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

Vacationing with Grown Children and Grandkids: Five rules for the road and the rental

Summer vacations are on the horizon. If we spent vacation time away with our grown kids and their kids last year or in pre-Covid times, we may have had vacations that were lively and refreshing--or they may have been filled with cooking, cleaning and a lot of babysitting. We may have come home with nothing more than the semi-excitement of a change of scene and the busyness of constant company.

How to make sure this year we're on a three-generation holiday where we have as relaxing or invigorating a time as our kids and grandkids? Here are five rules to keep things rolling along smoothly.

Great expectations: Each of us has our own vision of what our vacation should look like. We may want to sit by the ocean and stare at the waves or play tennis every day or take a long walk every morning. Or just sleep late every morning. If we talk to each other in advance about what we really, really want out of our vacation, we can accommodate each other. That is, our kids won't ask us to babysit when it's our time to go off and read. And we won't disappear when we know it's our grown kids' time to play tennis with each other. Knowing each person's vacation goals also means you probably won't do everything together. And that's okay. It's even a bonus:  It can make dinner conversations livelier.

Sharing the chores: If you're renting a house--or if you're lucky enough to own a retreat of your own--you don't want to be stuck cooking all the meals, stocking the refrigerator or vacuuming the day's litter every morning. A lot of families assign a dinner per person or family so that responsibility for cooking and clean-up gets spread around. As to babysitting patrol, some of us find that delightful but if you have your limits--and I do--there's nothing wrong with laying down some markers. For instance, you can encourage your kids to enjoy a date night and offer to babysit for the evening--which is a subtle reminder that you're not on duty all the time.

Splitting the costs: Many of us pick up the tab for family vacations--our kids are just establishing their careers; we have more expendable income than they do. Or, as sociologist Madonna Harington Meyer put it in an interview, "there is very little money flowing uphill" on family trips.  But as our kids' families expand (larger families mean larger rental quarters) and we near or are in retirement, that one-way street may not work as well. Or even be necessary. We don't have to keep doing things as we've always done them. We won't get a cold shoulder if we ask them to share the rent on a beach house or split the grocery bill or if we let them take us out to dinner. A corollary to this rule is to get as big a house or campsite or tent as the family can afford: It will be worth it.

Parenting rules: Our grown kids set the rules for their kids. No argument there. While we may indulge our grandkids when they spend a few hours with us at home or on a special trip, the flaunting of the parental rules is not okay on vacations when we're crammed into a house together. A further complication: if two of our kids and their families are with us on vacation, we may have to juggle their different approaches to parenting. This one allows juice drinks; that one forbids them. This one allows swimming without water wings; that one doesn't--good luck remembering which is which. Best approach: ask before doing. If a grandkid wants to eat your portion of chocolate lava cake, don't just push your plate in front of them. Ask their mom or dad if a taste is okay.

Escape time: I loved our family vacations in Vermont with my kids and their young families. But the grandpops and I made ourselves scarce at around 4:30. That was usually melt-down time for the little kids, and the parents knew better than this grannie how to handle tired children who needed quiet time. Extra credit: When we came back on the scene, we were rested and refreshed. A guilt-free pleasure.

photo: Maia Lemov

 

 

The New Rules for Grandparents during the Corona Crisis: The where, when and how of visiting hours

Pieter de Hooch@National Gallery

Is it safe for our grandchildren to visit us or for us to visit them? For the past two and a half months of the coronavirus pandemic, visits have been limited to waves from backyard windows or FaceTime calls.  For most of us--those of us who don't live with our grown children--in person contact has been verboten. As state economies open up and Phase 1 morphs into Phase 2, some of those visits are moving toward in-person get-togethers: socially distanced, well-masked and one family group at a time.  No hugging allowed.

Some of us are willing to take the risk of mingling with our Grands (and our grown kids), even as our grown children are hesitant. (They look at that ugly CDC statistic: Eight out of 10 deaths from Covid-19 are in people aged 65 and older.)

Surely there are ways to make in-person visits safer. After all, we need to take into account not only  our physical well being but our mental health as well. We get lonesome for our loved ones; isolation is depressing.

The experts have some advice about how to make visits with Grands and their parents less threatening to our well-being. Tara Parker-Pope provided such guidance in her story “When Can I See My Grandkids?” Here are some of the tips:

--No one self-evaluates as reckless. Do a reality check about the actual level of vigilance by every member of the visiting household.  Some questions to ask every member of the household would cover: How many times did someone go to a store or meet a friend for a walk.  Did a teenage boyfriend/girlfriend stop by for a visit? At the park, did the grandkids run up to another child before the parents could stop them? Does everyone wear a mask?

--There's no perfect. But greater vigilance should be hyped up for 14 days before a visit.

--The al fresco answer.  The transmission risk is far lower outside than inside. But even outdoors, everyone should wash their hands and stay at least six feet apart (10 to 12 if anyone has a chronic health condition). Everyone over the age of 2 — and not just the grandparents — should wear a mask. Children are more likely to wear one if they understand that it’s to protect someone they love.

You've heard it before on the importance of masks, but here it is again from an expert with enough research and hands-on experience to know what he's talking about, Dr. Asaf Bitton. 

“A sneeze without a mask can spread up to 20 feet. It’s also the act of speaking — we expel droplets even in quiet speech. The mask really contains a great amount of them. The mask is protecting all of us from each other.”

So in-person visits from grandkids who live nearby are possible for those of us lucky enough to have backyards or access to outdoor parks. But the hugging part--that will have to wait.

Etiquette Expectations: Should our kids bring us gifts when they come home for a holiday dinner?

An email from a friend arrived in my inbox this week. He was soliciting advice. Here's his question.

Our older son notified us by text that he and his wife could come over for Easter Sunday dinner. We dutifully dropped $50 on primo lamb chops, wild rice, asparagus, a freshly baked pie, and a six-pack of craft beer. Our son arrived empty handed, though he quickly filled one by grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, handing a sparkling water to his wife. The fact that the pair brought nothing cast a pall of entitlement over the holiday dinner. Was I wrong to feel this way? Could this have been my own fault for subsidizing him for so long? I look forward to your sage guidance.

Readers, what would you tell hm? Here's the stab I made at handing out sage guidance on life's little and big inter-personal problems. 

We feel what we feel and you feel lousy about your son not acknowledging the effort you made. It might have helped if he had thanked you for making such a great dinner.

But this may not be an entitlement issue. Adult kids are still kids and when they come home for a "special" dinner they don't see themselves as guests but as your son, and sons or daughters don't usually think to bring "guest gifts" or "chip in" offerings to their parents. Also it may be a generational thing. Every year we are invited to a neighbor's house for Passover dinner along with their two adult kids and their families as well as cousins and the cousins' kids. I always call to see what I can bring (usually dessert). But it turns out that I am almost alone in that. My neighbor tells me that I and an "older" cousin are the only ones who offer to bring anything. The grown kids and cousins never do.

If these kids were invited to a friend's house for a big get-together, would they bring a six pack or a bottle of wine? Probably. But parents seem to be another story.

I checked in with Paterfamilias. He leaned toward letting it slide. His rationale: The relationship with adult children is so important and delicately balanced, why let something relatively minor become an issue.

Any of you readers want to take a crack at this?

Refilled Nests: Setting rules when a grownchild moves back home

"We  need to talk." That's what my friend C told her 28-year-old son when he moved back into the bedroom of his youth. He wasn't home because of financial challenges,  a career in stall or an inability to manage on his own.. Rather, he and his girlfriend were planning to move in together and get married. The lease was up on his  apartment; she was  in graduate school in another city until May. They were waiting for her to get a nursing job offer at one of the hospitals in the area before they figured out where to hunt for an apartment.

He would be home for four months. C wanted to make the house rules clear. She'd just "hosted" her  younger son for a year while he tried to figure out the road he was going to travel. He'd been sullen and unhelpful and the "stay" had been fairly unpleasant.

Here's what she set out with her older son. It had nothing to do with groceries, doing the dishes or paying rent. They were general principles that she felt cleared the air and set a positive tone for his time at home. They are so simple and clear  that I thought I'd share them with those of you who are expecting the unexpected extended home visit of a grown child

Rule 1: Pick up after yourself, especially in public spaces. Don't leave socks, shirts, or other personal items in the living room or family room or dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

Rule 2: Be helpful. If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don't wait to be asked. If the kitchen garbage bin is full, take out the trash.

Rule 3: Be pleasant. A friendly greeting, an occasional smile, an acknowledgement that the parents exist and are people deserving of courtesy--these are things that can make a home-stay tolerable for all parties.

Rule 4: Make sure the toilet seat is down in the guest bathroom.

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"No one says Thank You." That is my friend Lily's complaint as the first few weeks of a six-week visit--by her daughter and her family--unfurl. Her daughter, who lives half a world away in Jakarta, was here on an extended business trip, 7-year-old son in tow. While Lily's daughter went to work, Lily entertained her grandson. Two weeks later, her son-in-law arrived with the 5-year-old granddaughter. While he took care of errands and family business, Lily took care of both grand kids, stocked the fridge, made the meals, kept the house in order, invited her other daughter and her family over for get-togethers--and put her own life and activities on hold.

Six weeks is a long visit--and exhausting for everyone, visitor and host alike. Midway through the visit, a small irritant led to a venting of frustrations. Lily's daughter let her mother know all the things that were bothering her about the visit and the relationship between Lily and the other grandchildren. For her part, Lily let her daughter know how under-appreciated she felt. That ticked her daughter off even more. She told her mother that the visit was of great inconvenience to her husband. He had to use up vacation time from his job in order to bring Lily's granddaughter here for a visit with Lily. Now he wouldn't be able to take time off during the Christmas holidays for a family vacation.

What do you do when your grown child not only doesn't thank you for taking care of her and her family--at some cost to you (Lily was unable to keep up with many of her out-of-the-home responsibilities and activities) --but adds a guilt trip?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether the outburst is about the visit or a rehashing of sibling rivalry ["You favor my sister's children over mine!"], the dislocation of being away from home [favorite foods or toys are unavailable] or the airing of real grievances. Longer visits present more time, opportunity and memory jolts to bring up unpleasant or unresolved family disputes.

Lily chose to put out the fire. She apologized to her son-in-law for the inconvenience and thanked him for the trade-off he had to make. By the time he left for a two week visit with his parents on the West Coast--taking his two children with him (Lily, it seems, was not the only one to blame for loss of vacation over grandchild visitation), Lily found her relationship with her daughter had greatly improved. The last two weeks of the visit fell into a pleasant rhythm. With the son-in-law and grandchildren away, Lily was able to get back to most of her activities while her daughter commuted to work. That didn't mean Lily wasn't relieved and happy to see her daughter's family board the plane back to Jakarta. 

The good news? Lily says friends no longer complain to her about their exhaustion after a three-day family visit. She survived a six week stint.

 

Parenting Adult Children: Who rules the dinner-table talk now?

On vacation this summer, we are invited by Uber son and family to join them at their condo for dinner. They've spent their day doing things they love to do--skipping rocks down at the creek, picking wild berries from bushes and swimming in the pool. Paterfamilias and I, ensconsed in a nearby hotel, had walked a hiking trail and been to town to check out the crafts scene.

This particular evening, my daughter-in-law and my grandson had just gotten back from a 3-hour mountain bike ride on trails in the foothills of the mountain. It had been a challenging, adrenalin-rush ride; they were both exhilarated by the adventure.

It was all we talked about at dinner: the rocks, tree roots, sudden twists in the trail, sharp uphills, scraped elbows. Tales of other rides by other mountain-biking members of the family were relived and remembered--including some parental falls and pratfalls into or on top of bushes.

Paterfamilias and I don't mountain-bike ride. We are road bicyclists. We tried to connect our experiences with theirs (the closeness of a fast-moving truck versus the challenge of knee-high tree roots) but that flopped. So did our attempts after a while to change the subject.

That's when one of the realities of parenting adult children hit home: We are no longer in charge. Not even close. Of course, when our kids were young and growing up in our house or going on vacation with us, we ran the dinner-table conversation. Now when we're on their turf, our grown kids own the flow of conversation, and we don't necessarily know what it is or how it works. It isn't as though we're cut out of the conversation. We're welcome to join in, but it's sometimes hard to figure out how. PF and I often remind each other, 'We're no longer center stage; we're bit players now in our children's lives.' It's one thing to say it. It's another to feel it at the dinner table.

On her blog, psychotherapist Kathy McCoy talks about re-framing the feelings of being on the side lines: Instead of feeling we are a bit player, we could see ourselves as having a front row seat. McCoy likes to quote her Aunt Molly on the changing family dynamic as we age: "We're welcome at the party, but the party isn't for us."

Nor is leading the dinner conversation. If the table talk isn't to our liking or interest, tough luck. Feign interest. Try to connect. Listen for nuggets of insight. It's their turn.

To be fair, the table talk isn't always devoted to mountain biking or its equivalent. One of Uber son's delights is in presenting complex math questions that take a healthy dose of logic to solve. The conversations that revolve around solving the questions are profound. I'm often stumped by them (lazy mind refusing to go to work) but I relish hearing how the two older Grands (5th and 7th graders) work their way toward an answer.

The conversation on this particular vacation evening finally broadened out, thanks to our youngest Grand who does not yet ride a pedaling bike, no less forge through mountain trails. As we finished our chicken and corn and brought the farm-market peach pie to the table, she piped up: "Can't we talk about something else, like skiing?"

We weren't the only ones having trouble connecting.

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Grudges: When our grown kids won't talk to each other--or us.

 A friends son and daughter stopped speaking to each other. It lasted more than a year. It wasn't just talk. They refused to come to the same Thanksgiving meal together--a meal my friend prepares for a large group that includes her two other children, their spouses and children.

One of her sons tried to mediate a peace. Her husband tried talking to each of them. No luck. The offended daughter even approached her offending brother to spell out her complaint against him. It only made matters worse.

Though the siblings have since come to terms with each other, I thought about my friend and the bad blood that existed between two of her children when I came across a Sheila Heen column on Family Grudges. I've been reading a lot of Heen recently (more on that in another post). She's got some very commonsensical suggestions on how to work around family conflicts. After reading her recent column, I sent it off to my friend. It turns out, her kids--as well as my friend and her husband and their other children--had been taking the wrong tack.

Heen's suggestions for working through a grudge match start with a Do Not Do. Specifically, do not write a letter or email spelling out your perspective--or even apologizing for something you may have done wrong.

Sounds counter-intuitive, but here's Heen's rational: "Inevitably some aspect of what you describe will feel “off” to them (“That’s not what happened!”) or will leave out parts that they feel are most important. And their interpretation of your motives for writing the letter is colored by emotion. Your desire to reconnect is seen as a desire to absolve yourself of guilt, to manipulate, or to appear to be righteously taking the high road....Remember that email and letters aren’t dialogue. They’re monologue. And they’re the channel of communication that can escalate conflict most quickly."

So what can you do to ease the path of reconciliation? Here are some of Heen's basic approaches, which can be adapted by an interested parenting hoping to give grown children a chance to reconcile--or to make peace with a begrudging child:

Strategy 1: Don’t talk, just do. Often family members cut off contact not because they like conflict, but because they hate conflict. Avoiding the stress seems most easily done by avoiding the people who produce the stress....Sometimes, depending on the personalities involved, the best approach is to avoid the “big conversation” altogether, and just to start acting “normal” again.

Strategy 2: Propose a conversation just about the future. Sometimes it’s not worth sorting through the details of who did what and reacted to what. It may simply be that you want to propose talking about how to move on.

Strategy 3: Initiate a conversation to understand the rift. Let them know that you’d like to talk. Not so that you can talk them out of their feelings or their behavior, but so that you can better understand what’s happened between you. ...In that conversation, first listen to them. Why? Because people simply do not take in what you have to say, cannot question or shift their perceptions, until they feel understood. To get meaningful communication moving, someone has to be the first to listen and that someone is going to have to be you.

 

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Visiting Grown Children: What are the good-guest rules when you don't feel well?

The first morning of our weekend visit to Uber Son and family, we got up early: Soccer, soccer, soccer was the all-day plan. Paterfamilias was off to the four-game tournament the oldest Grand was playing in. PF was over-the-top excited about watching his grandson on the soccer pitch. All day: Couldn't be a better plan. This is why he wanted to come for a visit.

I tagged along with my daughter-in-law to watch the youngest grand--she just turned five--at her game. Magnet ball is more like it as all those wee people scrum around the ball, their tiny legs jutting out to try to kick the ball. This was a 9 a.m. game; five-year-olds aren't asked to remain on the pitch for very long. We were back at the house within an hour. But all of a sudden I felt light-headed and nauseated. Heat sick? But it was only 10:00.

So I crept to my room--the guest room--plopped down on the bed and waiting for it to pass. When I came back downstairs, preparations were being made to get everyone into the van and join 'the guys' in time to see the third and fourth game of the soccer tournament--in 95 degree weather. Yes, it was a hot summery weekend. I apologized for disappearing --especially since a lunch had to be packed, small soccer players needed help removing shin guards, umbrellas and chairs needed to be stowed in the car and other preparations made. Of course, my DIL was on top of things and getting it all done. But one feels an explanation is needed for not being there to help. I told her I had needed a lie-down. She looked concerned but we agreed that, as she put it, I was feeling 'off.'

What do you do when you're feeling 'off' when you're visiting your grown children? You don't want to disrupt the carefully planned day or miss seeing what you came to see--or cause your children to worry about you or spread your germs should the "off" be something more unpleasant. You're there to help not be helped. So, I soldiered on 'cheerfully' through the soccer games and kept the feeling lousy feeling to myself.

But then we're back at the house and I am not doing my usual helping out--I am letting my DIL and Uber son cook dinner without so much as a helping hand from me. It feels downright strange to sit there and not bustle around--if not helping in the kitchen or folding laundry then reading to a Grand or doing something else with one or all of the Grands.

Behind it all was this question: How to be polite and loving but cut the visit short and go home? The fear of being a burden is just below the surface--even though I was hardly feeling really ill. I just longed for my own home and own bed--to pull the covers up and sleep off whatever bug was bugging me. 

What is it that compels some of us to mount a drive to get away--away from letting our grown children or Grands see us as ill or infirm or even just mildly 'off?' PF and I have been fortunate--to be physically well and able to go bicycle riding with our grown children and our grands, to kick the soccer ball with them and go on hikes--to say nothing of being part of a family touch-football game. Feeling Off reminds me of how lucky I am but how lousy I feel at this moment about being there. Have I put too much in store in my persona as a can-do parent and grandparent. Am i too busy hiding vulnerabilities to enjoy the togetherness just because I feel off? 

When we finally got home--we did leave early; thunderstorms were predicted for later in the day and the thought of canceled flights tipped me over to an earlier flight--my DIL texted me to see if I was feeling better. I wasn't. But I couldn't bring myself to tell her so. Off is off, but even from a distance, one can't press the burden button--or rather, the fear of being a burden. Why is that?

 

Emerging Adults: The line between being a parent and becoming a best friend

I didn't mean to eavesdrop. It couldn't be helped. I was sitting at Panera's having a late morning latte when a trio of friends sat down at a table next to me and started chatting. In my defense, they were using their outside voices--or close to it.

I started picking up on the conversation when one man, a father, started waxing caustic about his son's request to be treated as a "best friend" rather than as the man's son.

"I told him," the dad reported to his captive audiences, "I'm your parent. I'll be your best friend when I can come to your house, open the refrigerator and eat anything I want; when I can drink your milk right out of the carton; when I can sleep over anytime I want; when I can drop by without letting you know; when I can leave without closing the door."

His friends all gave him a fist-bump of an Amen. Given his parade of horribles, I did too, although I did want to turn around and reassure him that his young-adult son was likely to outgrow his juvenile habits; that if he could give his son growing bits of leeway, their relationship would morph from parental disciplinarian to comradely adviser. His son might be chaffing against parental control--isn't that what growing up is all about?--but the dad was fortunate that his son wanted a friendly relationship, even if it was an eventuality. But I kept my comments between me and my latte.

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Changing of the Guard: Home for the holidays at their house

When Pat and Dick's children were toddlers, their home became Christmas Holiday central. Her parents, who lived in the Midwest, came and stayed for three days. Pat's brother and sister-in-law drove down from New England, Dick's brother flew in from California. Everyone made it to the little white clapboard church across the street where Pat sang in the choir. Pat made her veal stew a la Romeo Salta for Christmas eve dinner and otherwise stocked the refrigerator and larder for all the meals, snacks and food a large family would consume in three days. They decorated the tree and set the "rules" for Christmas gift-giving. By the time everyone left, Pat and Dick were exhausted and lived on leftovers and pizza for several days.

This year--36 years later--Pat and Dick gave up the Christmas ghost. At their son's suggestion, Pat and DIck, their daughter, her husband and 6-year-old twins (plus the cat) drove down to their son's house in a city some two hours south of theirs. The son's mother in law and her boyfriend came over for dinner. There was a full house--all of Pat and Dick's Grands (including the son's dog--Pat and Dick's grandpup). Pat and Dick stayed three nights. There was no white clapboard church across the street. Pat didn't sing in the choir (sigh). The twins did not dress up in cute little dresses for their appearance at Grammy's church.

Other than that, Pat and Dick have been remarkably sanguine about what is likely to be the new normal. Pat, on request, brought a huge pot of her veal stew a la Romeo Salta for Christmas eve dinner but other than that, she had no responsibilities. She didn't have to put up a tree; she didn't have to worry about filling the refrigerator with everyone's favorite nibbles or being prepared for three days of breakfasts, lunches and dinners. "I made the stew and that was all I had to worry about," Pat says. "My daughter-in law's mom helped with the cooking. It was very pleasant not to be in charge. It was a gift." A gift that, she and Dick say, they'll be glad to get next Christmas.

"The old order changeth, giving rise to the new," and there's a pleasure in accepting the changing of the guard--even when it's at our expense.

 

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