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

Grandparenting: iPad and poetry--born to be together.

The Jabberwock, Sheldon Silverstein. Ogden Nash. These were some of the highlights of a spur-of-the-moment poetry evening with a 10-year-old Grand.

Our poetry spree was kicked off when Paterfamilias tried to remember the words of that most rhythmic of sport ditties, Casey at the Bat.

       

 We had been talking to our Grand about her experiences on the soccer field and added some commentary about expectations on the field of play. PF remembered only a few of his favorite lines from the tale of how Casey, mighty Casey advanced to the bat--he and the team's fans secure in the knowledge that he would get a hit and win the game for the Mudville Nine that day. That was enough to send our son-in-law to his iPad, where he called up Ernest Thayer’s poem. PF read through the whole work, which ends with these jolting lines, “Oh somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;/The band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light, and somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;/But there is no job in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”

Our Grand then grabbed her book of Shel Silverstein poems and treated us to a reading of one of her favorites, Sick, in which a little girl who doesn’t want to go to school lists her complaints, “I have the measles and the mumps,/a gash, a rash and purple bumps.” And, like Thayer, Silverstein ends with a kicker: “What’s that? What’s that you say?/You say today is…Saturday?/G’bye I’m going out to play.”

We talked a little bit about surprise endings--how the poet raised our expectations then turned them on their head.

Could I top those works? I was not going to reach for my Wordsworth and his daffodils. I told the tale of how, when I had the job of answering Letters to the Editor for Time Magazine, a reader had written to query a Time writer's use of the description of a knife as having "a vorpal blade." That was how I learned of Lewis Carroll's delicious use of nonsense words. I wanted to share all the nonsense (the slithy tove; the frumious Bandersnatch], but I could only remember a line or two. iPad to the rescue. When the poem's narrator meets the dreaded Jabberwock, he is armed with his ever-effective vorpal blade: "'One two, One two and through and through/the vorpal blade went snicker-snack."

We talked a little bit about how Carroll didn't use a surprise ending, just a nonsense-word driven juxtaposition of vorpal-blade carnage with the a peaceful image: "'Twas brilling and the slithy toves/did gyre and gimble in the wabe..."

I didn't need the iPad to help me out with Ogden Nash's brief little couplet: "The cow is of the bovine ilk/one end is moo, the other milk." No surprise. No juxtaposition. Just silly fun.

So our poetry evening went on. We introduced our Grand to some more of our favorites--with a little memory boost from the iPad--and she let us in on hers. Light and nonsense-y though the poems were, it was a memorable evening. And it gave us a chance to talk about some of the "arts" of great writing--without making it a lecture or a heavy evening.  And it gave us a chance to share light lines that still pack some thought-provoking ideas, and to make the trip down a cultural lane a fun game of "can you top this?'

 

Monday Morning Reader: A political columnist writes about the sadness of seeing his child off to college

Sigh. The time is nigh. High schools graduates--the adolescents we put up with lo these many high school years--are now college freshman. That means they're Emerging Adults and more to the point, they are moving out from under our roof--and our control. They are taking a giant step toward independence from us. Which means they're leaving us behind.

That's what Michael Gerson writes about in a Washington Post column. He share his insights into the parental mind (his) and reminds us of some comments from professionals.

Here's some of what he has to say about the trauma he experienced and reminiscences his mind traveled on the day he dropped off his oldest son at college:

....Eighteen years is not enough. A crib is bought. Christmas trees get picked out. There is the park and lullabies and a little help with homework. The days pass uncounted, until they end. The adjustment is traumatic. My son is on the quiet side — observant, thoughtful, a practitioner of companionable silence. I’m learning how empty the quiet can be.

I know this is hard on him as well. He will be homesick, as I was (intensely) as a freshman. An education expert once told me that among the greatest fears of college students is they won’t have a room at home to return to. They want to keep a beachhead in their former life.

But with due respect to my son’s feelings, I have the worse of it. I know something he doesn’t — not quite a secret, but incomprehensible to the young. He is experiencing the adjustments that come with beginnings. His life is starting for real. I have begun the long letting go. Put another way: He has a wonderful future in which my part naturally diminishes. I have no possible future that is better without him close....

...The end of childhood, of course, can be the start of adult relationships between parents and children that are rewarding in their own way. I’m anxious to befriend my grown sons. But that hasn’t stopped the random, useless tears. I was cautioned by a high-powered Washington foreign policy expert that he had been emotionally debilitated for weeks after dropping off his daughter at college for the first time. So I feel entitled to a period of brooding.

 

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Vacationing Together: Little things make a lot of difference. So do the grandkids.

        A note from a friend who survived a recent vacation with her adult son and his young family. She hits the everyday challenges that take a toll, but not necessarily a big toll--if we keep the little things in perspective:

I love your blog about shared vacations; big bells ringing. My thoughts turn to some issues we experienced e.g. differences in daily schedules. We rise at 8, have a leisurely breakfast, read the paper,  and get going late morning; they rise at 6 or 7, have a quick breakfast and are eager to be out with the kids by 9.

We are happy to play and interact with the kids but do enjoy some time for adult talk;  they are not sure this is doable as the kids constantly interrupt and grab their attention.

We think the kids ought to be able to play by themselves without constant adult supervision; they are sure that is not the case. You know the rest.

Yes. We've been there. Experienced that--the love of late rising, that doesn't quite take into account a young family's schedule or the hours at which young grandchildren are "fresh." The yearning for adult talk--not just for adult-talk's sake (though there is some of that) but to catch up on what our adult children are thinking, how they're reacting to the problems of the world, issues in their city, challenges in their children's schools. Then there's the observation of their parenting style, which may not be--probably is not--the same as ours was. Too much/not enough supervision; not enough/too much discipline. It is not easy to watch and yet when we vacation together, that's what we end up doing. So long as we keep those observations to ourselves--and keep ourselves busy with our own amusements--we may come out of multi-generation family vacations with our family relationships in tact. 

 

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Monday Morning Reader: Elinor Lipman's insights on the joy of being the parent of a grown child

On occasional Monday mornings I post excerpts from other writers--of nonfiction as well as fiction--that offer insights into the always-challenging and often-joyous business of parenting adult children. Today's is from novelist Elinor Lipman and her book of brief and mostly light-hearted essays, I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays.

       

As Lipman herself says, the descriptive word "nice" follows her. Based on her writings, so does a certain upbeatness. One of her favorite--if not her absolute favorite--authors is humorist Max Shulman (Dobie Gillis, anyone?). She quotes him as having said about his ability to write humor, "life was bitter and I was not." As any of us who read her novels knows, that line fits her as well. I Can't Complain is a series of short and shorter memoir-style essays about family and life.

Here is her commentary on her grownchild--her son was 23 when she wrote this about the difference between parenting young children and parenting the grown up version.

"One of the great joys of the grown-up child is seeing how the essential him or her was always there. Baby versions of likes and dislikes, talents, interests, and personality traits come home to roost in fascinating ways. ....I'm not pointing out in grandparently fashion that time flies, that your little ones grow up in the blink of an eye, so cherish every moment. You've heard them. This is me saying you have a lot to look forward to--not just the tuition-free, post-orthodontic, babysitterless side of parenthood, but the company it keeps: your grown-up child. My friends with small children have asked me, "What's it like when they no longer crawl into your lap? When the hugging and kissing get shrugged away? Don't you miss the baby?

Yes we do....But then the big boy calls, and the rosy glow changes direction to the here and now. Lovely surprises await you, too. A big strapping guy! A witty friend! A voter! A tech-support hotline! An adviser, a guide, a conscience.

A pride and joy."

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Boomerang Children: A strategy for emptying the nest

Some of us go with the flow when our grown kids move home with us--especially if they're recent graduates and are trying to gain footing in the work world. A neighbor whose son went to cooking school (to study the glorious culinary arts) loves having his son at home: When the son cooks dinner--and he does so a few times a week--the meals are sensational.

But more of us find the experience frustrating: too up-close with adolescent habits they have yet to shed and with adult ways we're not ready to deal with. For some of us, the experience is financially draining: We're spending money on our adult children that we should be squirreling away for retirement. That is the point Barbara Torris makes in her blog Retire In Style.

She has proposed a solution: downsize. Sell [or rent] the house you brought you kids up in and move into something smaller that doesn't necessarily have room for an extra grown up.

Here's a fuller explanation of the theory from the Retire in Style post:

"Many mid-life and retired people are downsizing so that, when the children need help, coming home to live will not be a choice. They know it would not be a happy situation for them. Interesting huh?

"Could it be people are saving enough money by downsizing so they are able to help children in trouble but not make them dependent on them totally? The family remains on good terms and the children continue to mature and be self reliant. Helping pay part of the grown child's rent is a lot different than them coming home to live rent-free. The child could still be responsible for most of the cost and be forced to live within their means."

Just throwing the idea out there, as was RetireInStyle.

In case you're wondering who--daughters? sons?--is boomeranging back home, there's this recent finding from Pew Research.

Pew Research Center Notes: “Living at home” refers to an adult who is the child or stepchild of the head of the household, regardless of the adult’s marital status. Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of March 2012 Current Population Survey Integrated Public Use Micro Sample.

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Social Media Etiquette: Logging onto a grown child's site? Keep your footprint light.

Oh for the good old days when the telephone was the main means of communication with our grown children. What we said to them was between them and us--and if we slipped and said something untoward, we could apologize there and then or by calling them back later.

         Now, many of us learn what our kids are up to by checking in on their Facebook page (if they've allowed us to be friended by them), signing up for their Twitter account (we don't need their permission), or peeping in on their Instagram or Pinterest postings. (see chart below for our "social media usage" growth rates.) We can also use those sites to interact just as we would with a phone call, only now everything we "say" is public--and potentially embarrassing or worse.

Here's a case in point from a Philip Galanes Social Q's column in the New York Times. 

I am a college student and an aspiring fashion designer. Recently, I started a fashion blog to draw attention to my work and share ideas about what people are wearing. My problem: The first (and sometimes only) people to comment on my blog posts are my father and mother. “We’re so proud of you, honey!” “Good job, Susie-Q!” They make me feel like an 8-year-old. I told them nicely that I would prefer they not comment on my posts, which only hurt their feelings. Was I wrong?

Galanes is the most understanding of responders. He understand us as well as them. What he told Susie-Qs parents holds true for responses on a Facebook page as well as other sites.

"Ah, what puts a spring in my step like falling on the youthful side of a generation gap? I feel your pain, Susie-Q. But your parents are only trying to be supportive. (In their hearts, they would probably like nothing more than for you to drop out of fashion school and take a job at Goldman Sachs, so you could pay your own rent and therapy bills.) Go easy on them.

What they don’t understand is that your blog is a newfangled extension of the workplace. It’s your cyber-office and shouldn’t feel like a preschool T-ball game. “Go, Susie!” So, explain it to them. They would never bust into your boss’s office to complain about a middling performance review. Say: “I’d love to hear your feedback over dinner or e-mail. But I want my blog to be professional, and that means no parental cheerleading.” They’ll knock it off. They grow up so fast, if we let them."

Amen. We may be etiquettely challenged, but an August 2013 Pew Internet & American Life Project  survey shows we (the parents of grown children) are growing are using social media in increasing numbers. Here's Pew's latest chart--note that we in the plus-50 groups are totally with it (or whatever the appropriate social media terminology for "with it" is.)

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Family Vacations: Grownchildren may find too much togetherness a trial

I thought I understood what Uber Son was saying. After a decade of family-togetherness vacations in Vermont, he wanted a piece of the time in Vermont for himself and his small family--a time that did not include his parents and his sibling and her family. His children's lives are so tightly programmed all year long--soccer games, piano lessons, gymnastic classes, play dates time three children going to three different schools. He just wanted time and space to do nothing together--to not have to be anywhere at any particular time, to be totally unscheduled and unpressured.

That wasn't what he was getting on this year's vacation. Although he had made this particular need known during the spring when vacation plans were being made, somehow the scheduling for various arrivals got boloxed up--by me, the central planner who tried to meet the disparate needs and overlapping vacation dates of both of my grown children. So Uber Son only had five days before the hordes descended--into a separate condo to be sure but still a presence and a pressure for the cousins to do things together, for his family of three kids to absorb his sister's family of one child, for negotiations with everyone on what hikes, bikes or swims we would take and for debates about what to cook for dinner for 10.

He seemed to be making the best of it. Many good times were had by all. But on the last day, he suggested we take a walk. That's when he let me know just unhappy he was about the intrusion--the mix-up on arrival dates (he had set his, we kept changing ours) and the central planning that overrode his needs and the plans he had made for 'alone' time. I assured him I understood, that Central Planning was on the case. It would not happen next year.

And it won't. But did I really understand? It's one thing to accede to a request and another to comprehend the complex layers that drive it and to not experience it as a rejection of the rest of the family. 

Then came this comment posted on this blog by a reader a few days ago in response to a previous post on family vacations.Among the key points she made:

"It is unhealthy not to realize that your children are grown adults with families and traditions of their own."

"Forcing togetherness and pretending like we are all still living in 1978 under one roof is foolish. It doesn't allow for who we have become or recognize that our significant others didn't marry our siblings or parents for that matter."

"Having a good relationship with in laws requires mutual respect and crossing boundaries and invading vacation time is not respectful."

"If you want to drive your children away keep on forcing together time."

I can't say I saw myself in all her points, but the idea that each of my children want to have "families and traditions of their own" hit home. And so did her point about "invading vacation time."

In short, I was viewing these vacations from my perspective: my desire to have the family together, for the cousins and the grown kids to bond and for me to enjoy the sight of it. There is something primal here: if they spend these happy vacation times together (my children do not live near each other or near me) they would be there for each other when we parents no longer are.

But the truth is, Paterfamilias and I would not have put up with such invasions from our parents. So why should ours put up with it from us? So thank you, commenting reader. It is sometimes easier to "hear" a different point of view when it's made by a third party--in this case, by a total outsider.

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