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

Empty Nest: Support for the college-dropoff blues

My yoga teacher is a single mom. She dropped her only child off at college a few weeks ago. The daughter is a freshman and this is the first prolonged time away from home. My yoga teacher came back a day after the drop-off with bouyant tales of the move-in, the roommate, the campus. This week she and a student who'd been absent from class for several months--a dad who dropped his child off for freshman week at college two weeks ago--commiserated with each other after class. I was busy rolling up my yoga mat and putting my props away but I overheard talk of the sadness each felt. "We--you and your wife--should get together," my yoga teacher said. "We have to support each other."

There has always been a sadness--mixed with positive excitement--when our kids leave home and the nest is empty. And now, it seems, there's a lot more reaching out for support--or acknowledging that we need support.  Is it different from the days--a generation or more ago--when we dropped our kids off and came home to an empty and eerily silent house? Evidently it is today in that we the parents are not keeping our woes bottled up inside and at home.

A recent Axios newsletter reported the following tidbits about the current state of empty nest adjustment:

Many first-year college students from different states, backgrounds and majors have one thing in common: stressed-out parents struggling with the separation.

Parents are using tech to track their kids, micromanaging orientation week and even having dorm sleepovers.

As to the support side of the equation, Axios reports:

Parents' stress is on display in online forums and Facebook groups, where parents are asking questions and offering emotional support to one another.

On these online groups and forums parents ask about minute-to-minute details of orientation, for advice from other parents for advice on their kids' roommate woes and where to shop for basic toiletries.

The "good news" on this support network: If we're turning to Facebook groups or making dates with friends to talk about our worries and separation issues that may mean we're not bugging our kids. Go Class of 2028!

painting: Renoir, "Oarsmen at Chatou"

Emptry Nests: Do we want our adult kids to live at home again?

Emotional Misery. That's what I remember about those first few months of becoming an empty nester. After we sent our youngest child off to college, my husband and I had the blues all through that September. There was a sadness in coming home from work to a house that was too quiet--no music seeping through the walls, no basketball being bounced indoors. I missed the excitement and tension my children injected into the house.

Then I got used to it. My spouse and I started building a life that no longer centered around being responsible for the everyday lives of our children.

After a few years of living this less stressful way of life, our oldest child, the one who had been living on the other coast for a while, came home for the summer with a boyfriend in tow. Her dad was thrilled. Of course he was. He had helped get her a summer internship with a Congressman and now he, who had worked for the Congress for many happy years, would be able to see her experience unfold before his eyes.

I did not feel the same way. Here's what I wrote in my journal:

 "I am filled with ambivalency. Mike and I have this quiet but very pleasant life together. I'm able to pay close attention to his needs; there's no competition for my time. And it is not half bad being detached from your children's concerns on a daily basis, being off the roller coaster. Susan [a friend] has similar concerns with her two sons coming home this summer."

For all the sadness we go through when our children move out, are we ready and willing to go back to the old routines if they return? Clearly, I wasn't sure. We hadn't repurposed our daughter's room--she could move right back in. But my summer would now be filled with responsibilities--for regular meals, for advice (or making sure we didn't butt in if we weren't asked), for observing up close and personally what was going on in our child's 20-something life.

Of course, she was now an independent young woman. She didn't want to be coddled or treated as the teenager she was when she first left home. Within days of her arrival she went to work for six weeks in a Congressman's office and the boyfriend, who hoped to become a winemaker, had gotten a job at an upscale food emporium that sold high-end wine. The summer of a refilled nest looked promising. And in ways it was positive. My daughter and I were able to take long walks (and talks) and we got to know the boyfriend (they had talked about marriage) better.

So here was the downside. The internship turned out to be a mini-disaster. She hated the job with good reasons. The Congressman was an old-school sexist and she found many of the demands of the job demeaning.  She wasn't political; what she liked was going to Congressional hearings (and taking notes for the congressman). But she was often called out of the hearing to drive a constituent to the airport. There were other bumps in the road. She received word that a master's program at Stanford had turned her down, although she admitted the program was designed for those who already had advanced degrees and she didn't have one. Nonetheless, she was disappointed and we felt it.

The bottom line is that, after a year or two of being an empty nester, I had gotten used to it. Liked it. And I didn't want to be so close to the roller coaster again.

painting: House on a Hill by Edward Hopper

 

Observation: Jhumpa Lahiri on the hole in a parent's heart when a son grows up and moves away

Jhumpa Lahiri tells us how a father (the narrator of her short story "P's Parties") misses his son, a son described by the father as  "a grown man, a college graduate, a few months into his new life abroad, pursuing further studies at a foreign university."

The father muses on his wife's joyful acceptance of their son moving successfully into his adult years. For his wife, the narrator says,

the fact that he was getting by on his own for the most part, and now had a woman in his life, and was far from us, was a much deserved and happy ending to our long and exhausting road as parents. It meant that we’d done a good job, and this was a milestone worth celebrating.

The father was not as sanguine. Lahiri has him say,

...For me, not seeing him every day, not hearing his voice around the house, or even his mediocre violin playing, not knowing what he was up to, not adding his favorite juice to the grocery cart—it all came as a blow. I was proud of him, yes, I was excited about his prospects, but I still had a hole in my heart.

painting: Rebecca Lemov

Empty Nesting: The college dropoff blues

The college dropoff (freshman year version in particular) is a rite of passage as tearful as sending our firstborn to kindergarten and laden with plenty of meaning. Our kids are transitioning from the cosseted safety of home to the independence of young adult life. We're transitioning from controlling parents to advisory ones. In the moment of that dropoff, it's all about luggage and towels and how to find the dorm.  Once we leave the campus it's all about their new life and ours.

In 2013, Michael Gerson, a writer for the Washington Post who passed away a few years ago, penned the feelings that coursed through him as he anticipated dropping off his son at college. Here's an excerpt but you can tear up through the whole thing here.

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.

There is no use brooding about it. I’m sure my father realized it at a similar moment. And I certainly didn’t notice or empathize. At first, he was a giant who held my hand and filled my sky. Then a middle-aged man who paid my bills. Now, decades after his passing, a much-loved shadow. But I can remember the last time I hugged him in the front hallway of his home, where I always had a room. It is a memory of warmth. I can only hope to leave my son the same.

painting: Lovis Corinth

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."

 

Observation: On getting beyond the empty-nest blues.

In an essay for the Washington Post's Parenting column (The graduation speech we should be giving to parents), author Mary Laura Philpott puts into perspective what lies ahead for soon-to-be empty nesters. 

The exact circumstances have been different for all of us, but among my friends, we’ve experienced countless surprises after our kids reached legal adulthood. We’ve navigated more changes of plans, academic hurdles, social issues, money troubles and midnight phone calls than all the pillowcases and shower caddies we bought back when we thought checking off shopping lists was the same as being ready. Back before we realized the stuff they packed was the least important part of being prepared. There’s so much joy and discovery ahead, but there are challenges coming too, and you can’t predict them. You owe it to yourself to shore up your strength, because being a parent never ends. It only changes.

The Pain of Parting: Lessons in Letting Go

Our son sent his oldest child back to college and his oldest daughter off to Roma for a gap year of study abroad. He still has one child at home but his heart is aching. As his two eldest headed off, he managed, he tells me, not to tear up in front of them.

He also tells me he has come to appreciate how we did the same for him and his sister. "I had no idea," he says, "how hard it is and how hard it must have been for you and dad." I am not violating his privacy when I repeat the following words since he posted this wry take on his Facebook page: "Two of my three kids are leaving in the next few days, starting this morning. If I'd known how hard their leaving was going to be, I never would have encouraged all of this "go to college" business when they were little."

On the morning after his daughter flew off to Rome, he called to let me know she had landed safely, made her way to the appartamento she and two other students had rented, registered at the school where she would be taking classes and bought supplies at a nearby grocery store. Dinner will be ramen and nectarines. The other girls will not arrive for another day or two. My Grand and her parents were texting every step along the way--from airport landing to getting a sim card to figuring out the tricky lock on the appartamento door. She did all this with only 4-weeks worth of Duolingo Italian stuffed into her brain. My son is so proud of her for the confident way she figured things out and so happy that she is embarking on this avventura.  But he is heart-heavy. She is now so far away. He misses her.

He wanted to know how we managed to keep the pain of parting from him and his sister. I reminded him that when he left home for college, there was no Internet, no texting, no email. There was only a landline and the mailbox. We couldn't have shared the immediacy of our sadness even if we had been inclined to--which we weren't. Like him today, we did not want to weigh him down with our blues. We only let him see the pleasure we were taking in his launch.

So excuse me while I deliver pats on our own backs. We were able to show our children how to let go gracefully. It wasn't intentional and it may not seem like much. But evidently, it was.

painting: Monet. Bridge at Argenteuil

 

Observation: A dad realizes his daughter is all grown up. So does his mom.

"And then suddenly you turn around and they are all grown up..."

This is the lament I found on Facebook by a dad who posted a photo of his daughter dressed up for her high school's Senior Ball, looking sophisticated and ready to take on the world. The posting seemed to capture the moment the dad realized what lay ahead: His daughter had become an independent young woman who, come September, would no longer be living at home with her parents.

But here's the thing about that plaintive sentiment: It was posted by my son, about my 18-year-old granddaughter, and I couldn't believe how far both of them had come. Suddenly you turn around and....

 

 

Re-nesting: Adult children moving back home--here and abroad

Remember the bad old days and the effect on our grown children of the Great Recession (2008+). Remember stories about the worst old days and their effect on families during the Great Depression (1929+)? Well, the Pandemic Retrenchment (2020+) has, like those past economic disasters, brought many of our adult children home again. They're camping out with us--by themselves or with significant others; job hunting or working remotely, or re-assessing their future. The nest is refilled--like it or not. A Pew Research Center survey found the share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents is now a majority of that age group and a larger majority than the past Recession or Depression.

All of which is a long way of saying, if your adult children have reclaimed their childhood bedrooms or are sleeping on a couch in the basement, you're not alone.

Not only aren't you alone, but we here in this country also aren't alone either. Across the Atlantic in Great Britain, the Centre for Research in Social Policy reported last fall "nearly two-thirds of childless single adults aged 20-34 in the UK have either never left or have moved back into the family home." 

They've hung some numbers on it and some commentary on implications for the future:

Around 3.5 million single young adults in the UK are estimated to live with their parents, an increase of a third over the past decade, and a trend that is likely to accelerate as the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic deepens.

The so-called “boomerang” phenomenon – young adults returning to their parents’ home until well into their 20s or early 30s – is now a permanent feature of UK society and likely to trigger a profound rethink of how many families live their lives.

Here's the word from one of the chief researchers:

“Children living at home well into their 20s is not a temporary phenomenon, it’s here to stay...A lot of young people will spend most of a decade of their lives living like this.”

The numbers here are bigger, of course, and surprisingly well-spread. Pew reports:

In July 26.6 million  or 52 percent of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 24 million or 47 percent in February. The increase was evident for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions. Growth was sharpest among the youngest age group, ages 18 to 24, and White young adults.

The question for those of us with refilled nests is, how do we cope? I'll tune into advice on that in future blogs. Meanwhile, here's one generic guide to the basics. It covers five pointers:

• Understand the Situation
• Don't Spend Your Retirement
• Agree on a Time Limit
• Remember Whose Roof You're All Living Under
• Accept That Your Child Isn't a Kid Anymore

photo: Maia Lemov

Re-Formed Nests: Grown kids are moving back home--a trend with a Covid accelerant.

Ever since the pandemic descended on us in March, there's been a noticeable uptick in an ongoing trend: Our adult kids are moving in with us. For some the reason is financial: the economy crashed and with it, their jobs. For others, it's emotional: the loneliness of living alone in a small apartment under quarantine conditions. For some it's technical: they still have their jobs but they need more robust Internet connections.  And for others it's familial: Their kids are going to school by zoom and there's a need for loving caretakers.

There are a thousand permutations of reasons. One couple hosted their daughter, her husband and their toddler grandchild for a year while the young family sold their city apartment and bought a house in the suburbs.

By September, Pew Research was reporting that the share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents had become a majority, surpassing the previous peak during the Great Depression era.

Here are Pew's numbers:

In July, 52% of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 47% in February. The number living with parents grew to 26.6 million, an increase of 2.6 million from February. The number and share of young adults living with their parents grew across the board for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions. Growth was sharpest for the youngest adults (ages 18 to 24) and for White young adults.

The move back to the comforts of the parental nest was a factor during the Great Recession of a decade ago. At that time, family became an economic refuge for many. Pew says it ran its recent survey because it wanted to see whether young adults again resorted to that “private safety net” amid the pandemic's widespread shutdowns and rough economic conditions.

Here's what they found:

Young adults have been particularly hard hit by this year’s pandemic and economic downturn, and have been more likely to move than other age groups....About one-in-ten young adults (9%) say they relocated temporarily or permanently due to the coronavirus outbreak, and about the same share (10%) had somebody move into their household. Among all adults who moved due to the pandemic, 23% said the most important reason was because their college campus had closed, and 18% said it was due to job loss or other financial reasons.

The vast majority of young adults who live with their parents – 88% – live in their parents’ home, and this group accounts for the growth in the population of adult children living with their parents. Nearly all of the remainder live in their own homes along with their parents, or in homes headed by other family members. These shares have been relatively stable for the past decade.

Not all of us are happy to have our "guest room" reoccupied by adult children who have needs, opinions and lifestyles that may not fit with ours. Then there's the wider world concerns. The effect on the economy could be devastating. Even before the outbreak, the growth in new households trailed population growth and slower household growth could mean less demand for housing and household goods. There also may be a decline in the number of renters and homeowners, and in overall housing activity. Between February and July 2020, the number of households headed by an 18- to 29-year-old declined by 1.9 million, or 12%.

If you'd like to see the trend data in chart form, here's how Pew lays it out: