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

Leaving a Legacy: A place defines a family's values for generations to come.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my legacy to my grown children. By that I don't mean how much money Paterfamilias and I will leave them--who knows what will be left to leave should PF or I hit a serious-illness streak. I'm thinking more about what I'll leave that lets my grown children and their children know who I was and what was important to me, that little (or big) something that underscores my values, whatever wisdom I have to impart, a sense of the life I've lived.

Being a writer, I've always thought of the written word as my road to legacy. But a recent New York Times story ("In a Maine House, No Room to Waste"), held out a whole other notion. A couple in their 60s--each having grown children from previous marriages--love spending weekends on Mt. Desert Island in Maine, a place where kingfish and heron patrol the mudflats and marshes and development is sparse. When they cross the bridge onto the island and can smell the ocean, the couple said, they "roll down the windows and holler, “Yay!”   They eventually went from transient visitors to homeowners: buying and renovating a second home there, being very careful not to enlarge the home's footprint or leave any additional marks of man on the mudflats. It meant a very expensive commitment--to a home, a way of life and the marshy wilderness. They see the house as a way of leaving a legacy. They bought the house, the couple reported, "because we loved this island and we wanted to provide a way for us and our family and the other people we love to live together on this most gorgeous place on earth.”

A living legacy that says a lot about one family's values.

 

 

Rules for Parenting Grown Children: Overlook it. If you can't overlook it, forgive it.

I haven't added to my Notes to Self in well over three years. But I came across this suggestion from Susan Adcox at About.com.Grandparents: "Overlook it. If you can't overlook it, forgive it."

I take it to mean we shouldn't get hung up on our grown children's indiscretions, forgetfulness (in, say, calling us) or outright mistakes (in, say, raising our grandchildren). Life's too short--and our relationships with them too precious--to bear grudges against our grown children or insist on being RIght (see other Note to Self: It's better to be liked than right). This may not hold true for serious issues (addictions, failure to shoulder family responsibilities). There is a time and important place for Tough Love. For all the little stuff that crops up in the inter-generational life of a family however, it pays to give our grown kids a little slack. So I'm adding it to my list of Notes to Self--my little daily reminders of how to get along well with grown children and their families.

Hold that Thought: Why we temper the opinions and advice we give our grown children.

You may think you're tiptoeing around--"Walking on Eggshells," as Jane Isay, the author of a book by that name, puts it--but that may not be how we come across. My friend Pat, who describes herself as a person who says what she thinks upfront, says that after a day of babysitting--and reporting on events to her daughter--her daughter told her she shouldn't be so frank about what she's thinking. "What she doesn't know," Pat says, "is how I'm holding my tongue, not saying what I might otherwise say. I have to be very careful what I say around my grown children."

Don't we all. The great fear, I suggest to Pat, is that if we aren't careful with what we say, our grown children--children who now have adult lives and are heads of families of their own--will get so ticked off they won't speak to us again, or there will be a coldness to our relationship and that will break our hearts. She nods in agreement but she also asks, how much of a mute can you be?

In the introduction to her book, Isay recalls swapping notes with a friend about touchy incidents that they had both had with their grown children--how vulnerable they felt and how hard it was to communicate with them. Isay lays the problem to our being pioneering parents. "We're the first generation to have raised our children so permissively." Now, after cultivating the "creative" and encouraging them to express themselves, we're  stuck with the adult version of it. "Often their decisions [as adults] are not what we would have chosen--for ourselves or for them. We're at a loss to communicate our reservations, worries, and concerns, not because we can't put those feelings into words, but because the response we get often isn't pretty....the independence we worked to hard to instill in our children now feels to us like disinterest, and strong-minded youngsters sometimes grow into thoughtless adults."

Cold comfort, but all-in-the-same-boat comfort nonetheless.

 

Leaving a Legacy: Letting grownchildren in on the plan for your worldly goods.

In the French movie, Summer Hours, three forty-something siblings grow apart over how to dispose of a beloved summer home and the valuable items inside it. When their mother died, she left no specific instructions--just the hope that the place would be kept going for the next generation. I'm not giving the ending away to say that the mother's wishes go unfulfilled and that the relationship among the siblings deteriorates.

King Lear also fumbled his estate planning. He let his children know  who would get what--but not in quite the best way.

Movies and literature are filled with sad tales that surround the making or not making of plans for worldly goods. Estate planning runs amok or doesn't take place at all. While some of us have been orderly about the process--made out wills, told our children where accounts can be found. We may have skipped one important step: talking with our children about the disposal and dispersal of the lesser items.

Not that I've taken this advice myself, but I'm reminded of the need to make such arrangements--to ask my grown children who wants the piano and who would enjoy the Phyllis Plattner watercolor that hangs in the living room? Would anyone like my collection of wood, porcelain and tin cats? And what of the other things in our house--items paterfamilias and I might not prize but that may carry great sentimental value for one of them. I should gather our grown children together and do a walk-through. It needn't be gruesome. It doesn't mean we're about to leave this world. It's just a chance to put a plan in place that everybody is happy with--and avoid a post-mortem blow-up. Of course, we wouldn't be there to see the latter, but still....

In a Washington Post article, Adolf Gundersen wrote about his experience in doing just such planning with his 80-year-old parents and his siblings. The evening--his wife dubbed it a "pre-mortem"--of putting on paper what would happen when his parents were gone "combined the gravitas of a memorial service with the easy sharing of a holiday dinner. And the best part of it was that my parents were there to enjoy being the center of attention." The author and his four brothers decided what would happen to a cabin in the woods that they all loved but didn't want to manage.The get-together also touched on discussions about financial and health care planning that his parents admitted they were "weary of dealing with on their own."

Gundersen writes about some of the reasons why he, his brothers and parents waited so long to have this conversation. "Getting us kids actively and directly involved in so many facets of their lives would mean a huge role reversal....For a long time neither of them had seemed psychologically ready for such a gathering."

Depending on where we are in our life cycle, we don't necessarily have to invite our children into a full "pre-mortem" discussion. (One friend admits that her mother has a dispersal discussion with him and with each of his brothers whenever they visit. Her agenda: to find a home for her clown collection--something none of the children admire or desire.) But it wouldn't be a role-reversal for us to invite our grown children over to tell us which of our possessions they'd like to have once we no longer need them. Not that I need them to assure me that someone will keep my cat collection together.

Parenting Tensions: They may be grown ups but they can still be very irritating.

Whether they are emerging adults in their 20s, settling down in their 30s or marching into middle age of their 40s and 50s, they are still our children, and that makes them a source of great joy and of dreadful anxiety. In a 2009 study of the relationships between adult children and their parents, Kira Birditt, the lead author of a University of Michigan study, notes that the parent-child is one of the longest lasting social ties human beings establish. "This tie is often highly positive and supportive," she notes, "but it also commonly includes feelings of irritation, tension and ambivalence."

In short, the study, which was published in Psychology and Aging, found that the majority of parents and adult children experience some tension and aggravation with one another. Those tensions and aggravations, however, are harder on us than they are on them, particularly when it comes to issues regarding our children's lifestyle or behavior (finances, housekeeping). According to Birditt, we may be more upset by those tensions because we have more invested in the relationship. We're more concerned than they are about seeing them launched into successful adulthood.

Other points from the report:
--Daughters were more of a source of tension than sons, not because sons are that much easier to get along with. Rather, daughters generally have closer relationships with parents that involve more contact and that may provide more opportunities for tensions.

--When it comes to unsolicited advice, moms are more the problem than dads. "It may be that children feel their mothers make more demands for closeness," Birditt said, "or that they are generally more intrusive than fathers."

--While the years when our grown children are in their 20s are filled with a lot of unresolved issues--what careers will they have, who will they chose as a life's partner--Birditt found it surprising that parental perceptions of tension increased with the adult children's age. "Middle-aged children," she said, "may be less invested in the parent-child tie than young adult children because they're more likely to have formed their own families and experience multiple role demands."

In related, unpublished research, Birditt analyzed the way some of us cope with the relationship tensions. While most of try to accept and understand our grown child's point of view, the more intense the tension level, the less likely we or our children are to use constructive strategies and the more likely we are to yell and argue or avoid the situation entirely. 

But here's the kicker. Though many of us have learned to keep our mouth shut when we don't approve of something our adult children are doing--the way they dress or their choice of friends--Birditt suggests there are limits to such a strategy. "The old adage, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all,' isn't good advice for parents and adult children," she said. "Avoidance doesn't work as a strategy for dealing with conflicts. It appears to make things worse."

Go figure. Clomping around on the eggshells may be the healthier way to behave.

 

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Parenting Grown Children: When they're independent, the bitter-sweet news is, they no longer need us.

When our children first leave home--for college, on their first steps toward finding a career--we realize the parenting isn't over. We may not be in control, but we're a very active guidance system, back-up and safety net. We're there to encourage, share the wisdom of our experience and, if we can, lend money to get them through some of the start-up gaps. As they move along toward independence, we may be asked to give final approval on the house they want to buy or be the reassuring voice when career decisions have to be made. The parenting never ends, we tell ourselves. And yet it does. A friend, who just returned from a visit to his grown son and the son's growing family, writes:

'My son has been successful in building a career and in his personal life. He's got a good family--my grandchildren are great; he's got a supportive wife and a nice house. They're a very close-knit family--they love each other and some of them love us, too.  But my son doesn't need us anymore. His life is so intense--his career, the kids soccer and school, his wife's career--and absorbing that we are a side light. They're happy to see us. They were welcoming on this visit. But we're an adjunct, and it's painful.

I think back to when I was my son's age. I was driven to succeed. I didn't call my father as often as I should have. I loved him--he was my hero--but I didn't make efforts to keep him in my life. So I shouldn't be sur[prised that now my son is doing the same thing. It's great to see how inter-connected his family is and how well he's doing. But the visits are bittersweet."

In her book, "Walking on Eggshells," author Jane Isay notes that "understanding intellectually that we are no longer at the center of our children's lives is one thing, but in our hearts our children are still primary. So when things are not the way we dreamed, we blame ourselves." 

In other words, we may understand intellectually that we are no longer at the center of our children's lives, but the reality of it is a splash of cold water--right in the choppers. It doesn't mean they love us less. They just have other people (a spouse) they are confiding in now; someone else they look to for advice. That's as it should be. It may even be a sign that we've done a good job in bringing them up. But, still, we feel less important. "I feel irrelevant," another friend told me after a week-long visit with both his grown sons and their families.

That's how many of our parents felt, too. They probably didn't get over it. We won't either. But life goes on, and so does our relationship with our grown child.

Re-Nesting: Do we put out the welcome mat or shudder at their return?

My next door neighbor has three grown children, all of them in their 20s: a recent college grad, a part-time grad student/part time legal aide and one who is starting his own business. They all live at home with their parents.

These neighbors are from Uruguay, and they see nothing unusual in having their grown children live with them. The parents even re-did their children's bedrooms to make them more inviting for an adult to live in--new furnishings, fresh paint job, upgraded bathroom.

Not many of us feel this way when our grown children come back for re-nesting. Their appearance raises questions about their ability to be independent, to launch themselves into successful careers and relationships. Their return smacks somehow of failure--and a failure that reflects on us. (And they are returning in greater numbers during the Great Recession and Great Contraction. According to the most recent Census figures, adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are living in multigenerational households at a rate not seen since 1950.)

Economic pressures aside, I'm reminded that there is a cultural divide--of welcoming grown children back home as the norm versus readmitting them with a sigh of concern--by a recent piece in the New York Times.Why Rent When You Can Nest?

The author talks about a 28-year-old friend with a good job who is living at home with his parents to save money to buy into a business. He's Russian and it feels like the smart and culturally comfortable thing to do. The author, on the other hand, says he celebrated getting his first job by "promptly signing away half my take-home pay" on rent for an apartment. He grew up, he says, "with an unspoken assumption, just as my parents had, that I would live on my own after college."

"I suspect," the writer goes on to say, "that many young American adults who have to move in with their parents feel crummy about it. Most Russian immigrants I know do not. They don’t see it as a sign of failure but as a means to achieve their financial goals more quickly."

As to the parents, The Russian parents see their son's homecoming as the natural, expected one. American parents, on the other hand, "struggle to hide their disappointment when they tell their friends that their adult children have — oh dreaded words — 'moved back in.'”