helping us with the down payment on our house, taking us on family vacations and starting college funds for our kids. The issue is that they've increasingly put pressure on us to raise the kids in specific ways, build our schedules and vacations around their needs and spend money according to their values. We, and my wife in particular, have been struggling to say no because of everything they continue to give us.

The letter was signed: Locked In Golden Handcuffs

The couples coach who answered the plea from "Locked" talked about the "aging" parents and their need to feel relevant. They also focused on what was triggering the son-in-law's negative response, such as feeling a loss of empowerment, freedom or authenticity or a sense of emasculation.

Whatever it is, it's not something I would want to visit on my son or daughter or their spouses. To give is to give freely. It's their lives to live. We are not in the driver's seat--even if we bought them the car.

 

 

Grandparenting: The no "Thank You" issue. Again

He's got an hilariously snarky point of view. Choire Sicha, the NYTimes Styles desk editor who is working his way through a three-month stint as the newspaper's "Work Friend," columnist, admits that he has only two to four ideas about life and that none of them are particularly original. That said, he notes that "Somehow long-running advice columnists, or really any kind of regular columnist or other Pez dispenser of thoughts, can reiterate their ideas for months or decades."

I thought about that commentary as I was reminded, yet again, of my replies to a sore that wont seem to heal for many grandparents: When they give their grandchildren gifts, they do not receive appropriate thank you notes from them. By "appropriate," most of the complainants seem to mean that a text or email will not do. They want a written note. I have posted my two-to-four thoughts on this issue here and here and a few other places.

And now I get to do it again, backed this time by the reliable Philip Galanes, the light-touch behind Social Q's.

Here's what his complainant had to say:

My teenage grandchildren have never sent us a thank-you note for any present we’ve given them. My husband and I are thinking of teaching them a lesson by skipping Christmas gifts this year. Thoughts?

Galane's thought:

Unless you believe your grandchildren can read minds, wouldn’t it be a more useful lesson to ask them for thank-you notes? I’m sorry that you and your husband feel underappreciated. But if the kids’ parents never insisted they write notes, and you never asked for them, how were your grandchildren to know?

If you expect thank-you notes, or if they are the price of admission for future gifts, tell your grandchildren. And you may as well specify whether email or text messages will suffice.

I couldn't say it any better and have tried. We live in a digital world, and it's a lot less formal than the good old days of personalized note cards and prized penmanship. Thank you notes--verbal, digital or hand crafted--are all welcome at our household.

If your grandkids don't respond to the request for a Thanks and you've set your priorities, well, then let the withholding begin. But remember this line from Dorothy Parker: "And if that makes you happy kid/You'll be the first it ever did."

Grandparenting: Ecstacy, agony and the mixed emotions of being a Nana or PopPop

The feelings we have on  becoming a grandparent aren't exactly oversold. Let's just say they're more complicated than the treacly bliss a Hallmark card might portray.

There's always been this joke about the up side of a day of grand parenting: The good news is that at the end of the day, your grandchild goes home.

There are other, more complicated feelings about being a grandparent. Yes, there is the unalloyed thrill of falling in love with a precious new life. But there is also the feeling of being an outsider. A friend--a single mother whose daughter had a baby a few weeks ago--finds her  relationship with her daughter has turned upside down. Where mother and daughter had shared shopping and movies and friendships, the daughter's focus is now exclusively (and rightly so) on her newborn; the future of the family is the baby. There's hardly a murmur about the well-being of my friend, who has been asked to babysit three days a week now that the new mom is going back to work.

It's a variation on another emotion: the feeling of being a guest in your child's life rather than an insider, a sense that we're looking in no matter how inside we thought we were. As Robin Marantz Henig wrote in a NYTimes essay, on grandmothering, "Even as you get to watch them, right up close, you're always outside with your nose pressed against the glass--and increasingly aware of how much of their story will take place without you."

Henig takes that last thought one agonizing step further.

I have internalized the stinging knowledge that, beneath all the encouragement you give your children to grow and walk and speak and leave, beneath all the wonderful moments you may be lucky enough to share in and enjoy, your grandchild’s life will be a long string of birthdays you will not live to see.

She calls this the doubled-edged nature of being a grandmother:

 Your thoughts turn powerfully toward the future — one that now includes the grandchildren you adore — at the very same moment you’re reminded of your own absence from that future. It’s an odd mixture of birth and death, which is what gives grandmotherhood its beauty, as well as its specific and poignant pain.

I understand what she's saying but personally,I have moments when I'm glad I won't be around to see how my precious grands cope with some of the awful changes the planet and the political world have in store. Or maybe our grands will be part of a solution. Still, it scares me just a little to think my dotage will be so prolonged I'll be here to see more than I want to see.

 

 

Money Matters: Six check-offs before you help your child buy a house

Here's the home buying news from Australia: 55 percent of first time home buyers (that's our generation of kids) got help from their parents (that's us) last year.

Here in the U.S, one-third of those 37 and younger used a gift or loan from family or friends to come up with a down payment for a house.

It's a first-world universal: If we can afford it, many of us take on that down payment assistance willingly. We may see it as a part of a “living inheritance.” That is, a chance to see our kids make good use of what’s coming to them when we're not around to see how they use it. Or, we may want to see our kids living free and clear of a landlord. Or in a better neighborhood. Or to have an investment that will grow with time.

But no good deed comes without complications. Here are  six big things to think about if you can afford to be a financial angel for their home purchase.

ONE: Family Dynamics.

There may be other family members--say, siblings of the future home owner--who feel the scales of parental largesse are being unbalanced, and not in their favor. It may be presumptuous and ungrateful on their part, but there it is. Communications about what you're doing and why--and whether the sibs can or should expect similar assistance--can keep everyone feeling fairness rules.   

TWO: Guarantees

If an adult child doesn't qualify for financing, parents may have to act as guarantors or as “co-signors” on the mortgage itself, meaning they are shown on the title as a co-owner and on the mortgage directly. Co-signing is the more common approach, but it raises several questions such as whether the parents have an actual ownership interest. There are also questions about what happens if one of the parties passes away or, if the child is married, gets separated or divorced.

THREE: Gifts

If an adult child qualifies for a mortgage on his or her own, parents can make the purchase more affordable with a gift that boosts the amount of down payment or helps lower the interest rate. No need for co-signing or guaranteeing. Write a check for any amount you choose. That's it — no contract or ongoing commitments. But gifter beware: Lenders like to see money gifts — easily traceable checks, bank transfers or wire transfers — in a borrower's bank account three or four months before they apply for a mortgage. Givers and recipients may need to sign letters confirming that the money isn't a loan.

In addition to or in lieu of down-payment assistance, a cash gift can pay all or part of an expense such as mortgage closing costs.

Here's an additional benefit to down-payment assistance: It can help new borrowers avoid paying for private mortgage insurance, which in turn helps keep their monthly payment lower.

FOUR: Loans

If it's a loan, you can still write a check for any amount but it's best to write it all down in a contract that defines obligations. Not only does that avoid misunderstandings--especially about repayment schedules--but if the parent-lender dies or becomes incapacitated, there's more transparency. All the heirs can view the transaction and its history.

FIVE Being A Banker

If we've got enough cash, we can be the mortgage lender. We can offer easier terms, like no closing costs or no down payment. We could charge a higher rate of interest on the mortgage than our money earns in a savings or money market account and still offer our kids a lower-than-market mortgage rate. But family lenders must charge at least the Applicable Federal Rate , the minimum interest rate required to keep the assistance from being considered a gift.

It's a fairly complicated business but there are companies that can help with the set-up details and provide all the forms and documents you need to meet state, local and IRS requirements. They can also guide families through the settlement and filing process.

Personally, this is too complicated for my taste. Plus, I wouldn't want to be my child's banker. Hard enough being their parent.

SIX Taxes

Anyone can give any other person a gift up to $15,000 in value (money or, say, stocks)  without filing the gift-tax return IRS Form 709 . So each parent can give each child — and the child's partner and their children — up to $15,000 each without having to complete Form 709.

Generational Divide: Life styles of our grandkids versus our generation

Then

And now

We shouldn't compare. But a recent Pew Foundation study gives us the ammunition to do it. It's our Silent and Early Boomers Generation (born in the 1940s and 50s) vs their Millennials (born in the 90s and 2000s). We're 50 years apart in terms of entering those young-adult years. So how's it going for them versus how it went for us?

Here are some of the major differences the study catalogues:

Today’s young adults are much better educated than our generation was.  The findings in chart form:

During the young adult years, they are more likely to be working (71 percent) than we were (58 percent).  This shift to more women in the workplace ratcheted up in the mid 1980s, when Boomers were young.

They're marrying later than we did. In 1965, the typical American woman first married at age 21 and the typical man wed at 23. By 2017, first-marriage ages hit 27 for women and 29.5 for men.

In our day, men were more than 10 times more likely to be veterans than young men today. Millennials can thank the all-volunteer army for that. Men of our generation came of age during the Korean War and its aftermath.

More of them are living in cities than we did. In 1965, around two-thirds of young adults lived in a metropolitan area. Today, nine-in-ten live in metro areas.

Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of the 2017 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS).

Observation: Philip Galanes on sharing opposing religious beliefs with a grandchild

The particulars don't matter. The point Philip Galanes makes is, "Don't get between your grown children and their children." Our beliefs and accumulated wisdom may run counter to the parents' but unless the child is in grave danger, our role is to stay out of it.

That said, here are the particulars on what Galanes and his Social Qs suggested to a grandmother, an atheist who wanted to discuss "belief in a fictional diety" with a young grandchild whose parents have enrolled her in a parochial school.

"If you are concerned that your granddaughter's worldview is too narrow, head straight to the parents. Your daughter sounds open-minded. But you've had your turn raising children: now it's theirs. (And remember how it felt when parents and in-laws offered unsolicited advice to you?) Your granddaughter will probably appreciate hearing your philosophy when she's older. For now, wait for her to ask you about it."

Leaving a Legacy: Divvying up the sentimental stuff

 In the piles of stuff we leave behind, who can say what our children will consider a treasure: the Rosenthal dinnerware for 12 (minor chip on one dinner plate) or the well-worn cereal bowls that were filled with Cheerios every morning while the kids sat elbow to elbow with their Dad and talked about stuff.

We narrowed down our legacy of give-aways when we rightsized our way from suburban house (43 years of family living) to an urban apartment (minimal storage space). We offered our grown kids a pick of the pre-move litter. They wanted no cut glass vases or silverplate candlelabras--items deeded us by our parents and hauled out for special occasions.  They opted for stuff with personal or sentimental value--the piano being Exhibit One and their grandmother's hand-painted tea cups another.

We moved with our favorite pieces of furniture, works of art and two bins of family memorablia. So there is still some sorting out our kids will have to do when we're no longer in charge. (Hopefully no fights will break out over who gets my collection of whimsical cats. See above)

Even though we've slimmed down, we should make a list of the stuff we have that our kids will have to divide up among themselves or give away. Like many of our friends, we keep putting it off. There's the temptation to say, 'Let the kids figure that out.'

"Wrong" is what the financial/estate planning experts say. When we pass away, it's an emotional experience for our kids. The 'stuff" we leave behind may hit a deep sentimental note for one of them or--and here's the problem--one item may mean a lot to all of them. The sentimental stuff turns out to be the more contentious than the "valuables" and has the potential to create nasty divisions among the inheritees.

 When we write our wills, it's relatively simple to divide the monetary stuff--the bank accounts, stocks and bonds, real estate holdings. A simple formula will do, as in: three kids, divide three ways. But the other stuff--the low- or no-value things like needlepoint pillows, rocking chair, cat statuettes: There isn't an algorithm for dividing it up fairly. If son A gets the vase we picked up in Greece, does daughter B get the pasta bowl from Tuscany? Is there something so evocative of childhood--the cookie jar, the kitchen table--that all the grown kids in the family want it?

Some families do the picking and choosing with their children. The Washington Post ran a story about parents who laid out all the tangible items, gathered their grown children together and gave them each $2,000 worth of monopoly money. The kids could then bid on what they would want--when the time came. Says a son, who admits he got into a bidding war with his brother over a  living room chair, "I have had friends fight with siblings over their parents' stuff--not the expensive stuff, but odds and ends that each child wanted." His family, the son says, "avoided this problem brilliantly. Dad was the auctioneer and mom recorded the results."

Friends of ours whose basements and attics are packed with photos, memorablia, two generations of  dishes and artwork,  have taken various non-auction approaches to parceling out the eventual disposition of their stuff.

One is doing it with stickers: Yellow dots under the chairs, rugs and lamps they want their daughter to have; red sticker dots for their son. They hope the stickers stay stuck and that the kids find the distribution fair. As to the accumulated stuff in the basement storage spaces, they're leaving that to their son's and daughter's good will.

Another friend is making a list and using past observations to figure out who should get what. They have seen their oldest son eye the wooden statute in the dining room and their youngest son admire the  landscape painting in the family room. They want their daughter to have the jewelry--the rings, bangles and necklaces handed down by great-grandmothers and grandmothers. There is one  caveat: the  eldest son's daughter (and the first grandchild who's now a teenager) gets an early pick from the jewelry collection.

There may not be a "best way" here. An auction would be fun, but even a straightforward list beats having our kids duke it out when we're gone.

 

 

Empty Nest, Refilled: The cost of housing is a universal concern for young buyers and their parents

The pressure on Chinese parents to help their Millennial-aged children buy a home is a jaw-dropper.  The Chinese one-family policy plus the urbanization of the economy  is creating a generation of Little Emperors  that have high expectations for how much their parents will do for them in terms of housing.  With housing tight in urban areas and unaffordable at the salaries the Little Emperors are earning, Chinese millennials are looking to their parents to help with the down payment on a house as well as a hefty assist with the mortgage payments.

It's a familiar story--at least the housing part of it.

In Australia, where there's a housing crunch too, a study of 2017 home purchases found that more than half--55 percent--of first-home buyers got a financial boost from their parents. It's quite a leap for the land down under. In 2010, only 3.3 percent of first-time buyers got help from mom and dad.

Here in the U.S., the pressure also starts at home. According to a recent analysis of census data by Zillow, in 2005 roughly 14 percent of millennials (ages 24 to 36) lived at home with mom and dad; today, it's nearly 23 percent. They're there for a variety of reasons but chief among them is the cost of housing in urban areas, which is outpacing wages.

Both millennials and their parents would like to see the youngsters move out and into a home of their own, and parents are helping make that happen.  A 2018 survey by the  National Association of Realtors found that, among homebuyers who made a down payment, 23 percent of those 37 and younger had the wherewithal of a gift and 6 percent a loan from family or friends — the highest proportion for either type of assistance among all age groups.

Feels like help with a down payment is becoming a universal language of love--or for parents who can afford it, a loving necessity.

 

Parenting Grown Children: Mistakes we make steering our kids through the job search

You may find this hard to believe-- I did. But there are those among us who are taking a few dubious extra steps in helping our kids find a job. Where we used to assist by fine tuning a resume or buying them  interview clothes, a few of us are now marching to the job interview with our kids or even sitting in on that interview.

No wonder Alison Green says that some of us "intervene shamelessly in our children's professional lives." Green, who runs a website called Ask a Manager and Slate's Direct Report,usually sticks to general workplace advice aimed at work-seekers and workers. But she's also had some things to say about the "shameless" stuff.

When it comes to advice, the most common type of parent misstep falls under the umbrella of gumption. It’s the idea that to get a job, you need to impress an employer with your persistence and resourcefulness, often by doing things that in other contexts would be considered aggressive or even creepy.

Green's real-life example: A parent advising a recent college grad to make the rounds of offices and drop off a resume--or even insist on seeing the hiring manager.

Green points out how totally out of date that idea is:

For the record, while the idea of getting a job by “pounding the pavement” remains deeply popular among parents of twenty- and thirty- somethings, it doesn’t work in most fields these days, where employers generally want candidates to apply online and not show up with a résumé without an appointment for an interview.

Green also points to a whole category of bad parental advice "rooted in the sweet but misguided faith that employers will surely be blown away by how impressive their children are." A college adviser told Green that a father, who accompanied his daughter to the meeting with the adviser, accused the adviser of sabotaging his daughter's job search. He thought entry-level positions were beneath his daughter--even though she was 21 with no work or volunteer experience at all--and insisted the daughter apply for mid-level positions because “that shows initiative and drive.”

To Green, the most troubling issue is that some parents haven’t accepted that their adult children can--and should--manage their professional lives themselves. Even when their child lands a job, some parents, she reports, call an employer and ask why their child was not given a promotion or raise or singled out for praise.

These parents are doing their kids no favors. Not every employer will bother to ask, “Does your kid know that you’re calling us?” and instead will assume that the kid knows about and has condoned the parent’s interference … which will get them tagged as immature and out of touch with professional norms at best and difficult at worst.

Green's advice to children caught up in these forms of helicopter-parent advice is to limit how much information they give their parents so that the parents will have fewer opportunities to interfere.

Not exactly what we're aiming for when our kids are going through the grueling job of finding a job.

 

Looking Ahead: Grown and Grand kids are no excuse to dwell in the past

As we age and head toward or are in retirement from our day-to-day jobs, do we dwell on the past too much? It's a question I've asked myself, in part because it can be a drag on our lives and on our grown kids and grandkids. It can be charming to refer back, to say, "When I was your age...." but it's only charming if it's a once-in-a-while thing.

Yes, it's important as I've written in previous posts, to leave a legacy--to let our grown kids and grandkids know who we are, what we've done with our lives, what our values are.  We don't have to wait till we're no longer around to let our Wills or "last thoughts" memos let them know what we've found meaningful in life and how we found it.

But it's also important to be moving forward--whatever age we are. As financial writer Carl Richards noted in a recent column,  he could feel the energy change in the room when he got together with two friends from his high school days. After they reminisced for a bit, the conversation shifted from the past to the future.

Here's how he described the moment:

It started simply enough, with one of us asking, “If we were having tea three years from now in this exact same place, sitting in these exact same chairs, what would need to happen for each of us to be happy with those three years?”

Talking about high school was great, but this was so much better. You could immediately feel energy and confidence enter the room as we started scheming.

Turns out, we are not the first people to entertain this question. Dan Sullivan wrote an entire book about it. In “The Dan Sullivan Question,” he talks about designing a question to help people make their future seem bigger than their past. “The moment your past becomes bigger than your future, you die,” he said, when I eventually heard him speaking on a podcast.

I read that and asked myself, does that apply to me and my relationship with my grown children? Am I able to bring something new and energizing to my conversations with them? Do I have something interesting to say about what I'm doing in the here and now or am planning to do? How much more vital I feel when the conversation is not just about what they're up to (what a burden on them) or what I thought or did 20 years ago.

In her search for a formula for happiness, happiness guru Gretchen Rubin found Aha! moment in a line from William Yeats:

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

Here's what Gretchen had to say about that moment of discovery:

That word, "growing," snapped everything into place. Of course. Growth. Growth helps explain the happiness brought by children, by gardens, by pay raises, by stamp collections, by training for a marathon, or learning to use PhotoShop, or cooking your way through a Julia Childs cookbook.

All of which is a long way of saying, it made me realize that we who are of a certain age and at a certain stage in life need to keep on truckin'--be it a project to work on, a class to go to, a trip to take. Whatever it is, I find the forward movement not only makes me happy but helps me bring energy to my conversations with my grown- and grandkids. It helps me makes sure I'm maintaining a life independent of theirs.

That is what we want, right?

Observation: Philip Galanes on the etiquette of correcting the mannerisms of your child's life partner

The mother finds her son's latest love interest "a wonderful woman: kind, hard-working, self-made." So far so good. In a letter to Philip Galanes at Social Qs she writes that she would be pleased if her son married her. The mother's only problem: the wonderful woman practices a dining custom of her culture where "people lick their knives during meals." Looking ahead, the mother who may be future mother-in-law to this "kind, hardworking" woman is worried that any children her son and this woman have will pick up the knife licking habit and that the extended family will hold her grandchildren up to ridicule. How should she broach the knife-licking habit with her possible daughter-in-law.

Knife licking may not be something any of us are faced with, but we all may have had concerns about an unfortunate habit--or culturally based idiosyncrasy--that we would like our daughter- or son-in-law or our child's life partner to curb. So what does Philip Galanes say we can do about such matters?

"If she and your son marry and produce offspring, you will be entitled to express grandparental concern about sharp objects in tiny mouths. But that's a problem for a far-off day. You've done very well to keep quiet about cutlery to date, and I encourage you to keep it up. A supportive mother-in-law trumps a Westernizing etiquette coach every day of the week."

 

Grandparenting: Lessons learned about the critical thinking of teens

It's always a thrill to get together with our grown kids and their kids, to be absorbed, however temporarily, into their family routine and culture. For those of us whose grown children live beyond the reach of a casual Sunday dinner, the visits in and of themselves are gifts. So, when something extraordinary or insightful happens, the gift moves into the treasure category.

What could be more of a treasure than to hear our high-school aged grand kids use their critical faculties in ways that open our eyes to their understanding of the world and how it works.

We had such a treasure when our son and his family were visiting us for a weekend this summer. The reason for the visit: a soccer tournament in which the oldest grandchild's team was participating. Weather being weather and thunderstorms being a tournament buzz kill, we ended up sitting around our living room amid the wreckage of cancelled games.

Our son had in hand 16 essays from finalists for a small stipend for their freshmen year in college. He read them aloud to get our critical input, with our grandkids as additional in-house critics.

We adults brought to our comments on the short essays, which were written by kids who were graduating from inner-city high schools and who had lived in and with poverty.  We were going to advise as to which three finalists should win the stipend. To the task, we adults brought the wisdom of our life experiences but also our unconscious biases. Our two teenage grands are closer to the ground--closer in age to the kids writing the essays about their life experiences and to teen life in general. They were much more understanding of some of the shortcomings in the essays, and surprisingly harsher on others. One exceptionally well-crafted essay they suspected of leaning on a formula of what one was supposed to say. A less elegant but emotionally direct essay they saw as an authentic reflection of obstacles this youngster had to overcome and where he hoped to go in life--not necessarily to a place that we, as adults, saw as aspirational enough.

I was struck by the seriousness of purpose our grands applied to the task and their ability to understand the essayists at a level where we as adults had to struggle.

The lesson I took away from this: As grandchildren grow into teens and young adults they have points of view that add to our understanding of the world, though we usually think it's the other way around.

 

 

Observations: President Obama on the feeling of loss when kids go off to college

I know, I know: This is not what Obama's Sept 7 speech was all about. But hear me out: Those of us who are parents of adult children--especially young adult children leaving the nest and going off to college--can't help but notice that in his opening remarks he took note of parental pain and shared his with us.

Here's what he had to say at the University of Illinois 

... now that I have a daughter in college, I can tell all of the students here, your parents suffer. They cry privately. It is brutal. So please call. Send a text. We need to hear from you, just a little something.

Grandparenting: My Granddaughter Googled Me

 

Given the teen preference for texting, an email this summer from a granddaughter in Massachusetts to me in Maryland was a surprise. The subject line even more intriguing: Is this You? it read. The body of the email held links to articles I'd written. A click and I was reading stories I'd penned for various newspapers and magazines--one from 1978; another, 1983.

Why was my 15-year-old granddaughter sending me links to long-ago and far-away articles? Why, in short, had she Googled me?

The prosaic answer was this: She was applying to a summer program in journalism and had to write an essay about her interest in communications and the media. One paragraph was about her grandmother (that's me) being a journalist, and she evidently checked that out--looked for proof--by calling up some of my stories.

I am still a journalist--part-time now. But when my granddaughter was born and until she turned 11 I was a full time editor at a national magazine, having worked my way up from staff writer. 

That being so, the question nags at me: Why did she have to Google me to find out about my standing as a journalist? When I asked the grandfather (aka my husband and a lawyer who once worked for the U.S. Congress) what he thought, he reminisced about all the legal and political issues he had shared with this granddaughter once she was old- or interested-enough to understand.

I had not. My granddaughter knew I worked but I never talked to her about my career. When I went to visit her or she came here, I kept my grandparenting focused on the quotidian. I was observing, getting a feel for what she cared about, thought about, was interested in and how I could add background, anecdotes or information to her concerns. I didn't bring my world to her.

I must have shared a funny story or two--in search of a story we journalists are a riot. Sometimes. But I hadn't discussed what I wrote about or the many climbs and plateaus, hurdles and high points I faced--from my first job answering letters to the editor at Time Inc to ending up as an editor and  columnist on municipal finance at Governing Magazine.

"She absorbed some of it by looking around," my daughter said when I brought up the missed opportunities. My home-office, which doubled as my granddaughter's bedroom when she came to visit, had various memorabilia hung on the wall for my own viewing pleasure--a plaque for a journalism award, a "joke" Washingtonian cover with my face on it.

If I ever finish the memoir I'm writing about my years at Time Inc (an aggressively sexist time in the work place in general, in journalism in particular and at Time especially), my children and grandchildren will know more about what this grannie did with her life. It's an important part of the legacy we leave. The life choices we made reflect our values and give our children and grandchildren at least one road map--hopefully among many others--about what paths there are in life and ways to deal with some of the stickier issues those paths can throw at you.

The written version is where I'm heading in terms of explaining myself and my world to my grown children (it's astonishing what they don't know) and grandchildren. In the meantime, the idea that my granddaughter had to Google me to learn about my career is a reminder (note to self) to share the past--the good stories, fun anecdotes, and rich experiences--with our family in the here and now. It's an on-going story, even if we capture it in a final written or video'd form some time down the road.

 

Observations: Philip Galanes on what to do when you don't like your grown child's mate

Philip Galanes by Durell Godfrey

A woman has griped to her daughter about the daughter's husband--that he treats her and her spouse dismissively, is always checking his cellphone messages in her presence and doesn't help his wife (the woman's daughter) around the house. She has complained to her daughter about this but the daughter has not responded positively.

Neither does Philip Galanes at Social Qs. His advice, which applies to all of us who may not be happy with out grown child's choice of a life companion:

I get that you’re protective of your daughter (and offended), but she didn’t ask for an assessment of her marriage. Even if you’re right on all counts — your son-in-law is a jerk — what upside did you imagine in telling her? Do you think she’s unaware of her husband’s bad qualities? Mightn’t he also have good ones that he reveals in private?

The smarter play for parents of adult kids with partners is to find something (anything!) to admire in the mates — their business acumen, tennis games or bonds with their children. You’re not off to a great start, but it may not be too late. Become a vocal fan of your son-in-law.

 

Empty Nesting: There's more to their childhood bedrooms than you think

 

So maybe you were thinking home office or crafts room or even a man cave. When the kids leave for college or for their first self-supporting job, thoughts of repurposing their bedrooms may dance in your head. After all, they've gone off to start their independent lives. They probably will not live with you again full-time. All they need when they come home for the holidays or for a brief respite  is a place to crash.

Not so fast, is the advice of Carl Pickhardt. Newly minted adult children can be unmoored by no longer having their bedroom to come home to. Writing in Psychology Today, he says that at this major jumping off place (leaving home to live independently), "it’s emotionally important to know that one has a family belonging place to return to, whether to visit for pleasure or for an emergency stay when there may be a need to boomerang home for a while."

Our recent grads may be adults, but he suggests that it's best not to think of this first foray into independence as a final “departure.” They are at the beginning of a “transition into more independence,” Pickhardt writes, adding these points:

*For many young people, it takes some measure of courage to move out and on into a new and different residence. To help make this move feel safe, parents can act to make membership in family remain secure.

*Parents often underestimate the difficulty of the last leg of growing up.... The demands for adequate self-care, the risky temptations offered by unsettled peers, the hardship of maintaining self-discipline, the increased availability of recreational drugs, the uncertainty of direction in life, and the widening scope of personal responsibility, these all conspire to make this final adolescent passage challenging indeed. 

*Unless parents have pressing practical needs to the contrary, I suggest not immediately repurposing the bedroom of an adolescent who is off at college, or otherwise starting to live away from home. Better, I believe, to keep that space as is for a few years, and for the young person to know that her or his family place is being securely held.

 

Nuptials: Grandchildren at the wedding? It's the bride and groom's call, not the granny's.

GIOVANNI FRANCESCO DA RIMINI  - Le Mariage de la Vierge

Two years ago, when a co-worker was in the throes of being a first-time grandmother, she asked her son to invite his sister's toddler to his wedding. The son and his bride refused. My co-worker argued the point but the bride and groom's vision for their Saturday evening formal wedding did not include small children. The mother of the groom pouted and complained, and then came up with a solution: She brought the toddler to a casual morning-after brunch where due homage was paid by extended family and friends to an adorable child: a grandmother's pride, salvaged.

I was reminded of that episode by a letter to Philip Galanes at SocialQs.  A grandmother was outraged that her husband's niece failed to invite his (and her) three pre-teen grandchildren to her wedding--a destination event at a popular resort. The grandmother writes that she had told the bride that she had rented a large home at the resort to accommodate her adult children (who were invited) and the grandchildren. Once again, the bride had her own vision of her wedding and said No to adding the children to the guest list. The grandmother wrote to Galanes to say she has refused to go to the wedding and has canceled the rental. Her husband, who is to officiate at the wedding, and her son would attend, but she would stay home. "We should have been told about the children [not being invited] much sooner," she wrote. "Thoughts?"

Galanes had plenty of them. "The din of your foot stomping and harrumphing has caused you to miscalculate: You are throwing away a lovely family vacation at a 'popular tourist destination'...in a fit of pique over your grandkids' exclusion from a rubber chicken dinner they probably wouldn't enjoy anyway."

Beyond that point, Galanes notes that "Brides have more on their minds than other people's grandchildren. And making an exception for yours would probably rub others guests with children the wrong way."

It's a reminder, once again, that we are not the star of events--weddings or other occasions our children plan. lWe can ask for a favor but adult children (or nephews and nieces) will have their own reasons to say yes or no. As they should.

Grandparenting and the Generation Gap: Yes we can--understand teen language, music and video games

 

   I'm not sure if it's a game or a test. When my Boston-based, teen-age granddaughter comes to visit, she catches me up on the current lingo. She tells me an expression, and then instructs me on proper usage. I never could get the hang of "on Dogs" (it means "I swear"--go figure) but I seem to have mastered "As you should"--something you say to someone after they do something well. 

I love language and all its permutations, so of course I'm drawn to the latest in teen-speak. Also, as an editor who writes headlines for stories and columns, I need to be au courant. Of course, slanging it up with my granddaughter is not so much work as fun. She high-fives me when I manage to "get it" and I try not to be daunted by her eye rolls when my use of an expression marks me as an old fuddy duddy (my expression; not hers).

And now I have Carl Pickhardt, a therapist who specializes in adolescence, to pat me on the back and remind me that such games have a deeper meaning and are an important way to connect across the generation (or two) gap. His weekly column is written for parents, but his comments are relevant for us.

"To the degree that parents can bridge the generational difference with interest," he writes, "this can reduce its potentially estranging influence. For example, they can encourage a very powerful and esteem-filling power reversal in their relationship when they treat the adolescent as “expert” and themselves as "unknowing," with their adolescent as teacher and themselves as student. " Such "power reversals" could be asking them about their music or how to play the video game they've got under their thumbs.

Slang has not been my only entry point, though some are more fleeting than others. Last year, I was visiting my Albany-based grandkids. My grandson had spent the previous evening at a high school dance, sweating himself into exhaustion doing the Whip and the Ne-Ne. I asked for a demonstration. I tried it myself. He smiled politely. When I returned for a visit several months later and asked after the Whip and Ne-Ne, I learned I was quite "out of it" (my expression; not his). The Whip and Ne-Ne have been replaced. I didn't ask with what. I rested on my fuddy-duddiness. As I should.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Emperors: Complaints Chinese parents have about their grown children. It may sound familiar.

**

We've read a lot about our helicoptered kids. They're the one who, as young adults, have gotten used to their parents overseeing life's key decisions. Their parents have been spotted going on job interviews with them and even calling their bosses to complain when they believe their child has been treated unfairly in the work place.

We've also got our entitled young--and older--adults who think the world, to say nothing of their parents, should bend to their needs. These are the kids who expect--and are not particularly gracious about receiving--a parental allowance, even though some of them are grown up with children of their own. There are those who call this a "brat allowance."

Well, small world: Chinese parents have, according to a professor at China's Renmin University, "birthed a generation of freeloaders who feel entitled to leech off their own parents."

China's one-child policy is partly to blame, professor Zhang Ming writes. As he details his observations about these "Little Emperors,**" his commentary begins to sound familiar.

"Even after helping them find jobs and planning their whole lives out for them, a generation of so-called helicopter parents still feels compelled to help their kids buy a house. Lucky are those whose kids only ask for help with the deposit and don’t expect their parents to help them make their monthly mortgage payments, too."

In our country, recent surveys find that roughly one-third of Millennials hoping to buy a house will be relying on a loan/gift from a parent, grandparent or other relative to help with some or all of the downpayment.  There's been less follow-up on how many of us continue to help with the monthly mortgage payment.

Zhang Ming has more to report. When parents don't come up with the cash fast enough, the grumblings of Chinese adults

"are a fixture of social media feeds, where they whine about their parents having the temerity to suddenly go on a trip or moan about their in-laws playing mahjong instead of giving that money to their grandkids instead."

Evidently, it's woe unto the grandparents as well.

"Many grown children remain reliant on their parents for financial assistance even after they’ve had kids of their own, thereby perpetuating the cycle of freeloading into a third generation — except the grandkids don’t turn to their own parents for help. Instead, both generations sponge off their grandparents together."

 It wasn't always so. Zhang Ming says he asked many parents of these Little Emperors whether they had turned to their parents for help and support. Just like many of us tell our children or friends, those parents tell Zhang they never asked their parents for anything, not even "for a single yuan" and then, like many of us, they reel off the the challenges they overcame to get where they are today, including supporting their parents— not the other way around.

 Zhang Ming's conclusion about what he calls China's "kidult" problem:

China’s young people are paying the price of the country’s rapid urbanization drive. The high costs of migrating and living in cities have drawn multiple generations into the financial orbit of their youngest relatives, exacerbating a psychological disconnect between what is appropriate to demand from one’s elders and what is appropriate to give. The resulting emotional tug-of-war often does more harm than good.  But these reasons do not begin to explain the degree to which parents are expected to support their kids, however, or how kids came to feel so entitled to their parents’ money in the first place.

 **‘Little Emperors‘ is a name that refers to only children in China after the one-child policy was implemented. Attributed most frequently to increased spending power within the family unit and the parents’ desire for their child to experience the benefits they were denied, the syndrome results from the children’s sole command of the attention of their parents and grandparents.

 

Observation: Seth Meyers on parents giving grown kids job advice

 

If his parents were our friends and rambled on about their son's brilliant career, we wouldn't consider them braggarts.  Seth Meyers has been a star on such comedic biggies as Saturday Night Live and the Late Night show and was host of the Golden Globes in 2018.

Maybe his parents don't talk a lot about their son--I have no idea; I don't know them. But Seth Meyers tells us (via comedian Jerry Seinfeld's Netflix series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee) that his dad, whose expertise is finance, used to give him lots of career advice and critique his comedic approach--even when he was on SNL. Over the years, Meyers reported, his dad had some worthwhile  comedic pointers to offer. But sometimes the tips not only came too often but were unhelpful on many levels. 

Here's what Meyers told Seinfeld he told his dad about the advice-giving business, especially as it relates to child-parent relationships:

“I remember saying to him, ‘You’ve done a very good job of being a tough, honest critic with me. I no longer need it. So you have to shift from what you’ve been doing to a completely different role--of support.’”

Meyers and his dad have weathered the advice-giving shoals. You can see how well the family gets along on the above video, one of occasional Late Night segments called The Meyers Family.

 

Bank of Mom and Dad: What to do and how to do it when it's time to close the helping hand

 

Some of us tap into our retirement accounts or we delay retirement: We need the money to keep up with the relentless press of supporting our grown kids. Or grandkids. It may not be full support--just help with the rent, the cell phone bill or car payments. Sometimes it's a monthly stipend to defray their cost of living. For one of my friends, it was to pay for a major expense--the cost of a surrogate mother so a daughter could start a family. (The ensuing twins, priceless.) Another couple played venture capitalist and put money into their son's daring new business--which has since attracted real-life, Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

Whatever it is we're doing--and with whatever rationale we have for doing it--there comes a time when we want to or have to close the bank of mom and dad. The tipping point is different for every family; let us not judge our neighbor.

That said, when Closing Time comes, here are some tips from financial experts on how to tighten the fiduciary fist.

Set boundaries: One end of that boundary is to Just Say No. Make it clear that you will not provide assistance anymore. But if that isn't going to work for you--if it's too harsh or doesn't fit your situation--set financial boundaries, such as how long this will continue and how much cash will be involved. In some situations, you're doing yourself and your kin a favor. When support continues into a grown child's 30s and 40s, you may be an enabler: preventing your kids or grandkids from becoming independent and living within their means.

Make it legal: If you decide to be the mortgage banker for your grown child's home purchase, act like a bank. Have a lawyer draw up a contract  complete with dates when payments are due. Of course, you don't have to be the banker--for a mortgage or other large loan. You can walk your grown child into a bank--and even co-sign the loan (if you're sure you don't need to be paid back). That way, the bank is the debt collector, not you. Financial experts note that people are less likely to repay family members than they are a bank. Many of us do help out with the first-home down payment--not because are kids have been spendthrifts but because of student debt. Student loan debt seems to be the biggest obstacle standing in the way of young people buying their own home.

Use it to educate: However much money you decide you can afford to shower on your kin--a grown child or a grandchild--it should be a gift with no strings attached. Yes, they may squander it, but even grown children need to fall down and scrape their knees. Gifting them money that they may use unwisely is better than using your credit card to bail them out.

Get a second opinion: If you're lending money for a new or on-going business, don't limit yourself to your and your child's take on the business plan. Get an opinion from someone not directly involved in the business. And agree to specific terms--how much and when it will be paid back (if you hope to be paid back).

 

 

 

 

The Book Beat: What we want to know about the gifts we give our Grand kids.

The complaint was about whether a book given as a birthday present to a young reader had been properly read and appreciated. The complainant, writing to Philip Galanes (NYTimes, Social Qs) was an aunt who had given her niece a copy of a book that had been a childhood favorite of hers. But the niece showed no sign of having read it. The letter writer asked whether or not she should call this slight to the attention of the young reader's parents.

Many of us--especially those of us who are long-distance grandparents--are wandering in the same wilderness as the letter-writing aunt. Not only do we want to know the book we sent was received (and be properly thanked for it) but also that it is now a beloved favorite of the recipient. Actually, some of us are like me and we want more: We'd like to talk about the book with our Grand on Skype or FaceTime or even by text. A book--its plot, its characters, its setting--can be a helpful conversation starter, especially when we live far from our children and are out of the loop of their daily lives. It can be a chance to bond over a mutual love. Or, equally delightful, agree to disagree.

No surprise to report that Galanes does not condone pressuring parents to pressure the child to read the birthday-present book. Let me use his exact words:

"There's a difference between a book report and a birthday present: Your niece may read the book when she likes, but she's not required to....We all have our childhood favorites, but I'd let this one slide. Let your niece discover the book in her own time."

Galanes knows whereof he speaks. And yet I understand the aunt's disappointment. I, too, have sent books to various Grands, and now that some of them are young teens, the range of favorites I want to share with them has expanded exponentially. I send the book. I hear no more. When I go visit, sometimes I tell them why I chose a particular set of books--what it was about them that I found so intriguing. But if I may pat myself on the back (and gain some Galanes approval points)--I don't go any further than that. They'll either find time to read the books or they won't. Maybe two years from now they'll pick one up. Maybe they'll even text with a belated thank you for introducing them to the writer or the story.

Maybe they will. More likely they won't. But they have the books, they came with my imprimatur. That'll have to do.

 

 

Refilled Nests: When Boomerangers come back, we don't like it.

 

No less an authority than the London School of Economics tells us that we suffer when our adult kids return home to live with us. There is, the newest research finds, a decline in parental quality of life and well being when our adult children return to live with us.

This is based on research and surveys in Europe--not here. That said, roughly a quarter of young adults in the UK and throughout Europe are living with their parents -- the highest number since records began in 1996. The move home is driven by the unaffordably high cost of housing and job insecurity on the part of our adult kids.

When these adults return home to an empty nest--that is, no other children are still at living at home--our brothers and sisters over there experience loss of ‘feelings of control, autonomy and pleasure in everyday life’--regardless of the reason the children returned home.

How deep do those feelings run? Pretty far down. The scale for quality of life measures ranges from 12 to 48. When a child returns home to a previously empty nest (and it's not for the purposes of parental support), researchers found that the parental score went down by an average of 0.8 points. That's a big enough drop, researchers said, to be similar to developing an age-related disability, such as difficulties with walking or getting dressed. Oooph.

Here's the bottom line from Dr. Marco Tosi, one of the authors of the study. :

"When children leave the parental home, marital relationships improve and parents find a new equilibrium. They enjoy this stage in life, finding new hobbies and activities. When adult children move back, it is a violation of that equilibrium."

And then there's this from British therapist and author Andrew Marshall:

‘Living with adult children can be destructive for trapped nesters’ relationships. Lack of privacy means the biggest casualty is the parents’ sex lives – just when they were beginning to recover from years concentrating on the family – and the children can also take a lot of the emotional focus a couple should be giving to each other again.’

To say nothing of single parents with an eye on dating and putting a little more zip into their social life.

                             

 

 

 

 

Observation: Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond on supporting grown kids financially

 

Writing on The Sweet Spot, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond tackle a question from a reader about financial support for their grown children and if it's fair to withdraw that support while they are still dependent on the parents. 

Cheryl Strayed:

You’ve been deeply generous because you wanted to provide your children with an education, security, comfort and ease. Well done. Now you must be deeply generous in another, seemingly paradoxical way: by giving your grown children the gift of independence and self-sufficiency.

They don’t pay for their own way in the world for one reason and only one reason: because you do. I encourage you to stop doing it. Allow your adult children to find a way to do it instead. And allow them to struggle with doing it.

By providing all that you provide your kids at this point in their lives, you’re preventing them from learning how to problem solve, sacrifice, persevere, and suffer and benefit from the consequences of their own decisions. In other words, from becoming adults.

Steve Almond:

The reason it’s been challenging for you to stop paying for your kids is because it’s a reversal of the way you’ve operated since your kids were born. They needed something, and you paid for it. That made sense for a time. But it doesn’t make sense now, and it hasn’t for a while. Your children aren’t children anymore and they don’t truly need you to pay for their lives, even if they find it convenient that you do.

 

Part of being a good parent is modeling healthy boundaries for our children, and this is ultimately that. In establishing yourself as a person who knows and states her limits, you’re showing them how to do that too.