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

Vacation Togetherness: Go big to avoid bad vibes

"If it isn't one thing--it's another! It's always something.” Thus spake Gilda Radnor (SNL circa 1970s) as Roseanna Roseanadana. I think of that line now as summer vacations loom.  Some of us may loll on beaches or travel the country without our children and grandchildren. Others of us, though, are planning intergenerational get-togethers. In today's new normal, we may find our vacations afflicted by canceled flights, positive Covid readings or last-minute schedules/obligations of our adult children, their spouses or their children.

We can't control any of the above. But there is stuff we can. One of them is space. If we're picking up the tab for an oceanside beach house, a chalet in the mountains or a campsite in the woods, think big. Rent as spacious a place as you can afford. There's nothing like enough bedrooms to go around or an extra alcove where someone can chill out and take the edge off the inevitable stress of being together on a family vacation.

I make this point in a previous post on family vacations  and in an article that ran in Next Avenue. More recently, I'm backed up on the space issue by Karl Pillemer, a sociologist and gerontologist at Cornell whose research focuses on intergenerational relations.  In a piece in the NYTimes, Pillemer suggests physical distance is important in reducing family tensions. While he is addressing the stresses of holiday visits, what he says about "taking some space" is relevant to vacations as well. "The goal is to focus on underreacting--and stepping away when you need a break."

paintings: Henri Matisse

 

Observation: Michelle Singletary on adult children still living at home

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about a relatively new trend: Our adult children--college graduates and/or employed adults in their 20s--have been moving back home and staying there for longer than, say, we would have at their age.  Since my children have long grown and flown, mine was an observational piece about economic pressures as a possible cause.

More recently, Michelle Singletary, the Washington Post's "Color of Money" columnist, put a more personal face on the phenomenon. Her 20-something children, she writes,

"all live at home, and, despite it being the smartest move in a high-cost area, they often feel the need to explain their living situation to avoid the twisted lips of condemnation that they should be more financially independent."

As a parent, Singeltary wonders if those twisted lips are pushing young adults too hard to meet certain money milestones.  AS part of her argument, Singletary notes that in a previous column addressing financial tips for graduates, she had laid out the path as she saw it for reaching financial independence. Hers was an unhurried one. The more recent column carries readers reactions to her tips. Several wrote to disagree with her suggestions, which ranged from holding back on buying a house and tackling college debt before putting money into savings to realizing that debt can be destructive if overused.

Singletary closes out the back-and-forth discussion with a quote from a 28-year-old reader:

"From my perspective, it's helpful to hear the wide-ranging perspectives folks have about these hot-button topics. I have always thought of personal finance as very cut-and-dry as if there was only one right way to do things. But there is a laundry list of learnings of what's not the best idea. Finance isn't always so cut-and-dry."

And neither is the decision for a young adult to move back home till they've got the wherewithal to move out and on.

painting: Pierre Bonnard, "The Conversation."