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

Money Matters: When the kids face foreclosure

To lend or not to lend when your grown children face losing their home. Not an easy call--especially if your own fiscal well being is greatly diminished. Here's some general advice on the subject from a Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary. Singletary is answering a question posed by a sister about saving her brother's house when the brother is an undisciplined spender:

"If you ask someone to use a cash gift in a certain way, such as for college tuition or catching up on a mortgage, the recipient should honor your request to the best of their ability. However, once you extend a gift, the money or item is no longer yours to control. You have to leave it to the person's conscience to do the right thing.

"Before giving someone thousands of dollars to save a home, you should ask to see a written budget and the underlying documentation, such as pay stubs, bills, etc. Yes, this is an intrusive demand. Yes, the person or couple might balk, refuse or even cuss you out.

"But if people are asking for a significant amount of money, they need to prove to you that your money won't be wasted. They need to prove their financial situation has improved. Or they need to demonstrate they are becoming better money managers. Otherwise if you bail them out, and a few months later they are behind again on their mortgage and the lender forecloses anyway, you've done what your mama told you never to do -- throw good money after bad.

"If you're not equipped to help someone establish a budget, then require that the person see a qualified credit counselor. Send the person or couple to DebtAdvice.org or call 1-800-388-2227. DebtAdvice.org is a service provided by the members of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling."

"Even if a friend or family member's foreclosure is looming, don't let that person's desperation result in your giving money that in the end will just postpone the inevitable. Help if you can, but in a way that means your generosity won't be in vain. "

Too Much Togetherness: Tips on vacationing with grown children

It's always been a dream of mine, to gather together my two grown children and their children and vacation together. It's an especial longing since uber son and alpha daughter and their families live far from the family manse. But I've pretty much given up on that one--different parenting styles, sibling rivalry and personal habits get in the way. Serial vacationing with overlap--that seems to be the way to go.

We did have some successful trips together when our children were younger adults--with or without significant but not necessarily permanent others. Our best bet: ski trips. Everyone busy at their own level; no need to be attached at the hip.They felt free to go out in the evening without us. And we were too tired to care if they stayed home or not.

Families who've tried more ambitious trips have often found it a rockier road. Here are some excerpts--observations, forewarnings and pointers--from a grown child on her trip to Japan with her retired parents and brother and sister.

 On my recent trip to Japan with my 20-something brother and sister and our retired parents, our great times were tempered with an unexpected amount of tension for five adults who were no longer a full-time family unit.

While Mom and Dad's idea of a family vacation may not have changed, the kids they were bringing with them sure had.

Many families ...fall into old parent/child roles and reprise arguments they may not have had in years. While the children have adult relationships with each other, it's their relationships with Mom and Dad that have yet to mature.

Some Good Pointers:

Mixing money and family can be worse on the road. Avoid friction by establishing reasonable meal and accommodation prices in advance. If budgets vary wildly, consider eating or staying separately from time to time.

To keep things fair, consider having a `slush fund' for incidentals. Have everyone contribute the same amount of money to a common pool to be used for taxis, tips, common needs

Plan in advance and set everyone's expectations around activities that are important to you. This will avoid last-minute conflict if there's difficulty fitting everything in to your itinerary.

Be sure to have activities you want to do privately, even if it's as simple as reading a book.

Though there were plenty of tense moments on my family trip to Japan, we never took any pictures when we weren't all speaking. As a result, we have an album full of happy photo and positive memories.

Re-Nesting: It's hard on the grown kids, too

We all talk about how hard it is on us when the kids move back home. And it is. The loss of privacy. The noise. The eating habits. The hours they keep. But here's a reminder that it's hard on them, too.

These are words of self-awareness written to give the grown children some perspective:

"The housing market is drawing some families together, but challenges include lifestyle differences, generational differences, depression, money squabbles and other issues when relatives huddle together for economic relief. Moving in with relatives can be demoralizing, humbling, dehumanizing--even though a growing number of people don’t have a lot of choice. “You lose that sense of independence, privacy and self-esteem,” he says. “You lose somewhat of your identity."  [written by Nicholas Aretakis, a career coach and author of No More Ramen: The 20-Something’s Real World Survival Guide]

Something to remember when those moved-back-home kids are particularly annoying.

Money Matters: The costs of re-nesting

We are living through difficult times--kids  moving back home not just because they're out of college and haven't figured out what they'll do. It's more serious now: Our grown children are losing their jobs, or we're losing ours. Consolidated households are one answer. On her site, Linda Pogue  blogs about some of the hidden costs of having the kids move back home.

Some highlights:
Grocery is the biggest expense increase, followed by water consumption (more dishes and clothes to wash, more people bathing and flushing toilets), electric bill increase due to more lights, TVs, computers, etc., in use, and more paper products--toilet paper and paper towels, primarily. While none of these expenses, except perhaps groceries, will increase an exorbitant amount, there will be enough that it can financially undermine the parents allowing grown children's families to move into their home.

Check out her blog for observations on how to negotiate the issues, with this in mind: Do it upfront to keep peace in the put-back-together household, especially if grandchildren are part of the bargain. Her advice is written for the adult kids who are moving back in with us. But one key point she makes to these adult children really hits home: "If you do not want your parents correcting your children, be sure that you do it yourself. Just understand that as long as you are in their home, they may feel they have the right to correct your children, especially if you do not."

Amen. It's a lot easier to hold off on the "corrections" when you're only there for a brief visit. It's another when you're all living together.  It's an issue that needs to be addressed at our end as well.

Re-Nesting: Moving home--to help us out

Here's a twist on refilling the empty nest. In these tough economic times, families are piling in together to cut costs, but it isn't always kids moving back to have mom and dad help them out. The kids may move back in to help out with the parent's rent. Here's the recent story:

"Last year, Kanessa Tixe’s dad had just finished building a three-family house when he lost his superintendent job in February. He wasn’t sure how to make the $5,000-a-month mortgage on the new house in Queens, N.Y.

So Tixe and her siblings decided to help out in an unusual way: They moved in. In December, her father moved into the first floor; her stepsister and husband moved into the second floor; and her stepbrother and Tixe took the third floor. The entire family has become roommates, banding together to pay rent and help their dad with the mortgage until he finds long-term tenants."

Sign of the times?

Here are the stats to watch: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, In 1915, the average number of people sharing a home, including parents, offspring, and “extended squatters,” was 4.5. By 2006, that number had shrunk by nearly half to 2.6. By 2010--who can say what that number will be. And how many of us will be inviting our kids home to help out with the overhead.

Money Matters: Helping the kids with their expenses

Sally is feeling good about how she's handling the helping hand she gives her adult son: She's offered to pay for day care. Her son is in the middle of the struggle years--finished with graduate school but just starting his career; ditto for his wife. Right how, with a one-year-old, costs are suddenly high [day care; bigger apartment] and income not quite what it will be.

Day care is not an inconsiderable expense in the city where her son lives--close to $18,000 a year. Fortunately, Sally can afford it. She's still working and so is her husband and the father of her children. Nonetheless, it's a bite out of their budget, and Sally is proud that she's paying the tab "with no strings attached." That's what she likes about the arrangement: She pays the bill and she doesn't have to concern herself with whether they are doing with the "loan" what you want them to do with it. It's control without actual control.

Or so she thought. One Saturday her daughter-in-law came by with the baby so Sally could babysit while the daughter-in-law ran some errands. No problem. Sally enjoys taking care of the baby. It's her first and he's delightful. When her daughter-in-law got back to the house, she pulled out her shopping bag to show Sally what she'd gotten. A beautiful outfit to wear to a friend's upcoming engagement party. Sally got a glimpse of the price tag and flipped out. It was, she told me later, twice as much as she would ever spend on an outfit. In her mind, here she was shelling out $18,000 a year for day care to help her son's family get through the "struggle" years and here was her daughter-in-law splurging on a high-priced blouse and skirt. Sally resented it.

So the question is whether we can ever cut the string--the tie between gift and spending? Do we have the right to control the money we help our kids with? Andif we do, will they resent it? Will we feel uncomfortable? I come from a family where my widowed mother was generous but there were strong and bounding ties to what I did with her generosity. So personally, I am all for giving the gift and letting it go. Don't look back. Just assume you've helped and move on. But is that reasonable? Should there be guidelines--a blueprint for use; a performance measure of sorts--when we help out our children?