So a friend asked, When does the shlepping stop? [See below]
It's a broader question, of course: When do we stop doing all those little things for our kids that they ought to--could?--take care of themselves? It's partly an instinct to make life easier for them--as they struggle to find a footing in the adult world. In her book, "Your Kids Are Grown," Francine Toder, psychologist at California State University when she wrote the book a dozen years ago, doesn't answer the question so much as give it some perspective. "Each stage of life and decade between twenty and fifty," she writes, "is significant and provides unique challenges and events. The way a parent demonstrates support to a twenty-five-year-old daughter will be markedly different from the caring shown to a forty-five-year-old son."