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

Observations: Novelist Emma Straub looks at the doubts we might have about our parenting skills--now and when our kids were small.

I've just turned the last satisfying page of Emma Straub's All Adults Here. One of the novel's  remarkable aspects is how the author toggles back and forth between the mother's (Astrid, the matriarch) and the three grown children's perspectives and cause/effects of her parenting--when the children were small and now, when they're 30-something grown ups.

It's a book about family life with the widowed mom/grandma still living in the Big House where her children were raised in a small, fictional upstate New York town that's a summer retreat for privileged urbanites. Two of the children have put down roots in homes and businesses of their own in the town; one has taken himself off to New York City. The plot, what there is of it, is besides the point. For me the book is about Astrid and her feelings of alienation from her children, second guessing why they don't confide in her or turn to her for advice or guidance.

Many of us can identify. For your reading pleasure, here are a smattering of Astrid's observations about parenting her grown children.

On her New York City son's unexpected request to have his 13-year-old daughter live with Astrid for the upcoming school year.

It had been so long since there was a child in the house, Astrid had spent days shopping and baking and cooking. ...Astrid had baked zucchini muffins with walnuts, an enormous casserole of macaroni and cheese, turkey meatballs, chocolate chip cookies, granola bars studded with plump raisins. She'd bought eight bananas. There were enough tomatoes to can and freeze soup and pasta sauce for a whole winter....

The blessings of being a grandparent was knowing all the things that had to be done and having the time to do them. Some of her friends thought that extra patience came with age, but that wasn't it, of course. Their calendars just weren't as full. Astrid was clear-eyed about her position. Nicky [her son] hadn't said, Oh, Mom, please talk to Cecelia [his daughter] about everything, please help. He'd said, Can she come? And the answer was yes. Astrid was an able body; she was a safe house. He was complimenting her ability to keep children alive, not her parenting skills....

 

An awkward lunch with a busy son whose family life with rambunctious pre-school twins is "difficult" at the moment:

She had wanted to talk to him, to really talk to him, but it was so hard to know where to start. All of a sudden--forty years of parenting in!--she felt like she was on shaky ground. If her son felt this way about his children, if they were making mistakes, how many other mistakes must she have made without admitting them to herself? Her children were the way they were because of all the things she had done and all the things she had not done.

Contemplating her 13-year-old granddaughter reading a book at the kitchen table:

Still, it was nice to see a small face tucked behind a paperback, elbows splayed on the wood. Astrid paused at the counter and just watched. This was what she'd wanted--this was what everyone wanted. To have your children's children around, to be young enough to watch them grow, and for them to be self-sufficient within reason. Grandparenting wasn't the same as parenting, thank god, even in cases like this....Cecelia was right here, an easy guest. It meant that she'd done something right with Nicky after all, whether he'd admit it or not.

 

Reader's Report: Ray Bradbury's insight on legacies applies to what we leave behind for our grown children.

No, of course we don't want to think of wills, estates and what we leave behind for our children--no less the non-monetary stuff. But a legacy--from what we did with our lives to the books we read them to the birthday cards we wrote them--has meaning that carries forward, along with the memory of us and our values. 

That said, here are some legacy-leaving words from an unexpected quarter: Ray Bradbury, writing in Fahrenheit 451. (Thank you MiddleSage for calling my attention to this.)

 

                        

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

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Monday Morning Reader: Elinor Lipman's insights on the joy of being the parent of a grown child

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Monday Morning Reader: Elinor Lipman's insights on the joy of being the parent of a grown child

On occasional Monday mornings I post excerpts from other writers--of nonfiction as well as fiction--that offer insights into the always-challenging and often-joyous business of parenting adult children. Today's is from novelist Elinor Lipman and her book of brief and mostly light-hearted essays, I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays.

       

As Lipman herself says, the descriptive word "nice" follows her. Based on her writings, so does a certain upbeatness. One of her favorite--if not her absolute favorite--authors is humorist Max Shulman (Dobie Gillis, anyone?). She quotes him as having said about his ability to write humor, "life was bitter and I was not." As any of us who read her novels knows, that line fits her as well. I Can't Complain is a series of short and shorter memoir-style essays about family and life.

Here is her commentary on her grownchild--her son was 23 when she wrote this about the difference between parenting young children and parenting the grown up version.

"One of the great joys of the grown-up child is seeing how the essential him or her was always there. Baby versions of likes and dislikes, talents, interests, and personality traits come home to roost in fascinating ways. ....I'm not pointing out in grandparently fashion that time flies, that your little ones grow up in the blink of an eye, so cherish every moment. You've heard them. This is me saying you have a lot to look forward to--not just the tuition-free, post-orthodontic, babysitterless side of parenthood, but the company it keeps: your grown-up child. My friends with small children have asked me, "What's it like when they no longer crawl into your lap? When the hugging and kissing get shrugged away? Don't you miss the baby?

Yes we do....But then the big boy calls, and the rosy glow changes direction to the here and now. Lovely surprises await you, too. A big strapping guy! A witty friend! A voter! A tech-support hotline! An adviser, a guide, a conscience.

A pride and joy."

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A Poet Says It Best: Ancient advice for where we are now

Alpha daughter gave me a gift a while ago. A book of Tao Te Ching poems. For months, it sat in a messy pile on my desk, unopened. I was too busy to slow down to reflect and lose myself in poetry. Time and mood conspire: I found the little book--a mere 120 pages, some with delicate ink-wash drawings--on a day when I was trying to think my way through a messy passage in my life. Among the gems I found in "The Sage's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life" by William Martin, was this sparely written poem that, for all its gentle tone, rips right to the heart of where we are as parents of grown children--or, rather, where we aspire to be.

Like the Full Moon on an Autumn Evening

When we were young/and feeling the need to prove ourselves,/we generated heat and energy/like the noonday sun./ But now we take time to reflect the Tao/and bathe our world in soft silent beauty/like the full moon on an Autumn evening.

An abundance of opinions will generate heat/but accomplish nothing./You no longer have to comment/on each and every little thing./You can observe events with a detached serenity./When you speak,/your words are gentle, helpful, and few./Your silence is as beautiful as the Harvest moon.

The Loneliness of the Empty Nest: A novelist describes that empty feeling

I turn to Olive Kitteredge again. Elizabeth Strout's novel told in a series of stories zeroes right in on the heart of what hurts parents of grown children most. Oh sure there are joys--watching our children mature, start careers, marry, raise children, lead interesting lives. But there is also a loneliness that can bear down on you at unexpected moments--especially those of us whose children don't live close by. Strout's story, "Starving," is ostensibly about a young girl suffering from anorexia, but the main character is Harmon, a man of a certain age who owns the local hardware store. There was about him, a character in Strout's story tells us, a certain sadness. As this woman friend observes, "His four sons had grown and scattered. They visited, appearing in town as great grown men, and she remembered when, in years past, you never saw Harmon alone. Always one or more of these small, then teenage, boys were with him, running around the hardware store on Saturdays, yelling across the parking lot, throwing a ball, calling out to their father to hurry."

On a walk by himself, Harmon recalls how one of his sons "had been a pack rat with a sentimental streak. Harmon walked along...the air like a cold washcloth on his face. Each of the sons had been his favorite child."

Harmon also notes that he had thought his wife "might have had a bad empty-nest time of it, that he'd have to watch out for her." But he finds "she seems calmer, full of a new energy."

That's what I love about this book. It captures in such fine phrasing what it is that we're experiencing. When our children grow up and leave home, it is a mixed blessing. There is renewed energy, yes! All of a sudden, we're Number One. But we also lose our admission ticket--to the soccer games, swim meets, piano recitals, opening school night. The house is no longer full of noise or excitement. Sundays at the soccer game may be an annoyance when we're in the midst of it, but now that our children are grown, we miss the interaction with them and being part of the community to which we belonged with them. Watching a grandchild's soccer game is not the same thing. We're just spectators.

Starving isn't just about anorexia. It's also about the loss when our children move away and the feeling we have in the aftermath.

Anger Management: A poet's perspective on who's to blame for the mess they're in

Nobody's perfect, least of all us as parents of grown children. But here's poet Philip Larkin's misanthropic perspective on how we may feel about our parents, and how our kids may feel about us--on rare occasion, of course. Pass the blame, anyone?

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

--Philip Larkin

Words from the Wise: The hard work is never done

. "Closeness with our adult children is not an entitlement, but it can be the goal. It is nothing we can assume. But it is something we can hope for."

These quiet words of guidance are from Joshua Coleman, psychiatrist and author of "When Parents Hurt:: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along"

Insights from Experts and Others: Getting Beyond the Empty Nest

Here's a light but trenchant observation by Nora Ephron on the adjustment to the post-college era, when the kids finally move out and are on their own--or trying to be. [Paragraphing is Ephron's.]

“But eventally college ends, and they’re gone for good.

The nest is actually empty.

You’re still a parent, but your parenting days are over.

Now what?

There must be something you can do.

But there isn’t.

There is nothing you can do.

Trust me.

If you find yourself nostalgic for the ongoing, day-to-day activities required of a modern parent, there’s a solution: Get a dog.”

Nora Ephron, “I Feel Bad About My Neck”

I've filed this one under one of my Notes to Self: Keep Up Your Own Interests

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