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

Money Matters: If there are strings attached to a gift, tie them on in advance

Sometimes we surprise ourselves with our generosity. We give our children a large gift-----enough money to, say, buy a car, put a downpayment on a house or take out a first-rate health insurance policy. But then they use the money in ways we did not intend-- they go on a lavish vacation or buy themselves a designer wardrobe. We end up frustrated and angry.

What's our recourse? Here's an answer from Philip Galanes and his Social Qs.  It's to a widowed mother who offered her only child the gift of the family home. While the gift is a house per se, Galanes' answer covers all the gift bases:

The mother in question wrote Galanes to say she had offered her son and his fiance, who live in another city, her home if they would "come back here to raise a family." The son accepted but when she suggested he build a guesthouse on the site for her, her son demurred. "They assumed," the mother writes, "I would move into a condo. I was shattered! The next day, he said he was sorry if I felt they were kicking me out of my house. I do. I also think if I don’t go along with them, they will stay where they are. "

Here's the gist of Galanes' answer that applies to all of us gift givers. (bold face are mine):

Your impulse to give your home to your son was a generous one. But even with gifts — maybe especially with gifts — it is crucial to express any conditions we have in mind when we make the offer. Here, I don’t think a reasonable person would expect the gift of a home to include your continued residency in it — unless you mentioned that fact.

Now, I also know how natural it is to daydream about happy situations. For you, that may include living in an extended-family household with your son and his fiancée. And it’s easy to assume that other people want the same things we do. That’s why communication is so important: Sometimes, they don’t.

art credit: Hilary Pecis, "Piecemeal Rhythm"

 

Money Matters: Should a financial gift come with strings attached?

We are a generation that wants to--especially if we have the wherewithal to--help our kids out financially. Whether it's a gift to assist with the downpayment on their first house or money to pay health insurance premiums, we're often very generous with our grown children.

Whatever the reasons behind the gift, there is always a question of whether they do with it what we intended. That is, if we hand over a chunk of cash to pay down their car loan, will we be angry if they use the cash to buy new clothes.

In a recent Social Qs column, Philip Galanes answered a reader who told Galanes she often sends her brother and sister-in-law, who were living in financially tight circumstances, a check "to make their lives easier." Her aim, she explained, was to make sure they had money for emergencies; that her largesse would, in effect, be put aside as a safety net. But when her brother called to thank her for a recent gift, he mentioned that he and his wife had used it to travel to Europe. Her question--and one that applies directly to those of us who are financially generous to our grown children--was, how could she make sure, without dictating how they use the money, that they use it responsibly--at least responsibly in her eyes.

Galanes's answer is a practical one for those of us who struggle with the same or a similar issue:

There is nothing wrong with calling your brother to say: “Please tell me to butt out if you like, but I worry about your financial security. If you ever have an emergency and can’t pay an essential bill, please let me know, and I will try to pitch in.” From a distance, this seems to be what you want to do: help protect them without becoming their bank or fairy godmother.

But to continue giving them money and then feeling resentful when they spend it differently from how you imagined, isn’t fair to any of you — particularly given your hazy sense of their financial condition and prudence.

In other words, we can tell our kids there's a string attached to a particular gift--paying off of a car loan, say--and hope they use it that way or we could pay off the loan directly. No point building up resentments over gifts: they're supposed to be joyful and helpful not a sourse of future ill will.

Blessed are those of us who are able to give the gift and trust our children to use it as they see best.

painting: Picasso

 

Money Matters: Can we control the gifts rich relatives give our kids?

We're a protective species. When it comes to our kids, we want fair play in all things, even when it's only a matter of gifts from family members. Or maybe I should say, especially when it's gifts from family members and even more especially when those relatives happen to be rich. We may not want them to give our kids hefty high school or college graduation checks for fear of our kids feeling "entitled." Or we may appreciate their being generous but we want them to be even-handed--making as big a fuss over one child as the next. (I posted on this issue here.)

Beyond fairness, we may have high expectations that a wealthy uncle or sister will shower our child with a lavish wedding gift when that child marries, a gift that might help set them up in life.

That was the issue raised in Social Qs. The complaint a mother of the bride sent to Philip Galanes was straightforward:

My daughter got married last month...My sister and her husband came with their two children. They are extremely wealthy — like, flying-on-private-jets-to-expensive-vacation-homes wealthy! (We are not.) I assumed they would give my daughter a generous cash gift to be used as an eventual down payment on a home. Instead, they gave her five place settings from her gift registry that cost $500. I am hurt and angry about their lack of generosity. My mother thinks I should talk to my sister about this so it doesn’t affect our relationship. Your thoughts?

It will come as no surprise to anyone who follows Social Qs that Galanes sees the situation through a different prism. He reminds the mother of the bride that she is not entitled to "commandeer other people's money."

Galanes then adds a sound observation and solid piece of advice:

"Where I come from, $500 is not a chintzy wedding gift. And you didn’t say anything about your daughter’s relationship with her aunt and uncle. So I disagree with your mother for now: Don’t talk to your sister about her gift until you have made peace with the fact that it was hers to give."

photo credit: Maia Lemov

Observation: What to do when our kids don't remember each other's milestone moments

 

When I was young and had just gotten married, my brother did not give me a wedding gift. Not that it bothered me. I'm not sure I even noticed. We weren't particularly close. What did bother me is that months later my mother brought me a gift--a small hand-painted ceramic butterfly--that she said my brother bought for me as a wedding gift. He had not, and her attempt to right what she saw as a wrong hurt more than the supposed "wrong." I still have that stupid butterfly and it is still a sad symbol of dysfunction between me, my brother and my mother.

I am reminded of my butterfly moment by a question raised by a Social Q's reader. The overall issue is whether we are the gatekeepers for the interpersonal relationships between and among our children. If our daughter forgets her brother's birthday--or those of his children--is it our job to be the tick on her to-do calendar? What if one sibling remembers the other but not vice versa. What's our role in keeping our adult children up to snuff on observing important occasions in each other's lives?

Social Q's Philip Galanes has an answer and it boils down to four words: Stay out of it. But let me give you the full situation and the nuanced wisdom Galanes imparts to the mother who wrote to him:

The situation: Galanes' reader (the mom) has three sons. The wives of the two older sons remember to send the siblings, their spouses and children gifts or cards to commemorate milestone events such as birthdays. The youngest son, who was unmarried, was "spotty about acknowledging" these occasions. He married recently and his mom hoped his wife would take up the slack, but she hasn't. The mom wants to know how much of a nudge she should give the youngest son's wife.

The wisdom answer:

"Before we deal with your problem, let’s deal with mine: All we’ve heard about the men in your family is that two of them married meticulous gift givers, and the youngest (who was spotty at it) hitched his wagon to an underperformer. Yet somehow these men — the actual blood relations — aren’t expected to pitch in at all.

Now, there’s no problem here if each of the couples has agreed to this division of labor. But it seems sexist to simply expect the new woman to solve the problem of family gifts. ...

As for what you can do: Extricate yourself! I know you want family harmony, but you can’t force adults to send gifts. If your sons or their wives tell you they’re upset about this, suggest they speak directly to your youngest son. This may be more motivating for him than hearing from you again. He and his wife may not be “gift people,” but we all have calendars. (Or they may not care.) Stay out of it."painting Van Gogh

Money Matters: Grown children and the financial intelligence gap

A letter to a financial expert asking for advice about an inheritance was not your usual request. The question came from a woman whose father-in-law left her 29-year-old daughter---his granddaughter--a sizeable fortune in a trust that was currently being managed by her daughter's father. When the daughter reaches 30, however, she is eligible to manage the trust herself. Few of us are in the situation of being the parent of a child who is inheriting a fortune.  And yet, though the sums of money may be significantly substantial, the issue this parent faces is one many of us worry about: Will our grown children be able to handle financial responsibilities if we're no longer around to help them. How do we prepare them?

If you're interested, you can read here the expert's advice on helping the daughter understand her financial challenges and choose an adviser to manage the money.

But the expert's advice on preparing a child to be engaged in and understand how to handle financial responsibilities applies more universally. Here are some points Quentin Fottrell, who writes as the Moneyist, makes:

Encourage them to ask questions:

Unless your daughter builds enough financial confidence to ask questions and learn about how she can invest her money, and trust her instincts and establish her own risk tolerance when it comes to investments, she is vulnerable to another person stepping in and filling your husband’s shoes, particularly when he is no longer around to help.

Let them make decisions:

Trusting your daughter to make the right decisions is part of her growing up....The best you can do is to lead by example, and — I’m with you — part of that is allowing her to make her own decisions, as you and your husband have done with your own lives.

Talk things over with them:

Bottom line: You want your daughter to become an active decision maker, even if the answer is to do nothing for now; learn the basics of investing so she knows what questions to ask; and not hand her fortune over to one person to make decisions without her knowledge or understanding. It’s her money, after all.

The first step is for you both to sit down with your daughter and include her in these conversations. You will discover that you will all learn from one another.

painting: Marinus Van Reymerswaelle, 1539

 

 

Holidays with Grown Children: Do we expect them to buy us holiday gifts?

Once again, Philip Galanes of Social Qs comes through with an answer to a question that may plague some of us as we navigate the gifting side of the holidays: Is gift-giving a one-way street?

Here's the dilemma a reader posed:

We have a loving relationship with our 30-year-old son. As we prepare for Christmas, though, we’re feeling resentful in advance that our gift exchange will probably be one-sided: We will buy him gifts; he will not buy us anything. Nor will he seem appreciative. He acts like our gifts are his birthright. Help!

The short version of Galanes' advice:

Tell him that he’s old enough to make holiday giving a true exchange. And remind him that the cost of his gifts is irrelevant. He may be stuck in his view of himself as the child in your relationship. Hopefully, a brisk nudge will set him straight.

painting: J Lawrence, Street to MBari

Legacy Planning: How to apportion the non-monetary stuff

Our treasured goods may be stuffed in boxes under our beds, sitting in clear view on our coffee tables or hanging prominently on our walls. Aside from whether or not our kids will want the stuff, the question is how to apportion the bits and pieces that we've accumulated over our lifetimes and, for some of us, the lifetimes of our parents and grandparents as well.  Not just the stuff that has monetary value but the sentimental stuff as well.

If we leave it to chance--that is with, say, a reminder to our children and heirs to share fairly--we won't be around to suffer through a fight over the needlepoint cat pillow or the diamond earrings Poppy gave Nanny. But we shouldn't rest easy over the idea of missing the battle. We don't want our family falling apart just because we're not there physically anymore.

I've written here about how some friends have tackled the issue: making lists of who should get what, of holding "auctions" in the here and now for who gets what later and of tacking labels onto the bottoms of furniture and pictures. Into this morass comes the ever-sensible Philip Galanes and his Social Qs column. He addresses a query on this issue from a reader whose three daughters are squabbling over her two pearl necklaces that she no longer wears. The youngest has asked to borrow a single-strand necklace to wear occasionally; the oldest feels the mother has unfairly given the necklace away to her younger sister. The middle daughter could care less. There is also a triple strand necklace that no one seems interested in. The mother's plea to Galanes: "Help."

His kernals of wisdom, one of which points to the legacy the pearls represent:

Ask the daughters "if they’d like an heirloom pearl necklace. If all three say yes, remake the triple strand into two necklaces. If your middle daughter remains indifferent to pearls, give her first choice on another piece of jewelry to be claimed after you die.

Then let the girls take turns choosing from the remaining items in your jewelry box and keep a list. It may sound macabre, but letting heirs pick from personal property can be a sensible way to allocate it, in advance and without conflict.

painting: Cezanne. Peppermint Bottle

Money Matters: When sibling rivalry crosses the helping hand

Many of us take great pleasure in helping out our children financially. If we have the wherewithal we're likely to help them with a downpayment to buy a house. (Roughly 20 percent of U.S. homeowners received gifts or loans to help them buy a home, according to Money Magazine, and most of that money came from us--parents of grown children. Money Mag tells us that if the “Bank of Mom and Dad” were a true business, it would be the seventh biggest mortgage lender in the country.)

There is at least one hitch to all this Mom and Dad banking. If we have more than one child, they can get ensnarled in bad feelings--toward us, toward each other--over money we've given one child and not the other or others. The business of giving them what we might call "an advance on their inheritance" can be trickier than writing a will. With the 'advance on inheritance" we're still around to feel the sting if one child feels favored over another.

In a letter to Philip Galanes and his Social Qs column, a reader was feeling that kind of slight.  Her parents had let her know that they had given her sister "a chunk of money to help with a down payment on a house." They told her she wouldn't be receiving a matching sum and for a rational reason: The writer and her husband already owned a house, which they were able to buy with a generous gift from his parents. "My parents aren’t wealthy, so I understand their decision. Still, it stings!" From her perspective, the money they gave to her sister signifies that the parents love her sister more than they love her.  The writer wants to know whether to raise her grievance with her parents.

Galanes reminds the reader and all of us that the parents’ money is theirs. "Whether they are fabulously rich or just squeaking by, they can spend it however they like. And adult children have no entitlement to it."

Over and beyond that, Galanes acknowledges that "sibling rivalry for parental love can be painful" and that the writer should talk to her parents about their decision. But his final reminder in this family drama is one we should all take into account at gift giving or will-writing time:

And for parents: If you intend to make unequal gifts, it can be helpful to discuss the issue in advance. Feelings about parental gifts can run strong!

We are free to do with our money as we see fit. We don't owe our children anything now or in the future. But that's not really the point. What we do owe them is a sense of fair play--an explanation of why we've chosen to do as we have and why, especially when we choose to help one child and not another.

painting: Rothko, Untitled

Gifts to Adult Children: No strings attached, please.

I don't have many rules in my life, but one "good deed" I live by is this: When I give my children or grandchildren a gift,  I attach no strings. No rules about how the gift--be it financial, a tangible good or a service--should be used. If I don't trust them to use the gift responsibly, I don't give it.

There's another kind of string some of us may attach to a gift. We may want the gift acknowledged on a regular basis. That is, our kids can't thank us often enough for whatever it is we gave them. Or as a variation on that theme, we may use the gift as blackmail for future favors or requests, as in "This favor is the least you can do for me since I gave you .....whatever."

I was reminded of this second version of "strings attached" by a Carolyn Hax column in which a reader wrote to complain that her in-laws, who had helped her and their son's family by babysitting their very young children--two under the age of four. The young couple couldn't afford child care and both needed to work. The in-laws stepped up, drove an hour each way to babysit the grandkids three days a week for a year. Now that the young mother and father are able to afford good, nearby child care, the in-laws "cannot seem to stop 'calling in' this old debt" even though "they are thanked regularly and graciously." That is, when the in-laws want the couple to visit with their children--during Covid this meant driving 50 miles to stand outside their house and wave--they pressure the young family to make the visit by reminding them of the gift of babysitting for a year. "This has led me to realize that whenever my in-laws want something," the daughter-in-law writes, "they default to reminding us (subtly or not-so-subtly) about that period when we were entirely dependent on them to keep our family running."

Hax's advice to the writer was for her and her husband to remind the parents "that you are both grateful beyond your ability to express for the year of child care." But then "tune out the guilt noise and make your own decisions for your own reasons."

I read this vignette and it reminds me how attaching strings to gifts engenders ill will. The reason I refuse to turn my gifts into debts is totally selfish: I do it to preserve a positive relationship with my children. No one likes a blackmailer, even if the bounty is only an emotional one.

painting: Cezanne, Still Life with Basket

 

 

 

 

Post Pandemic Issues: Can we close our helping hand to our non-vaxxed kids

The country is riven by the vaccinated versus anti-vaxxers. Infection rates are escalating among the unvaccinated. That's allowing new, virulent variants to thrive, threatening our health and the return to normal, whatever that may be.

What happens when the unvaxxed hits home, when it's not the rogue uncle or distant cousin but your adult child who won't get a shot?

This touchy issue popped up in Kwame Anthony Appiah's New York Times column The Ethicist. The father of an unvaxxed son wrote in with that quandary plus a further complication. Until the son gets a job, the dad is paying his son's share of the rent on an apartment the son shares with his girlfriend. But the son's job search is complicated by his reluctance to get vaccinated. The reader posed this argument and question:

I told him that future employers would most likely insist on his getting vaccinated, and that his unvaccinated state would have financial implications by delaying his start date and income until he could get fully vaccinated. I said that his refusal to get the shot would cost money and that I wasn’t sure I would continue to support him during that gap period between accepting a job and starting work. He became upset, maintaining that he was already compromising by agreeing to become vaccinated if a job required it and that my withholding support was unfair, especially given his willingness to compromise by getting the shot.

Who’s right here? 

Appiah covered the importance of getting vaccinated and then zeroed in on the issue of whether the father, who's nearing retirement and feeling a financial pinch, is right to cut off financial aid if his son refuses to get vaccinated.

Vaccination aside,  Appiah made a point that will resonate with all of us who offer our grown children financial support of any kind. 

If he’s willing to accept an employer’s terms, he should be willing to accept his parental benefactor’s. After all, a parent isn’t generally obliged to provide financial support to an adult child.

Given that you have allowed him to depend upon your generosity, however, you would do well to withdraw that support gently, or with ample advance warning. I know it seems paradoxical to say that a gift can entail an obligation. But in all sorts of circumstances, it can. Suppose your tractor-owning neighbor makes a habit of clearing your driveway every time you’re snowed in. Because of her generosity, you don’t make alternative arrangements. If she suddenly has a change of heart, you’re worse off after the next blizzard than you would otherwise be. That doesn’t bind her to a lifetime of plowing your driveway; it does mean she owes you notice.

In the end, though, respecting people’s agency doesn’t mean you have to underwrite their every mistaken belief. Your son is free to reject your support if he wants to persist in error.