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

Grandparenting: Offering parenting advice to an adult child and family.

Our kids are having kids. We have grandkids! Such good news. But what happens when we believe our children are taking a wrong tack in parenting those children?

We know--or, if we've read any advice columns on the topic, should know--that the answer is, we keep our mouths shut. There are two important caveats to that rule. One is if there's abuse--physical or emotional. The other is, if our child asks us for our advice.

This latter exception can get complicated. We don't want to barge in (even with the door open) and tell the young parents what they're doing wrong or how we did it differently or better.

Here are some  approaches (edited for brevity) from Ask Sahaj  on how to respond if your child (let's say, a daughter) is struggling with parenting and asks you for advice:

Point One:

You want to let her know you are on her side, saying something enpathetic like. "You’re doing your best, and I see that.” Or responding to her emotional needs by focusing on her feelings, “What are you feeling right now?” Or, “It sounds like you are stuck and feel alone in this. What do you think will help you right now?”

Point Two:

Sometimes when people ask for advice, they might be seeking validation or help understanding the problem they are having. Clarify what she really needs from you by asking her, “I want to help you in whatever way is best for you. Would you like to hear my observations or would you like to vent about what’s going on?” You may even add, “If you aren’t sure what you need right now, maybe I can ask more questions to help us problem solve.”

Point Three:

If she wants to hear what you really think, consider naming your hesitation by saying something like, “I want to be honest since you are asking me to do so, but I worry that this will be hard to hear, and I don’t want to say anything to upset you.” When it’s time to give your honest opinion, be careful not to make blanket, judgmental statements (i.e. you’re always impatient!) and instead focus on specifics using I-statements to express what you’ve observed rather than making assumptions. This can sound like, “I know I don’t see everything, but I have noticed that you’ve been quick to get annoyed with the baby.”

To all of this Sahaj adds that it can help the young parent in your life to share a story about your own parenting struggles or something you read recently from an expert that's on point.

painting: by Berthe Morisot

 

 

Grandparenting: Advice about giving advice

He may not have been writing about parents butting in on their grown children's housekeeping or spending habits or the way they parent their newborns, but Bob Dylan was of the minute on the basic concept:

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

In a rundown of new understandings of old practices--science has made some of our standby child-rearing standards irrelevant or even questionable--an article on Katie Couric Media hands out lots of advice on looking beyond "the way we did things." It also speaks to how we can be supportive grandparents who don't undermine our children's confidence in their parenting, especially during that fraught first year.

While the suggestions come with specifics (pacifiers have proven to be a lifesaver not a detriment), the author Mary Agnant , a young mother, also steps back to address us--the grandparents--directly:

Nobody knows better than you how hard being a parent is, and what we want most is to know that you think we’ll be great ones and that you’re proud of us. Having faith in us means not questioning every decision we make.

After writing that,  she leans back on Bob Dylan (see above).

painting: Pierre Bonnard, Bowl of Milk

 

Observation:"No Comment" when it comes to an adult child's appearance.

Whether it's their weight (too heavy, too thin), a tat, the breakout color of their hair, their clothing choices--whatever--we are unwise to say anything about our adult child's appearance. The following observation from Philip Galanes, he of Social Qs, started life as advice to a reader who wanted to comment on a stranger's tattoos. The core of Galanes' advice is as germane to us vis a vis our adult children as it is to the querying reader.

....[C]omments about appearance are often unwelcome, end even compliments betray an unappealing entitlement to judge.

painting: Van Gogh

 

Observation: We are no longer the "finishing school" for our adult kids

We may not like the way our adult kids dress or tat their arms or use foul language. We may want them to change the way they cut their hair or, for their health's sake, lose weight! But "fixing" adult kids is a ship that has sailed. They are who and what they are--much as we'd like to tweak a habit or look or two.

Carolyn Hax addresses  one aspect of the "appearance" issue in an answer to a mom whose children use profanity on a regular basis. ("It makes my kids seem crass," the mom worries.) She wants to know what to do to correct her children's salty language, language that she fears could harm them professionally.

Here's the wisdom Hax imparts:

This isn’t a what-is-a-mother-to-do question anymore, not with your kids in their 20s.

Instead, it’s about where your authority ends and theirs (or anyone else’s) begins when it comes to decorum. Do you have standing to ask your kids to curb their profanity in your presence? Yes, you do, as anyone does. Do they have the right to ignore your requests? Yes, technically they do, though that’s rude and I hope they don’t exercise it. Do you have to stand for that? No, you don’t. But they’re your kids, so you may understandably have other priorities in your relationships with them.

art: self-portrait by Sara Cain

 

Holiday Greetings: And a reminder about stress and family get togethers.

The Holidays are upon us. May there be peace and joy in our lives and in family get-togethers.

But just in case, here's a column I wrote a few months ago about the behavioral stresses at play when our adult children are in our company for extended periods of time. May we all relax and enjoy our children's company and they revel in ours without pushing any emotional buttons. So as a reminder, here's the column on the baked-in stresses of holiday get-togethers with adult children:

The holidays are coming. Maybe you've been distracted by the disastrous hurricanes or the sudden outbreak of winter weather. But Thanksgiving is not that far away. That dinner often sits on the back burner because, unlike multi-generational family get-togethers around Christmas, it's supposedly free of stress and anxiety.

Don't you believe it! Thanksgiving may not mean gift-giving and big get-togethers at grandma's house; it may not have religious overtones or problems with someone drinking too much eggnog. But it still creates demands on family togetherness. 

One friend, whose son and daughter are both married with teenage children, is navigating a path between Thanksgiving "suggestions" from her children. The siblings had a falling out this summer and now their proposals for Thanksgiving dinner, though based on rational reasons, exclude the other one. A compromise has been hammered out: The grandparents (my friend and her spouse) will spend Thanksgiving Thursday dinner with their son, who lives nearby and travel to Boston on Friday to have a second Thanksgiving feast with their daughter and her family. It's not that the compromise is an unreasonable solution. In fact, many of us who can't be in two places at once, have doubled down (doubled up?) on Thanksgiving dinners. We did so last year.  For my friend, though, the double dinner makes it clear that the animosity between her children has not cleared up, and that's what's making her miserable about Thanksgiving.

There's another stress that may surface around holiday visits--especially when they include an overnight or two at our house or theirs. Some of our kids may be worried about spending too much time with us! This issue was posed and answered in a New York Times story with the provocative title: Your Mom is destined to annoy you

The column handed out suggestions to help our grown children survive a holiday visit with us. Since visits are a two-way street, here's the "sanity-preserving advice" they're getting that may apply to us as well.

Prepare for your inevitable regression. From our children's persepctive, "It’s not a question of if the regression is going to happen, it’s when."

Our kids are advised to ask themselves where there are "particular topics of conversation or physical places that tend to send your family into a tizzy" and then try to avoid those topics and places.

One solid piece of advice we can act on as well: "if the family dinner table always devolves into chaos, try going out to eat one night and see if it improves relations."

Get ready for parenting criticism. Our adult children--particularly our daughters--are on knife's edge waiting for us to criticize their mothering skills. How grandchildren are being raised is a major trigger for this dynamic. 

Our daughters are advised to “try to remind yourself that it feels like criticism, but it is an expression of caring. Your mother just wants everything to go well for you, and she’s trying to help (even if it makes you want to scream into a pillow)."

We are offered advice on how to keep that screaming to a minimum: "Bite your tongue, because even the most benign (to you) suggestion may be perceived as criticism." 

Make space for yourself. You will need an escape hatch from time to time.

Our kids are advised to create space in order to "get some emotional distance from your family." This could mean hiding out in the bathroom for 10 minutes to cool down, structuring the length of visits or springing for a hotel rather than staying in our guest room.

What works for them should work for us as well. It's not as though we aren't feeling similar tensions and need breathing room as well. Just don't let that bathroom get too crowded.

Don’t expect change. The holidays are stressful. "There won’t be a magical solution to your family trauma over the holidays."

This is not, our kids are advised--and we are too--"the time to bring up old baggage and expect to work through it."

Forewarned is forearmed. On with the holidays. Let joy be unconfined.

painting: Baillargeon

 

Family Harmony and Holidays: The stress is baked in

The holidays are coming. Maybe you've been distracted by the disastrous hurricanes or the sudden outbreak of winter weather. But Thanksgiving is not that far away. That dinner often sits on the back burner because, unlike multi-generational family get-togethers around Christmas, it's supposedly free of stress and anxiety.

Don't you believe it! Thanksgiving may not mean gift-giving and big get-togethers at grandma's house; it may not have religious overtones or problems with someone drinking too much eggnog. But it still creates demands on family togetherness. 

One friend, whose son and daughter are both married with teenage children, is navigating a path between Thanksgiving "suggestions" from her children. The siblings had a falling out this summer and now their proposals for Thanksgiving dinner, though based on rational reasons, exclude the other one. A compromise has been hammered out: The grandparents (my friend and her spouse) will spend Thanksgiving Thursday dinner with their son, who lives nearby and travel to Boston on Friday to have a second Thanksgiving feast with their daughter and her family. It's not that the compromise is an unreasonable solution. In fact, many of us who can't be in two places at once, have doubled down (doubled up?) on Thanksgiving dinners. We did so last year.  For my friend, though, the double dinner makes it clear that the animosity between her children has not cleared up, and that's what's making her miserable about Thanksgiving.

There's another stress that may surface around holiday visits--especially when they include an overnight or two at our house or theirs. Some of our kids may be worried about spending too much time with us! This issue was posed and answered in a New York Times story with the provocative title: Your Mom is destined to annoy you

The column handed out suggestions to help our grown children survive a holiday visit with us. Since visits are a two-way street, here's the "sanity-preserving advice" they're getting that may apply to us as well.

Prepare for your inevitable regression. From our children's persepctive, "It’s not a question of if the regression is going to happen, it’s when."

Our kids are advised to ask themselves where there are "particular topics of conversation or physical places that tend to send your family into a tizzy" and then try to avoid those topics and places.

One solid piece of advice we can act on as well: "if the family dinner table always devolves into chaos, try going out to eat one night and see if it improves relations."

Get ready for parenting criticism. Our adult children--particularly our daughters--are on knife's edge waiting for us to criticize their mothering skills. How grandchildren are being raised is a major trigger for this dynamic. 

Our daughters are advised to “try to remind yourself that it feels like criticism, but it is an expression of caring. Your mother just wants everything to go well for you, and she’s trying to help (even if it makes you want to scream into a pillow)."

We are offered advice on how to keep that screaming to a minimum: "Bite your tongue, because even the most benign (to you) suggestion may be perceived as criticism." 

Make space for yourself. You will need an escape hatch from time to time.

Our kids are advised to create space in order to "get some emotional distance from your family." This could mean hiding out in the bathroom for 10 minutes to cool down, structuring the length of visits or springing for a hotel rather than staying in our guest room.

What works for them should work for us as well. It's not as though we aren't feeling similar tensions and need breathing room as well. Just don't let that bathroom get too crowded.

Don’t expect change. The holidays are stressful. "There won’t be a magical solution to your family trauma over the holidays."

This is not, our kids are advised--and we are too--"the time to bring up old baggage and expect to work through it."

Forewarned is forearmed. On with the holidays. Let joy be unconfined.

painting: "Concert" by Gerrit von Honthorst

 

Are We Still the Boss? Experts have their say on the wisdom of being advisors to our adult children

Best if we had started when our kids were teens but it's never too late to remember that we have moved from being the boss of them to being consultants to our grown children--even as it's hard to act on that in the heat of a "moment."

This is what Amy Joyce wrote about in one of her On Parenting columns in the Washington Post. Her topic was more precise: It was about parenting teens and how to go about transitioning away from the boss model. She focused on the science-based research of Stixrud and Johnson in their book “What Do You Say? How to Talk With Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance and a Happy Home.”

Stixrud and Johnson underscore the importance of resisting the urge to solve a teen's problems. This holding back can help kids take responsibility for their decisions and thereby let them grow into independent adults. Those adults can in turn look to their parents for advice. They won't need us to tell them what to do. Stixrud and Johnson point out that the stakes during these teen years are high:

"We need to remind ourselves that we’re going to have a relationship with our kids when they are adults longer than we ever did when they were children."

Naturally, the same need to resist problem-solving goes for when our children are fully grown adults. Not that it's easy to keep our views and advice to ourselves, as suggested in this letter to Carolyn Hax from a mother about her 40-year-old son.

The son, who lives in a city 900 miles away from his parents, called to tell them that he is getting divorced. The writer is surprised that the marriage has turned sour and that her son (the father of two young children) is in love with someone other than his wife. The mother/grandmother is "horrified by his behavior" and wants to tell her son how far short he has fallen "in becoming the person" she raised him to be. She wants to, in effect, be the boss and let him know his decision is wrong, that she doesn't approve and he should make things right--or else. The "or else," is that she refuses to meet the "other" woman.

Hax's advice circles back to the ideas spelled out by Stixrud-Johnson. So if we needed one more reminder of the dangers of being bossy, here's how Hax puts it:

  "At this stage in all your lives, "parent" is your title but not your job."

credit: painting by Picasso

Grandparent Interference: Mind the intergenerational gap and the boundaries our children set for us

Are our adult children too tough about what their children can and cannot eat or drink? It's especially annoying when we are guilt-tripped out of offering them our just-baked chocolate chip muffins or handing them a cold, individual box of apple juice.  We have been asked not to provide such malnourishment. So we offer what's allowed--or we cheat and indulge our grandkids.

It's not easy being a grandparent. Nor, evidently, is it easy being a parent with parents who don't mind the boundaries they have set for us. A NYTimes article painted the dilemma our children face this way:

"Parenting can often feel like trying to survive amid barely controlled chaos, so having a wise, experienced grandparent to help out can be lifesaving. But if that grandparent has trouble adhering to basic boundaries, it can feel as if the chaos has maddeningly multiplied."

The list of prime triggers for this maddening multiplication starts with religious practices and goes on to include disciplinary styles, technology and diet.

The article has a quote from a clinical psychologist who has a name for some of us. To wit,

“I would place ‘intrusive grandparents’ in the general category of challenges that adults and couples face in managing relationships with their respective families of origin, and with parents in particular.”

The article is aimed at advising our adult children on how they can kindly, gently but effectively deal with the 'intrusive grandparent.' One point of that advice contains a nugget of truth--a reminder--for all of us, even those of us who tiptoe politely around the boundaries our children have set for us.

"Bear in mind that child-rearing advice often changes from one generation to the next, so there are bound to be some ideas that a grandparent subscribes to — most likely ones that you were raised with — that you find outdated now."

I'll close out this post with an important, feel-good nugget from the article:

 “Grandparent love and knowledge is essential to a child’s self-esteem and self-identity. They need to see themselves as part of something larger than their parents. They need to find their place and feel part of a family that has a history.”

art: Rauschenberg

What if we don't like the way our children parent their children? Part 2

A few weeks ago, I posted an observation from Meghan Leahy on the limits we should impose on ourselves. That is, we should not offer our adult children advice on parenting their children--unless they've asked us for it. In that post, a grandmother was concerned about the chaos of her grandchildren's bedtime. In this post, it's mealtime issues and a 2-year-old's tantrums. Like the grandparent upset about bedtime routines, the mealtime-worried grandmother is dealing with an adult child whose marriage is falling apart.

So here's Megan Leahy again, this time in answer to a grandmother concerned about the way her son is handling his 2- and 5-year old children. The grandmother has an up-close view of the family dynamic because her son is getting a divorce and has moved into her and her husband's home where, a few days a week, he has custody of and takes care of his two small children. The grandmother complains about the son's lack of parental discipline at mealtimes--he allows the 2-year-old to have ice cream before dinner or an ice pop for breakfast. The grandmother cannot abide the way this small child throws tantrums "to get her way, and her dad always gives in." She has been holding her tongue but says it's getting increasingly hard to do so. Here's Meghan to the rescue:

"I can feel your grandparenting (and parenting) frustration loud and clear. Many of us have been in situations where we want to yell, “Just say no to the darn kid!” But we don’t, because we know it could embarrass and undermine the parent, make a bad situation worse, divide loyalties or start a heated disagreement in front of the children. Holding this frustration in is you staying mature. And trust me: Many parents can (and do) lament how their own parents nagged, lectured and shamed their parenting choices. It really is a relationship killer, so good on you for holding your tongue."

Is there a middle ground between telling her son what to do and keeping her lip zipped? Leahy thinks there's room to have her say:

"Because he doesn’t have the kids half the time, maybe you could take him out to dinner and just listen to him. Let him vent about the divorce or single parenting or whatever is on his mind. I could be wrong, but I bet he knows that the ice pops, wasted food and whining aren’t great, but he could be too overwhelmed to see it clearly or know what to do about it. By offering a compassionate, nonjudgmental ear, you free your son to put down his burdens for a bit, and when people do that, they are more likely to find the courage to do something different."

Leahy acknowledges that these parenting "mistakes" are unfolding under the grandmother's roof, and doesn't that give her a say in how to deal with her grandchild's tantrums? Leahy suggests the grandmother make herself scarce when meltdowns are going on.

"Go for a walk with a friend, go to another floor or put on some headphones. Do anything to make yourself feel less provoked.

Some people may read this and feel affronted: “It is their house, and the grandparent needs to hide?” Well, yes and no. I am suggesting that judging, critiquing and losing your cool in the moment are not going to work out well for any relationship in the house. Instead, stay out of it (in the moment), and find another way to support your son. You can keep your boundaries, just don’t do it during the tantrum or while eating."

painting: Renoir

The Grandchild IOU: Can we sue if our kids don't reproduce?

Here's the premise: After we've helped support our adult children through college and early work years, they (and their spouse)  owe us grandkids. If they don't deliver, they should pay us back. Moreover, we can sue them if they don't fulfill their part of the next-generation equation. 

Hah! A laughable notion, right? But in India, a mom and dad are suing their son and daughter-in-law for failing to come up with a grandchild after six years of marriage--and years of financial support that included paying for a lavish Bollywood-style wedding.

The suit may sound out of whack to our Western ears but, as reported in the New York Times, in India the suit  made headlines in national newspapers and "prompted a debate about how much control parents should have over their children’s life choices." The demand is, according to the couple's lawyer, "an Indian parent thing." (The parents are suing for $650,00 in damages.)

Cultural differences aside, it's hard to accept that a sense of let-down can be righted by a financial transaction. That said, the grievance is all too relatable. It's culturally acceptable here to encourage our recently married children to "get on with having a family," even to make what we think are "cute" little remarks along the lines of "what are you waiting for?" If they decide to go forth childless, we may choose to make our displeasure and disappointment known at our peril.  

Here's a little more from the Times story on what pushed the parents over the edge.

After spending their savings to have their son trained as a pilot in the United States, Sanjeev Ranjan Prasad and Sadhana Prasad financed his lavish wedding back in India, along with a luxury car and an overseas honeymoon.

They assumed their investments would eventually pay off, in the form of a grandchild. But as time ticked by, they say, the not-so-newlyweds showed little interest in producing one.

After waiting anxiously for six years, they decided to sue.

While the suit is given little chance of succeeding, that doesn't mean it hasn't hit a sympathetic chord with many parents of adult children.

Raavi Birbal, a lawyer in India, said that the suit would probably not go far because its arguments violate rights enshrined in India’s Constitution, including the right to liberty.

“This is actually a very rare case,” Ms. Birbal said. “That is why it is so much in the limelight. But, ultimately, it is the couple’s choice to have a child, not that of their parents.”

Hari Bhushan Yadav, 52, a shopkeeper in Haridwar, said that residents had been discussing the case with great interest over tea outside his shop, and that older people tended to sympathize with the plaintiffs.

painting: Claude Monet, The Cradle