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

Breaking Up: When a son's love story goes kaput, what have you got to lose?

It happened so quickly. One day Barbara's grown son and his live-in girlfriend were sparring and snapping at eachother, and the next, she was gone. She moved back to the small town where her parents lived--taking her seven-year-old daughter, Chrissie, with her.

And it's Chrissie that has been weighing on Barbara. Chrissie is not her grandchild--she's the child of the girlfriend and the girlfriend's former husband. But during the four years her son and the young mother were a couple, Barbara grew attached Chrissie. She'd been thrilled to introduce her to the Nutcracker ballet and to take her to Disneyland. Since her son lived several hours away, Barbara had set up a nook in her house filled with stuffed animals, children's books and toys for those times when the couple came to visit.

When the mother moved out and away, Chrissie was gone from Barbara's life--without so much as a goodbye or an explanation of why Barbara and her husband were no longer going to be around for her. "We just disappeared from her life," Barbara says. "Poof, and we were gone."

Unlike grandparents who are linked into the custody rights of their child when there is a divorce, Barbara had no standing to see Chrissie. One day this summer, Barbara realized Chrissie's 7th birthday was a few days away. She called her son to ask if it was okay if she sent a birthday card. And this was the unpleasant dose of reality for Barbara. He was emphatic in asking her not to. Chrissie's mother was harrassing him with nasty phone calls. A card from Barbara would only inflame matters.

Barbara understands. She knows the relationship between her son and Chrissie's mother had become an unhealthy one and that he had to move on. And yet she feels a loss. It's hard to let go of those powerful feelings for a small child. "Friends warn you, don't get attached to your child's girlfriend or boyfriend," she says. Fine advice, but how do you not? And why is that attachment so different from one that would take place if the couple were married. Breakups are breakups--whether they are official [a divorce] or unofficial [moving out]. Breaking up is hard to do--and it's equally hard on the parents of the disillusioned couple. With no blood ties, you don't get to say goodbye--even to a seven-year-old.

 

Holiday Fatigue: Help wanted at Thanksgiving feasts.

My dentist was and wasn't looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. Her back has been bothering her and the idea of making a huge Thanksgiving dinner--family tradition calls for everything to be home made--was tiring in itself. And she knew she would get little to no help from her son and his wife, who come for the lavish meal and stay on for an overnight visit--with their four small children.

Whew. I'm tired just thinking of all that work. She has to get all those beds ready, stock the fridge not only for Thanksgiving dinner but for meals the next day. Her son occasionally helps a little with clean up but her daughter in law, she says, considers the trip to "grandma's" house a vacation.

"I understand that," says my dentist. "She's got four small children and she's home schooling them. She offers to bring something but I don't feel i can ask." What my dentist would really like is not an extra pumpkin bread but to be able to keep her seat when the meal is done and have her grown children pitch in to clean up.

How do we ask for what we need? Are we afraid of asking too much from our adult children? Or are we so used to doing everything ourselves that, comes the day when that gets difficult to do [the back hurts; so does the wrist], we don't know how to turn things over to others?

Sibling Spat: Thanksgiving brings a quarrel home

A grown-up brother and adult sister have quarreled. The rift had to do with the responsbilities they had to each other--and a misreading of exactly what those were. They ended up not talking to each other, and it has gone on for months now--despite another brother's attempt to be peacemaker. "They both ended up angry at him," says the mom of that failed effort.

The father is unworried about the tiff. His theory: Time will heal the wounds. They won't stay mad at each other forever.

The mother is not so sure. She sees the rift growing worse each day--the brother and sister now refuse to be in the same room as each other. The daughter, who is currently living at home, made one gesture at reconciliation. It was rebuffed, and that has refueled her anger.

Now the holidays are rolling around. Thanksgiving is a dinner the mother has always made and, in recent, years, it's been one of a few special times each year when everyone--the daughter, the two married brothers, their wives and their children--get together. The daughter has let her mother know that she will absent herself if the brother with whom she is quarreling is at the Thanksgiving dinner.

What's a mom to do? She could invite everyone: throw the chips up in the air and hope for the best. But she knows that will not work. She is sick at heart and disturbed by a wrenching choice: Invite the son or the daughter.

She has swallowed hard and made an executive decision: The quarreling son will not be invited. Her reasoning: He'll be taken care of on Thanksgiving Day. He has his wife's family to be with. The pain of the family separation will be all hers.

Home Visit: The bitter-sweetness of Auf Wiedersehen

The week long visit is over. Alpha daughter has left, returning to husband and child and their home in Germany. We'll go see her in a few months, and she'll be moving back to this country this summer. Meanwhile, we have Skype and email to stay connected. And yet, we are teary-eyed to see her go.

Paterfamilias is in touch with his feelings on this one. The visit, he says, is bittersweet. Having her come home without husband and child [what he refers to non-pejoratively as her 'adult baggage'] triggers the vibrations of the child-rearing years. We are long past that phase of parenting, but for the past week we have "relived" those vibes. We were able to re-connect with our daughter as an individual, rather than as part of her own growing family. She is here for a conference, and we get to hear about the people she's met, the papers that have been presented, where her work fits into the scheme of things. We learn subtleties about where she is in her career, what she's working on, what plans she has for the future. We have uninterrupted conversations we are not able to have when her young family is around.

Now she is leaving, and that brings the bittersweet to a head. "We want to see her blossoming, to see her career taking off," PF tells me, trying to reassure both of us. "We bring our children up to fly away. When they come back for a visit and then go off, we feel that separation all over again."

I recall other partings, times when I would visit her when she lived three time zones away on the other coast. Her child--one of my precious Grands--was a baby; she and h er husband were struggling to get their careers going; their day-to-day life seemed overwhelming. At the end of the visit, I would sit in the back of the taxi taking me to the airport and sob, wishing I could stay there to help her but knowing it was not my job anymore.

I tell PF, there's a reason for the expression, Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Money Matters: The bonus when you let a light shine on your financials

A little while ago, I blogged about a friend whose college-age daughter needed a summer job. He gave her one. One of her chores was to put the family financials into a software program. Not only did this get a time-consuming job off his hands, but it also served as a Baedeker for his daughter: Now she knows what her self-employed parents earn, what savings they have, where their investments are--in short, how they handle their money. And that has come back not to bite them but to provide a bonus.

The dad reports that, since he and his wife are in business together, they have a corporate American Express credit card, and having a corporate card means they can get extra cards. So when his children went off to college, they gave them Amex corporate cards to use in an emergency. "When they called home and needed something, the easiest thing to say was, use the American Express card," the dad says. "But that meant that when we had to figure out our taxes, we had to go through the Amex statement and subtract out the charges they had made." The latter was part of what his daughter did this summer. So when she called the other day in need of money for a legitimate online purchase, the dad told her, as he usually did, to use the Amex card.  "But she didn't want to do it," he says. "She told me it makes a mess of the financial books. She asked for another card number."

She has, this dad concludes, "become the guardian of our trusts." That's a pretty good result from sharing the details of your financial data with your grown-up children.

 

Home Visit: It's a special occasion when you have alone time with your adult child.

Paterfamilias and I were exchanging smiles of contentment. "It feels so nice," PF says to me, "just to have her in the house again."

Alpha daughter has come home for a week--to attend a two-day conference and do some research. Her first day home is devoted to recovering from jet lag--she's been living in Germany for the year-- and preparing her presentation for a conference panel. PF and I work on our own projects, but there is time for a quick lunch together, an afternoon cup of tea, and dinner. What a treat. Without her family in tow, we are able to enjoy the one-on-one fullness of her presence. Our conversations take a different direction than when husband and child are present. Not necessarily better--but more familial and more direct. No doubt about it, it is a treat to have our daughter to ourselves, even if it's only a few days.

A few hours will do it as well. Last Spring, Uber son was in town unexpectedly--another panel at another conference (thanks be for panels)--and we were able to squeeze in dinner together before his flight home. There we were, talking about family, who was doing what and conversing one-on-one--no interruptions from anyone but the waiter.

These moments of togetherness are not exactly a step back in time--our children are grown up with families, careers and big-time responsibilities, and that's some of what we talk about. We love our grandchildren and our children's spouses. But these visits are a fleeting and precious moment in time when we don't have to share our children with anyone. 

 

Grandparenting: Finding the line on discipline

When grandparents visit their grandchildren--whether it's for a day or weekend--the line on discipline is clear: The parents are in charge. Grammie and Grumps keep their mouths shut. If it's not a safety issue, it goes directly to the parents. And when grandchildren stay with you while their parents vacation, the line is also clear: Grammie and Grumps Rule.

But when the grandkid and your grown child visit you in your house for an extended period--or move in for economic or family reasons--where does the line of discipline land? After all, they're living in your house for more than an overnight. You have certain rules (no bathroom noises at the table, no bouncing balls in the living room) and if the parent is distracted or out doing whatever it is they came to your house to do [go to a conference; find a new job] are you the Disciplinarian In Residence?. Do you want to be?

It's a tricky issue. If your grown child is there for an extended period of time--say a few months--then it makes sense to sit down and clarify the disciplinary issues--what the rules are; who's the enforcer. But if it's only for a week or two, is a meeting and clarification necessary? And who knows in advance what issues are going to come up? If a child doesn't want to go to school or camp in the morning, whose job is it to work that out? It's not an easy call since the issue tends to rise like a sudden thunderstorm, and there's no time to coordinate responses--just time to run for cover. 

Pain, Powerlessness and Parenting: A perspective on your view of your grown children

I'm a little behind on my Fresh Air interviews. The one I recently beamed up is an April 2010 replay of Terry Gross's 2006 interview with Dan Gottlieb. Gottlieb is a psychologist with a radio show on WHYY in Philadelphia. He's a man in his 60s who has been a quadriplegic for about thirty years due to a car-accident injury.

The interview covered his perspective on living one's life, a view of his life he had recently put into words in a 2006 book, "Letters to Sam," and, in 2010, a sequel to that book, "The Wisdom of Sam." Sam is his grandson--a child who has been diagnosed with autism.

If you're still with me here, I want to share with you something Gottlieb said about being the parent of a grown child who's going through difficult times. The story Gottlieb tells Terry Gross is about a conversation with his aging father: 

"As he got older, he used to say: 'I'm ready to leave this vale of tears.' And I said to him, 'Dad, is your life that bad that you're really ready to go?' And he said, 'some days.' I said, 'Well, tell me about those days.'  He said, 'Well, I get to thinking, my wife is gone; my daughter is gone'--my sister had died five years earlier--'and here's my son, struggling through life every day in a wheelchair.' He said, 'Those days, I'm ready to go.'

"I said,' But Dad, those things are true every day. Tell me about the days you're not ready to go.' He says, '[Those days] I'm not thinking about those things.' It's all perspective. It's all where your mind lands, is how you read your life and how you experience it."

Gottlieb then went on to quote a respected psychologist, Sheldon Kopp. And it's that paraphrased quote--and the perspective Gottlieb's father's story gives it--that resonates with parents of grown children when one of those children loses a job, goes through a divorce or suffers through one of life's other perils: "The most difficult part of love is dealing with your helplessness in the face of a loved one suffering."