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

Skype that Connection: Keeping up with family and friends far away

I thought I heard myself talking this morning. House guests (a woman my age) and her daughter-in-law (my daughter's college roommate) were in town for the Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert Sanity/Fear rally. First thing in the morning--before coffee and before making sandwiches and signs for the big day on the Mall--she [the mother] Skyped her daughter who lives in London. It was a rare chance to have the California daughter-in-law chat with the London daughter. The conversation was like a page from my own book: She was encouraging her daughter's children--her grandchildren--to say hi to Auntie Megan, to show off their Halloween costumes, to tell Auntie Megan this and tell her that. I could hear the kids--reluctant to show off on Skype--horsing around in the background. And there was BaBa [the grandma's name of choice] trying to work her will and get the grandkids to connect with the an aunt who lives far away.

The next day I Skyped my daughter so she and her roommate could chat and, too, so our grandchild could show just how adorable she is. The two roommates had a wonderful visit but, of course, my Grand was, like the children in London, less than cooperative about performing for the Webcam. And I tried to work my will but, like my house guest, had to let it go.

We are what we are. We make Herculean efforts to keep up family and close-friend connections. And it's making the connection possible--not showing off the progeny--that counts.

Grandparenting: Dealing with a rude grandchild

It's true. Our grandchildren are adorable. But they can also be incredible, well, brats. A friend reports that her 7-year-old grandson was "fresh" to her--rude and disrespectful. And it was not a one-time occurence. She was reluctant to take disciplining the child into her own hands--she was a guest in her son's house--but she also felt she had to do something. "I wasn't going to take this behavior from him," she says.

So she talked directly to her son. She asked him what she should do about it if and when it happened again. Her son was direct and clear: He told her to tell her grandson that his behavior was not acceptable and that if it didn't stop, she was going to report it to his father--to give his father a "bad report" about him.

She tried it. It kind of worked. Even if it wasn't perfect, it beat trying to deal with the problem on her own--and risking a breach with her son and daughter-in-law over child rearing and disciplinary practices. Any interference in that realm smacks of criticism--even if it isn't meant that way.

Money Matters: The perils of lending your child money to start a business.

Here's how the father put it: “It was an investment my wife and I made because we think that’s what parents do. Parents help their children.”

The father happened to be Nathan Deal, who is running for governor of Georgia. He and his wife lent their daughter and son-in-law $2 million to open a sporting goods store. Then they doubled down by guaranteeing bank debt worth another $2 million.

The investment soured; the store failed. And because Deal was in the middle of a campaign, all the facts about his big bet on his offspring became public knowledge. The daughter and her spouse have filed for bankruptcy; Deal and his wife are scrambling to avoid that particular ignominy. The losing investment was used against him in the campaign--as a challenge to his fiscal competence.

The road to helping our children financially is pocked with pitfalls. It's hard to  turn down a grown child who has a good idea for setting themselves up in a good business--especially if we can afford it. 

And perhaps that's the underlying point here. As Ron Lieber of the New York TImes points out in article he wrote on the matter, the first principle of financial planning is this: "Never invest more than you can afford to lose. The Deals may well avoid bankruptcy by cashing out retirement accounts and selling one of their homes and other land. But they clearly stretched the definition of “afford” in this instance."

The other principles include checking out the business plan and asking the same questions of your children that you would of any business you were thinking of ivnesting in. Another tip: invest in phases. That can instill discipline.

Given the financial perils Deal and his wife now face, Lieber's final line is worth remembering: "Nobody should ever put themselves in this position if they can possibly help it, no matter how much they love their children."

 

Vacationing Together: The Daddy Indulgence Curve

Back in the day when my children were moving through their college and post-grad years, a colleague at work used to tease me about the many ways Paterfamilias and I made life easier for our grown children--things we did for them that her parents had never done for her. She loved to refer to Paterfamilias as "daddy indulgence."

More recently, I was thinking about her phrase when I was called by a reporter from SmartMoney about a story she was writing about money issues revolving around vacations with grown children. It struck me that as long as we've had children--that is, since they've been babies--we've taken them on vacation with us. It wasn't until they were college age and older that the idea of their paying for all or a piece of that vacation crossed anyone's mind. Certainly, in those post-college years when our children had yet to get career jobs--or were in graduate school--there was no question about who the deep pockets were and who would pay for vacation. If they would deign to join us--skiing over the Christmas holidays or hiking in Vermont in the summer--we would foot the bill. Any significant others on the scene would join us free of charge--that is, they'd bunk in with our kids--but would pay for their own incidentals, such as ski tickets and beer. That was the high point on the daddy indulgence curve. If we didn't indulge, they couldn't afford to join us. And we preferred to have them along.

But when does the Daddy Indulgence curve start to dip down? And how do you get there? Certainly, by the time grown children are in their prime earning years, they should be paying their own way--and we should be making sure that any joint vacation plans are within their means. But there are several years between post-grad and prime.  Do you start by splitting the rent on a condo, having them pay their own airfare to wherever it is you're going, letting them buy groceries? And what if one grown child is more in a position to take on a fair share of the vacation costs but the other isn't? The Daddy Indulgence Curve does not arc smoothly or make a perfect bell. It can live on the rise for one child and his or her family but dip for the other. And how does that make each grown child feel--both the ones who still need a subsidy and those who can pay their own way.

Any one else out there with some experience on the Daddy Indulgence Curve? Can you share how you've handled the ups and downs?

Parenting as a Grandparent: New parents feel their way toward appreciating your help.

I checked in with Mom Oasis--I had commented on one of the talking points the host posted and wanted to follow the string. It was worth the trip over. The subject was "How do you balance needing help from your parents with your own desire for independence?" We all know how we feel about providing that extra measure of wisdom, comfort, helping hands and shared love for their child/your grandchild. What's less clear from our side of the parenting equation is, how do they feel? So here was a chance for some first-hand information.

I found one comment particularly insightful, coming as it did from a grateful recipient of grown-child parenting and grandparenting. The key point for me was this comment: "I went through a long period where I felt I had to prove myself and felt weak if I called upon my parents for help.  Now I am at peace with their involvement [and] so appreciative of their role in raising my children."

We should all be so lucky to have our children feel so positively about our role in their lives. But clearly, this young mother didn't get to her appreciation point easily. I take this as a reminder that there are times when we have to stand back--but still stand in there.

 

Proud Parents: Celebrating a Grown Child's Success

I read my friend Pat's email with delight--I knew just what she was feeling. Her grown daughter had just launched a Web site--momoasis.com--and she was spreading the word. Isn't that what we do: encourage, support, let others know (without bragging, of course) when our grown child has done something noteworthy or interesting.

Then I went up on the site. It's written for the harried mom in the midst of her child rearing years. It isn't about parenting so much as it's about finding a moment of calm in the storm, of figuring out how to take care of yourself while you're still busy taking care of others. Or as the author's blogger-in-chief put it, "Mom Oasis was created as a calm and pleasant place to go to as a brief respite from the hectic, isolating world of motherhood.  Many sites reach out to provide moms with help for their children's emotional issues (tantrums, sleeplessness) but there are few that address those of mom."

While those pressures have lessened for parents of grown children, they haven't disappeared. Some of us are still loaded with responsibilities--caring for an aging parent, working full time, maintaining house and home, being a responsive spouse and friend, keeping up with the book club reading. We still lead busy lives and many of us need to find that precious moment for ourselves.  You might find there's something in Mom Oasis for you--or for your daughter. I did--and not because Pat is my friend.

Refilling the Nest: The unpleasantness of having grown sons home for the summer.

The first surprise is the beer. Carol and I usually have walk-and-talk lunches so asking our waitress for "the coldest beer you have" is not in the order of things. "I need to celebrate," she says by way of explanation. "Thank God they're gone."

"They" are two sons--young adults. The 20-year-old flew off to college the night before. The morning of our lunch, the 23-year-old packed up and left for a training session for his first non-summer job--as an AmeriCorps volunteer at an inner city school in a city about an hour from home. Having them in residence for the summer was exhausting--mostly because of the nagging it took to get them to do anything she wanted them to do. "Anything" covered everything from finding a summer job [neither succeeded], helping with household chores and projects, studying for graduate school exams, filling out forms for the next semester at school--you probably know the list. She found her boys to be "lazy" and spoiled--"They expect us to do everything for them without any strings attached."

Let's put her frustrating summer in perspective. The boys--young men--were 20 -somethings: "Emerging adults," according to this New York Times article by Robin Marantz Henig. "The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course," she writes, "as young people remain un­tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life."

Here are the stats the author uses to back up her point: "Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s"

And that leads to this conclusion: "To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to."

And when that adjustment takes place in our home--up close and personal all summer long--it leads to a cold beer when the kids--finally--go back to school or move out to test the waters of independent life.

Money Matters: Do your grown children know where you've stashed your money?

A lot of us avoid having conversations with our children about money--how much we've put away; how we'll finance our retirement; where our investments are if, suddenly, we're no longer on the scene. It's a tough chat to have.

A friend found an unusual way to educate his daughter. Mind you, he didn't mean it as an education. Mostly, his daughter, a sophomore in college, was having a hard time finding a summer job. So he hired her. He had been meaning to use a software program to catalog and follow his financial holdings but never found the time to do it.  "I didn't necessarily want to hire an outsider to look through every nickel and dime we had," he says. So he paid her an hourly wage to do it--and to work for him and her mother on a business they run out of their home.

It worked out well. He got his financials organized. But there was a second if unintended consequence. "She now knows so much more about what we do, where our money is invested and how it comes in. And that's a good thing." 

During the summer, she also transcribed notes, did some research and was all-around helper for her parent's business. And that led to one other benefit. By paying her a regular wage, the dad says, he felt free to ask her to run errands. "If she wasn't working for us, I never would have asked her to run out to pick up a box from one address, take it to Federal Express and send it out. And, by the way, while you're on your way back, pick me up a ham and cheese on rye."