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

On Estrangement: Joshua Coleman's counsel on reconciling with an adult child

What could be more painful than a deep and long-lasting rift with one's adult child? How does one bridge that gap?

 Joshua Coleman, a practicing psychologist who also researches estrangement preaches reconciliation. A key point he makes for parents in search of such a solution is for the parent to step up and make amends:

Parents are often confused by this recommendation, believing that making amends is the same as completely endorsing the child’s perspective. While sometimes that is required, more often amends should be viewed as a starting point; a frank recognition that there is something deeply wrong in the relationship with the parent that needs addressing.

How to go about it? Here's what Coleman advises his patients:

I encourage them to write a letter stating, “I know you wouldn’t have cut off contact unless you felt like it was the healthiest thing for you to do.” I say this because it’s true from the adult child’s perspective — even if not from the parent’s — and because it communicates the parent’s wish to understand and heal the distance.

...Yet, even if the cause of the estrangement lies more in the child than the parent, amends are still necessary from the parent to begin a conversation of repair. You don’t have to agree with your child to make amends. It’s about humility, not humiliation. While I don’t presume that a child’s perspective on their parent is accurate, I also don’t assume that a parent’s perspective on their child is either. We all have our blind spots.

For those interested in Coleman's line of thinking, his newest book is  “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict.”

credit: painting by Bonnard

Grandparenting: Do our kids want our advice about how to raise their kids?

The question does not call for a "man bites dog" answer. Most of our adult children who are raising their own children do not want to be bombarded with our parenting advice. Not because our advice has no value. It's because they no longer want to be parented. They're the parents now! They'll ask if they have a question.

That said, I was struck by an advice column from Sahaj Kaur Kohli. She's a therapist who focuses on people with immigrant parents and on setting boundaries with parents. Here's what she told one reader who wrote about a parent who insisted on giving advice about how she, the adult daughter, was raising her child.

I'm offering up this commentary in that it may be the other side of the coin for those of us who complain to advice columnists--and to our friends--that our children are pushing us away, that they are limiting visits or not taking our phone calls. It's about how it feels to be on the other side of the relationship where boundaries are not observed or respected. With that in mind, here's an edited version of Sahaj's advice to a young woman (she signs herself "resisting daughter") with a parent second-guessing the way she and her partner are raising their child. She wants to stay connected to her parents but does not want to raise her children the way her parents raised her.

.... It doesn’t matter if you’re an independent adult, and it certainly doesn’t matter if you’re a parent yourself. To your mom, you’re the child and she’s the adult. She raised you, and you turned out fine. She has been through it, so she knows better. ...

This dynamic is incredibly hard to change especially when your mom may wrap her identity around her role as your parent.

So what's the solution Sahaj offers?

.... You may not be able to change your mom, but you can change how you respond and engage with her, and manage how her behavior affects you.

....Instead of trying to get her to agree with all of your choices, you can focus on how long you visit her, or how you respond and engage with her — especially because your kids are likely observing this dynamic, too.

You don’t have to agree with your mom, or do everything she says, to maintain a relationship with her. Instead, consider what you are willing to compromise on and what you are no longer willing to tolerate to help you focus on what is important to you.

Next Post: What we can do if our adult children are pushing us away.

painting: Tryptich by Oliver Lee Jackson.

Relationship Advice: What to do when an adult child pulls away.

Our adorable children. Sometimes it's hard to realize they're adults now. They may not be quite as cuddly as they were when they were three years old but more to the point, they probably don't want us hovering over them or offering advice.

Here are two tales that tell you what I'm talking about--plus bonus pointers for "what to do" if our adult children want to keep us at a distance.

Case One: Writing to Carolyn Hax, a parent is concerned that her college-age daughter doesn't want to answer the parent's texts, emails and phone calls--the daughter wants to determine when and where to communicate. The mom writes:  I think we should talk to her and maintain contact even if it’s not the “right” kind; my spouse thinks we will make fewer errors of omission and none of commission if we stay silent and let our daughter take the lead.

To this question of giving a young adult space, Carolyn Hax had this to say:

Back off. A lot. For a bit. Treat this like it’s pre-telecom-revolution times and she’s studying abroad. Treat this like she needs it. Because she needs it — and has the spine to say so.

You can apply the 1980s treatment to your side, too, and communicate with her via snail mail. Assuming she has a mailbox, much less checks it.

Case Two: A mom, writing an essay in Better after 50 admitted to a deteriorating relationship with her grown daughter and then talked about how she righted the ship. Key excerpts:

This complaining about my adult daughter diminished when I started to view her for what she is in that order: ADULT then DAUGHTER. Once I changed my perspective to treat her as an adult first, my daughter second, our relationship became much less strained and tenuous. 

Some lessons she learned along the way:

 Do not give unsolicited advice.... If she does ask for advice, give it. If she doesn’t heed it and fails, keep your mouth shut.

Do not ask about partners: not new ones, old ones, potential ones. ... Let her offer as much information as she wants when she wants. You do NOT need to know everything about her dating life. 

Do not whine if she decides to miss a holiday/family gathering/birthday party… Okay, no lie. This is a difficult one for me but I’ve learned the hard way not to guilt her into doing something she doesn’t want.

You do not need to hear from her every day. ...We compromised that I would be her ‘in case of emergency’ contact. Guess what: most days I do hear from her as she walks to the subway or gym.    

photo: Maia Lemov   

 

Great Expectations: Anger and our grown children (Part 1)

We've all been there--gotten annoyed at our grown children. Maybe it was for not returning our text promptly, or forgetting their sister's birthday, or taking time off when they should have been buckling down at work. Or just plain not doing things the way we have always done them. Whatever. However much we love them, we can also be angry at them and hurt and disappointed.

What to do about it? One answer is to lower expectations. In a column, Carolyn Hax answers a reader whose son never drives the two hours to visit his mom and dad for major holidays (he goes to his in-laws who live nearby). He refuses to come to his father's yearly family reunion ("too far in advance to commit") or to her mom's 90th birthday party ("not enough notice"). The reader is angry, hurt and depressed about his stand-offishness.

Here's the essence of Hax's silver bullet:

Adjust your plans to reflect reality. Expect delayed replies, holidays without your son, occasional daunting travel.

Learn to recognize that what we get from people, over time, represents pretty accurately what they’re willing to give.

Enjoy what they give you, period. Stare down disappointment with gratitude.

and this

Acceptance — be it of mildly annoying unanswered texts or of heartbreaking distance — can feel like the breaking point of a relationship. Often, though, it’s the beginning of a better one.

Why? Because it is just not human nature to rush to see people who only complain or make sad eyes at us for not responding enough or visiting enough or caring enough or giving enough. Quite the contrary; we tend to pull away harder.

So if you miss your son, then lay off wanting more of him. ...Whether this creates new connections or improves your problematic old ones, it’s a win either way.

 

Observation: Carolyn Hax on what to do if a grown child pushes you away.

The comforting way to put it is that our grown kids need space. But the far end of that need can play out in a way that translates into "they don't want us around."

In answer to a reader's complaint that her daughter won't take her phone calls, discourages her from visiting (even though she's now vaccinated) and otherwise is putting a lot of distance between mother and daughter, Carolyn Hax addressed the estrangement issue. The thrust of her advice for mending a rift, be it between mother and daughter or any other meaningful relationship, is to become a good listener.

If I start listing reasons grown children estrange themselves from their parents, I’ll still be typing when the next pandemic hits.

What matters is that you become a better listener, stat: “You’ve been saying no [to phone calls and visits], and I’ve been so caught up in changing your mind that I forgot to listen. I’m sorry. I will take no for an answer and stop pushing. I’m here when you’re ready. And, if I haven’t said so already or enough, thank you for being so good about putting the kids on FaceTime with us.”

This might leave you feeling resentful, as if you’re the one doing all the sacrificing here. That’s a common complaint when I recommend a full retreat — but it’s also a trap. It tempts you into looking for fairness when fairness doesn’t apply; reality is in control. And reality says you can’t make your daughter do anything (in fact, it’s probably tired of repeating itself), whether fairness demands it or not. You can work only on your side of the problem.

So, you offer her respect, space, grace — and give yourself the best chance of mending the breach.

painting: Rebecca Lemov

Thank You Notes: Why grown and grandkids fail to show their appreciation for gifts we give them.

I sympathize with the frustration: We send our grown kids and grandkids gifts and we get nothing tangible in return--not a word of thanks, no less an "I love it!" It may be that in these days of social distancing from our loved ones, the need to hear a thanks looms even larger. Pandemic or no, I hear about the thank you issue--or lack thereof--all the time. 

So does Philip Galanes over at Social Qs. "For years, every week has brought at least one new variation on this letter," he writes. The letter in question comes from a reader who sends her daughter monetary gifts that have long gone unacknowledged; she wonders whether it’s time to stop sending them, especially since the gifts are a strain on her budget.

Galanes starts by saying that the "central question is by far the one I hear most often. I’ve answered it a few times: We give gifts out of love, not to be thanked; speak up gently; if this really bothers you, stop sending gifts."

But this time Galanes doesn't rest there. He's interested in exploring the root of the problem: Why does this keep happening--to this reader and to many of us. Here's his answer:

My new theory: If a parent (or uncle or grandmother) sends a gift, year after year, without any acknowledgment from the recipient, maybe the recipient doesn’t experience it as a gift. Maybe your daughter and the others see these presents as their entitlement, like stock dividends or Social Security checks. The fact that the gifts keep coming, without further action, supports their belief.

That doesn't change the basics of his advice: Ask your child or grandchild to be more thoughtful. If they can’t be, trade the checks for greeting cards.

Overlooked: Do our children talk over us at family get-togethers? It may be our fault.

As soon as I read the letter in Social Qs from a man who felt he was being "talked over and generally excluded" from dinner conversations with adult children, I started counting. How many friends did I know who had complained about the same thing. They had had successful careers, experienced the joys of parenting and proudly headed the table at family functions. From Thanksgiving dinners to Christmas feasts, Passover Seders to Easter breakfasts, they had steered the conversation and made sure the value of their point of view was heard.

And now? Well, now the adult children are in charge and it is hard to have our voices heard--no less to take command. "They're no longer interested in my opinion," one friend put it. This was after a Christmas dinner hosted by his son (from his first marriage) and attended by his wife and wife's kids (ditto), the adult children's spouses and the grandkids. It didn't seem to count that he had long provided wise business counsel to three of the four grown children, all of whom had gone on to succeed in business.

His brief lament mirrored the longer tale told to Philip Galanes' Social Q's:

I am fortunate to be in a great long-term marriage that produced a wonderful daughter and an amazing college-age granddaughter. But lately, they have told me, in plain English, that my opinions and standards (from my education at a parochial school and military academy) don’t count for much. The last time we had dinner, they talked over me and generally excluded me from the conversation. My opinions were dismissed, and my values were derided. These are the three most important women in the world to me. How do I get them to stop using me as a piñata?

Philip Galanes suggests the writer might be dominating conversation and not falling in line with the more democratic approach of the current times. Here's Galanes point:

We all have a right to our opinions, of course. But one of the interesting shifts in the past few years has been a greater public awareness of who feels entitled to speak up and expect their views to be heard — and who doesn’t. You may not suffer from blind privilege, but it’s a question worth considering.

If you have been holding the Talking Stick for too long, perhaps the women have become impatient for their turns. So, share it! And especially because they are so dear to you, make an effort to understand how their views differ from yours. In my experience, the respect in that gesture is often reciprocated.

 

 

 

Grandparenting: The no "Thank You" issue. Again

He's got an hilariously snarky point of view. Choire Sicha, the NYTimes Styles desk editor who is working his way through a three-month stint as the newspaper's "Work Friend," columnist, admits that he has only two to four ideas about life and that none of them are particularly original. That said, he notes that "Somehow long-running advice columnists, or really any kind of regular columnist or other Pez dispenser of thoughts, can reiterate their ideas for months or decades."

I thought about that commentary as I was reminded, yet again, of my replies to a sore that wont seem to heal for many grandparents: When they give their grandchildren gifts, they do not receive appropriate thank you notes from them. By "appropriate," most of the complainants seem to mean that a text or email will not do. They want a written note. I have posted my two-to-four thoughts on this issue here and here and a few other places.

And now I get to do it again, backed this time by the reliable Philip Galanes, the light-touch behind Social Q's.

Here's what his complainant had to say:

My teenage grandchildren have never sent us a thank-you note for any present we’ve given them. My husband and I are thinking of teaching them a lesson by skipping Christmas gifts this year. Thoughts?

Galane's thought:

Unless you believe your grandchildren can read minds, wouldn’t it be a more useful lesson to ask them for thank-you notes? I’m sorry that you and your husband feel underappreciated. But if the kids’ parents never insisted they write notes, and you never asked for them, how were your grandchildren to know?

If you expect thank-you notes, or if they are the price of admission for future gifts, tell your grandchildren. And you may as well specify whether email or text messages will suffice.

I couldn't say it any better and have tried. We live in a digital world, and it's a lot less formal than the good old days of personalized note cards and prized penmanship. Thank you notes--verbal, digital or hand crafted--are all welcome at our household.

If your grandkids don't respond to the request for a Thanks and you've set your priorities, well, then let the withholding begin. But remember this line from Dorothy Parker: "And if that makes you happy kid/You'll be the first it ever did."

Grandparenting: We've already raised our children. It's up to them to raise theirs.

 

We've all had that moment when we wanted to intervene, when we've wanted to tell our son or daughter--or their spouses--a better way to handle our grandchild (also known as their child). To put a nice gloss on it, we've wanted to share the benefit of our experience.

Bad idea. (See Notes to Self in side column). We're not talking about abuse here--that's a whole different subject. We're talking about all the little things they --the parents -- could be doing better from our perspective.

Here's a reminder from a Philip Galanes Social Q columns (Galanes being my favorite and most amusing social adviser) about using our critical abilities to turn a negative view of our child's parenting approach into a positive --or at least neutral-- one.

The case in point: A reader wrote Galanes to complain about her daughter-in-law for whom English is a second language, one she speaks well but not the one she uses to converse with her 4-year-old child. Both the DIL and the reader's son want to raise their child to be bilingual--a worthy goal in this interconnected global world. The reader's complaint: the DIL speaks to her child in her native language all the time, even when the grandparents, who live across the country and who do not speak the language, are visiting. "We sit clueless for long stretches while they talk," the reader complains. "The same thing happens to my son, who barely speaks their language. We don’t object to our granddaughter learning another language, but we don’t want to feel so left out. Do you agree that this behavior is totally rude?

Galanes does not. Nor does he see the linguistic approach (a basic way to raise a bilingual child) as an attack on the grandparents. He suggests the grandparents ask their son (who speaks to his daughter in English) or DIL how they can be more part of the conversation when they're visiting.  "It may be cumbersome for a little girl to translate chats with her mom into English," Galanes writes, "but pretending your ride to the mall is a session at the United Nations sounds like fun."

His bottom line is one for all seasons and moments of grandparenting displeasure: "You had your crack at raising children. Now it’s their turn. And raining on their parade will only make you an unpopular houseguest."

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Where's Waldo? Feeling left out when we're left out of our grownkid's photoshoot

 

"I feel petty," a friend says before launching into a complaint about her grown daughter.

The daughter lives abroad--four years in South Africa, now a transfer to Singapore. When the transfer came, my friend flew off to visit--to see where her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren would be living. It was a friendly visit and went as well as a visit for more than two or three days can go. But there was a downside.

Here's how my friend describes her complaint:

"We took lots of pictures-- of the kids in their beds and going to school, of a side trip for a weekend outing, of places we went to visit together. When I got home, my daughter sent me a stream of the photos. There were no pictures of me with the kids, my daughter or anywhere. I feel petty even mentioning it. I don't exactly feel excluded but I sure don't feel included in their family either."

When children live far from home--countries and time zones away--the family gestalt may change. Not so much to exclude Nana or PopPop, but as a means of self-protection. Our grown child may have to rely on friends, neighbors and co-workers for day-to-day support in life's daily challenges. Need to take one of the children to an emergency room while the spouse is out of town? Can't call Granny in Boston to babysit in Singapore.

This is by way of explanation not justification. A once a year--or even less frequent--visit from or with a grandparent may feel like a special event to us but it may translate into a tie that's less binding. Even though they're the ones that left, there may be a feeling of abandonment: We aren't there when they need us.

Or the us-less photo shoot may have been pure absentmindness or simply something that happens when busy people are trying to balance a whole lot of things. It doesn't necessarily signify.

But the emotion it engenders--of feeling left out--does. It may be a little thing but it hurts.

 

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