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

When Your Grown Child Needs You: The loneliness of the long-term visitor

Have you read Olive Kitteredge? Do. It's all about us and our interior lives, emotions and fears--of growing older, of our children moving away, of our spouses dying or worse, losing their minds.

For those of us whose grown children live in another city far from us, there's one particular story in Elizabeth Strout's series of linked short stories (they all revolve around Olive, a big woman with a big persona) that hit home. Olive, who has a dysfunctional relationship with her only child--her son has moved away and avoids contact with her--is suddenly invited by her son to come visit him and his new wife and her children from former relationshsips. The story touches on the tumult of emotions we go through when we visit our children, especially on our own without our life's partner--the joy of being needed and embraced by them and their family; the awkwardness of fitting in, of being a fifth wheel, of being part of things but not; touched by the affection within the little family; dismayed when a discipline of a child is [from our point of view] mishandled; the disorientation when you witness a nasty spat between spouses. And the surprise--the shock really--of the overwhelming desire to go home, even after just a few days in residence. Or, as Olive tells herself, "After three days, I stink like fish."

Strout also captures the almost inexplicable need and desire to touch base with our home base--a spouse, a close friend. To do so is almost an affirmation that we haven't melted into the woodwork. I think it gets back to that notion that we are no longer center stage. We know it. Intellectually, we accept it. When we go visit en force--paterfamilias and the momma bear--we're an exciting event; the center of things. And that's why we tend to wrap up the fish in a day or so. Leave while you're still ahead and still the Star Turn. But when we stay for longer--usually because we're needed for emergency babysitting-type purposes--the reality of how much on the periphery we really are hits home. And this despite all the kind words and attempts at inclusion our children make. Of course, Olive didn't get that from her son. But I leave what happened to her to the story (within the larger story), "Security." Read it and feel sad--for Olive and for all the losses that come along with getting older and being the parent of an adult child whose focus is, rightfully, on his or her growing family.

The Criticism Factor: Everything we do can be taken the wrong way.

It's almost universal--parents all over the world tell stories about how they tried to help their grown children only to find their assistance was taken as criticism. Here's my latest story, from a pediatrician I met from Sweden.
His grown son and wife live a few blocks away. Now that they have a baby, the doc and his wife are regular visitors. The beloved grandchild is now 15 months old and the grandparents have finally been asked to babysit. The assignment came with this warning: Not to worry. The little girl cries herself to sleep. It's just part of her going-to-sleep routine.
The young parents leave and the grandparents take over. Sure enough, when they put their grandchild to bed, she cries. "So," the pediatrician tells me, "I tiptoed into her room and sat by her crib and held her hand. She wrapped her litle fingers around mine and fell asleep. No crying."
The outcry came when the parents came home and learned what had happened. They were not pleased. "It gets particularly difficult," says the doc, "because i"m a pediatrician so my daughter-in-law tends to see everything I say as a criticism."
Pediatrician or not, a lot of us run into the same buzz saw--based in part on the fact that we've raised kids so, presumably, we know something about it. We can't help for hurting.

Lending Money: What to do when your adult child needs financial help

 These are hard times. The Great Recession is taking its toll--not only on our 401ks but, for some of us, on our jobs and worse, our children's jobs and financial well-being. Just to put things in perspective, a recent survey by Fidelity Investments found that 41 percent of U.S. households did not have emergency funds sufficient to cover three to six months of living expenses. What to do if your child runs into trouble and needs some money to tide him or her over? Here are some pointers from financial and other experts:

First point: Can you afford to make a loan? Here's the measure Ira Bryck, director of the University of Massachusetts Family Business Center, uses: "It's the same rule as gambling: Don't loan what you can't afford to lose."

Point two: What's the loan for? 'lf your finances are at the edge, what they'll use it for can make a difference. If the loan is to launch a new business or buy a house, maybe it can be delayed; if it's to keep the foreclosure wolf from the door, maybe you'll want to stretch your own finances. The answer to point two can temper the answer to point one.

Point three: Sibling rivalry runs deep and can crop up when you least expect it. Will you be accused of playing favorites? Will the sibling in need by charged by brothers or sisters of draining their inheritance. It's your money to do with as you please but it might be a good idea to keep any assistance just between you and the kid in need--unless everyone's getting tapped for aid.

Point four: Do the math. Let's say your investments are earning 7 percent a year( don't' we wish!). If you're asked to loan $20,000 for five years, the real cost to you for sidelining that amount of money is $28,000. This is not to say you shouldn't lend the money--it may be a good investment if it lets your child finish school or buy a house, but it should be factored into the "what's the money for" calculus. Point five: Your needs count. If the loan tips you into financial instability, you may have to say no. There may be other ways to help.

Visiting Adult Children and Missing Home

When my children were young, my mother lived in another city. I always thought her visits were the joy of her life. She was widowed and I saw her visits--she planned them; they lasted three weeks each time--as a welcome break to her loneliness and to her routine of playing bridge and canasta with her friends.

I am rethinking that view. Yes, she planned long visits and yes they broke up her routine and brought the company of our young family. But how pleasant a break it was in terms of her routine is what is up for revision. I have written at length on this blog about how tired most of us feel--especially those of us with children living in other cities or even other countries--when we visit our children and their very young children. There's the physical exhaustion of being around all that energy that is compressed into small children and the energy it takes to care for them. And, the change in routine takes a toll.

But there is another factor. The loneliness. Yes, our children are companionable and absorb us into their lives while we are there. We are not excluded. But there is still a longing to go home. I am reminded of this by an email I got from a friend who has been recruited to care for grandchlidren who are  9 and 13. Her son just got divorced. This summer, custody was split by five weeks each. Her son had to work and didn't have the money for camps or babysitters. So she flew out to California to be chief cook and driver for two weeks. She took the kids to the community swimming pool every day, to doctor appointments, to Target to get their school clothes. By the time she made dinner each night, she was wiped out. But most of all, she was lonely--even though she lives alone and here she was in a house full of people and the bustle and spats of pre-teen and early-teen children. Her email to me said it all: "How I miss my little house and my daily regime." 

Why do we feel the longing for home? I ask myself that when I am at my children's homes. I want nothing more than to be helpful; I love my grandchildren and they are well-behaved. And yet, something there is that wants to be surrounded by your own things and the routine of your own life. It is a contradiction in reason. It makes me wonder how much my mother liked her visits here.