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

Nevermind the Legacy: We should spend our retirement money on ourselves. All of it.

 

 

The headline was as bold as it was brassy: Parents, the Children Will Be Fine. Spend Their Inheritance Now.

The story itself takes us --parents of grown children--to task for wanting to save some of our nest egg for our children. As in, we "cling to an intention to leave something behind." This devotion, we're told, "may also be the height of foolishness."

Here's the rationale: After we've spent nearly two decades investing tens of thousands of dollars to rear and educate each of our children (and for an increasing number of us, backstopping our kids who are not quite financially independent), we should not feel obligated to provide even more money for them. We would do better to spend our retirement money in the here and now--either creating meaningful memories with our grown kids and their kids or on top-notch care that can make our elder years more comfortable and graceful.

Nor do most of our kids want us to save our money for them. According to recent research, if we were to ask our grown children about whether they are counting on an inheritance, the answer is likely to be no. In an article that the journal The Gerontologist published last year, Kyungmin Kim and four colleagues polled both older Americans and their adult children about whether they expected to leave or receive an inheritance.

The results: Among the parents (ages 59 to 96), 86.2 percent expected to leave a bequest. But just 44.6 percent of the children (ages 40 to 60), thought they would get one.

There was this P.S. to the stats: "Although bequest decisions are circumscribed by parent's financial resources, our findings suggest that they are also a continuation of established patterns of exchanges."

Another survey in 2014 by the Insured Retirement Institute found that our expectations about bequests had changed. Today, only 46 percent of boomer-age parents believe it’s important to leave an inheritance to loved ones. In the past, that figure was closer to two-thirds.

Of course, there's no saying how much that bequest--expected or unexpected--might be. It might be all that's left after we've spent what we could on ourselves (and the memorable moments)--and ran out of time to spend it all.

 

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Emerging Adults: The impolite way they treat us is not necessarily the way--or who--they are

We are waiting for our Southwest Airlines flight to be called, B boarding passes in hand. As the flight manager calls for passengers with A passes, a family kerfuffle is unfolding in front of us. A mom and dad stand up to take their place in the A line but the son--an early 20-something--is immersed in his smart phone. The mom tries to prod him along. "Don't you want a window seat?" she asks. "It's time to get on line so you can get one." There is no move to stand up and join his parents. Eyes are on his device, thumbs are flying. The exasperated Mom harrumphs off with a parting shot: "Well, you're old enough to take care of yourself."

I lose track of the little drama. Paterfamilias and I are too immersed in managing our own travel--the roll aboard bags, the extra parcel of gifts for grandchildren, the sack with lunch sandwiches to eat on board. When the B's are called, we board and struggle down the airplane's narrow aisle with all our encumbrances. Spotting two seats together--a middle and an aisle--we pile luggage and winter coats into the overhead and I plop down in the middle seat. There at the window sits the 20-something from the pre-board family kerfuffle. He has managed on his own! And yes, he is still immersed in his device. I sneak a peak--is that Candy Crush on his screen? As I settle my belongings, I accidentally knock my elbow into his arm and apologize. He is impeccably courteous. No problem, he assures me. We have a mini-chat: I ask if he is flying home and he says no, on vacation, and returns the question. I get no surly lip; no leave-me-alone glare.

Oh it is so nice not to be the parents and live through this post-adolescent phase of growing pains:The pushing us away; the preference for the company of anyone or anything but us; the seeming sureness that they know more than we do. 

I have this instinct (fortunately repressed) to locate his parents and assure them that when he's on his own, he can not only manage to get a seat he prefers, he can also be polite and pleasant--everything they undoubtedly hope he'll be but fear he's not. Having been there, lived through that, I want to tell them: this too will pass. But not quite yet.

With that, I rely on words often attributed to Mark Twain:

"When I was seventeen, I could scarcely endure my father, the old gentleman was so ignorant; at  twenty-five I was astonished at the improvement he had made in the last eight years."

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Leaving a legacy: A mantra for cleaning, clearing out the closets. Basements, too

Leaving a legacy: A mantra for cleaning, clearing out the closets. Basements, too

 

In her blog After the Kids Leave, Karen Irving writes about downsizing in preparation to a move to smaller quarters. Clearing stuff up, cleaning it out: This is something about which many of us have thought, fantasized, made decisions or delayed decisions. In previous posts on Leaving a Legacy, I've written that cleaned and cleared closets (whether or not we're moving) are part of the legacy we leave our grown children and grandchildren--the gift is that it's something they won't have to do for us.

In her post on tips for downsizing, Karen takes note of a guiding principle, thanks to William Morris, propounder of the English Arts and Crafts school of decoration. His words--her mantra and now mine as well: “Keep nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

As I tackle the mess of stuff in my basement and try to de-clutter my living spaces, I am tacking on an additional point to the Morris dictum: Check first with your grown children before tossing anything out--photographs, letters, figurines, decorative boxes or century-old baby shoes. There might be items they treasure for sentimental or other reasons. It's okay to store if for them; just be sure they will be willing to haul those treasures away when the final cleaning and clearing takes place.

 

 

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Social Media R Us: Staying in touch with our kids, Part 2

 

Following up on yesterday's post on opening many lines of communication to stay in touch with our grown kids, there's this new Pew report

Pew's research suggests we--parents of grown children--are keeping up with the times and opening lots of avenues of communication with our iEverything (All-Thumbs) children.

Here's one excerpt from the report:

Facebook continues to be the most popular social media site, but its membership saw little change from 2013. The one notable exception is older adults: For the first time in Pew Research findings, more than half (56%) of internet users ages 65 and older use Facebook. Overall, 71% of internet users are on Facebook, a proportion that represents no change from August 2013.

Every other social media platform measured saw significant growth between 2013 and 2014. Instagram not only increased its overall user figure by nine percentage points, but also saw significant growth in almost every demographic group. LinkedIn continued to grow among groups with which it was already popular, such as professionals and college graduates, while Twitter and Pinterest saw increases in usership across a variety of demographic groups.

And some other data of note:

Fully 52% of internet users are on two or more social media sites. There’s wide overlap between users of different platforms.

Onward and upward with ways to stay in touch.

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Social Media Etiquette: The many ways to stay in touch with the grown kids

 

Uber son was looking for advice about where to stay/what to do on a family trip to Williamsbrg, a place we used to visit with him and his sister when they were little kids. Did he call to ask me or his dad? No he did not. He posted the request on his Facebook page. We could add our advice if we had any.

Wondering what costumes the toddler-sized Grands wore on Halloween? No need to ask the parents: Check their Instagram account.

We may complain that social media communication distances us from our grown kids--they seem so much less personal than a phone call--but we might be wrong. 

We could improve our relationships with our grown children--the young adults--if we communicate with them through a variety of channels, according to a recent study. Research from the University of Kansas tells us that the relationship satisfaction our emerging-adult kids have with us, their parents, is modestly influenced by the number of communication tools we use to communicate with them. Think: cell phones, email, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, texting. 

Here's how the study worked:Jennifer Schon, a doctoral student at UK, had 367 adults between the ages of 18 and 29 fill out a survey on what methods of communications they used to connect with their parents, how often they used the technology and how satisfied they were in their relationship with mom and dad. In most relationships, adding an additional channel of communication had a modest increase in relationship quality and satisfaction. On average, participants reported using about three channels to communicate with parents.

While a parent's basic communication competency--the ability to get a message across effectively and appropriately--is the best indicator for how happy the child is in the relationship (according to the research), that doesn't mean adding a new tool is necessary. Parents who are already strong communicators won't see much of a difference by adding another way to communicate, but parents who aren't might.

In particular, Schon's research points to fathers who tend to use fewer channels of communication and communicate less frequently and for shorter amounts of time. This should come as no surprise when you read the first part of the title of her research report:  "Dad Doesn't Text: Examining How Parents' Use of Information Communication Technologies Influences Satisfaction Among Emerging Adult Children."

Schon's findings are all well and good. Who doesn't want to improve the communication with their offspring--especially when those emerging adults are so busy, busy, busy pushing their parents away. But never forget the other rule of social media: Don't overdo it. No young adult wants mom or dad lurking on their Facebook page or sending them daily barrages of tweets. Moderation in all things all-thumbs.

 

Literary Insights: Alice McDermott on empty nests and backing off the control button

   In her National Book Award winning novel, Charming Billy, Alice McDermott tells a poignant tale of an Irish family and how a well-intentioned lie goes awry--a lie told to Charming Billy by his best friend. The book has nothing to do with the role of parents and their grown children, but that doesn't mean McDermott doesn't have insights on that relationship.

In this scene, the young married daughter, who has flown from the west coast to New York for Charming Billy's funeral, is staying with her dad, Billy's best friend, in the family home. It is early morning on an early spring day--the day after the funeral--and they are heading outdoors to sit on chairs on the front lawn and have a morning cup of tea together:

"She sipped from the cup. The breeze that had woken him had grown weaker in the sun, but something of the cold dawn still lingered. One did not dare say to a grown daughter, a married woman with children of her own, Are you warm enough? Do you need a sweater? Wouldn't you rather wear shoes?

He said, "You'll have to give the in-laws a call while you're here."

A kernal of self-control wisdom from Alice.

Later in the novel, Billy's sister rants about the life and role of women in a big and loving--but tradition-bound--Irish family. Addressing Billy's best friend's daughter--the one who has flown in from the west coast to spend time with her dad and the family--the older woman adds this:

"I'm sure [your dad is] glad you came in. And tomorrow you'll go out to the Island with him? Good. Your husband will manage fine, don't  worry about that. All young mothers think their kids can't survive without them, don't they? Didn't you? Soon enough you'll see. Next thing you know, they're all grown up and gone from home--isn't it the truth. Next thing you know, your house is empty again. Look at us...[names her four siblings] how many kids altogether? Fifteen, good Lord, sixteen, sixteen kids altogether and not one of them left at home, right? Thank God for that, but see what I'm saying, see how fast it goes?"

 It didn't seem to go fast when our children were young and we were in the parenting maelstrom. But looking back from the now-empty nest, how fugit the tempus.

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