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

Refilled Nests and Too Many Pandemic Promises to Keep

Back in March, when the coronavirus pandemic had most of us sheltering in place, some of us did so with our grown kids and even grandkids. Where they had been living independently, now they were with us under our roof or we under theirs--or we were within a pod of safe visitors. Who knew the sheltering would last so long or that the promises of aid and assistance--babysitting, room and board--would last so long and be so exhausting.

What to do about the problems raised by the over-stuffed nest and pledges of commitment to our now too-close loved ones? Our once-quiet, empty nest may now be filled with the chaos of multi-generation visitors. Did we really mean to commit to serving three meals a day to four adults and two children? Or be available to babysit while they worked? Or share our car, cross trainer and bandwidth indefinitely? How do we get our life back when the end to the crisis is no where near? Here are some suggestions from experts quoted in "How to Set Pandemic Boundaries for Relatives," an article that  reminds us that boundaries are necessary even when they may be hard to set and make us feel like we're being a bad parent or grandparent.

On feeling overwhelmed: Create a list of all of your responsibilities and then identify what you alone can do and what can be outsourced to your "guests." Examples: cleaning the bathrooms; grocery shopping; preparing meals.

Keep a relaunch in sight: Adult children who are boarding with you may have regressed into  dependency. One expert suggests saying to your child, "We know that you don’t want to be here forever. But what can we think about to give you, and us, a vision for how great it’s going to be for you to feel autonomous and free and empowered?” Tht could be the road to mapping out steps toward a relaunch.

Renegotiate commitments: Promises were made back in March, before we realized how long the pandemic might last. But a commitment to, say, babysit grandkids when in-person schools closed last spring may no longer be feasible. You are allowed to change your mind, the experts say, offering this suggestion as a way to open negotiations: “Just because we’ve agreed to something in one moment doesn’t mean we’ve agreed to it for life.”

Clarify your needs: Be clear in your own mind what you’re still willing to do. Let your grown kids know you are still there for them, but within limits. You might reassure them that you've been happy to help so far but "we all thought this would be over by now, and it’s not." Then, the experts say, tell the truth. As in something like this: 

 “‘I can’t be at my best at this level, so I need to cut back’, or ‘I need to take a month off,’ or whatever it is you really need....You let them know, without defensiveness, without guilt, that you want to help them come up with a different solution that works for them, because this one isn’t sustainable for you.’”

Be true to yourself: There may be an expectation on the part of your grown children that you're going to keep doing this because you're their parent and they need you to do it. Oh the guilt! Here's one expert's suggestion on this point:

“Ask yourself, ‘Do I want my kids and grandkids to love me because I do something I don’t want to do for them? Or do I want them to love me because I’m honest and I’m being myself?’”

It ain't easy:

“Tolerating uncomfortable feelings builds emotional resilience. And standing in our truth is hard, but it’s the key to honest relationships."

painting: Repose by J Sargent @ National Gallery

Parenting Adult Children: Are we doing more for our grown kids than they want us to do?

oil on canvas, R. Lemov

We love to do things to help out our adult children. It may be little things like packing up lots of leftovers to send home after Sunday dinner. Or sharing access to our Netflix account. Or babysitting so new parents can enjoy a date night.

Little things mean a lot. But sometimes we step over the line. When my mother flew up from Florida for her semi-annual two-week visits, I would go off to work and she would give my kitchen a top-to-toe scrub, including re-organizing my pantry and re-arranging my plants. I resented it. This was not help I asked for or wanted.

Maybe that's why I reacted viscerally to a recent commentary cum question from a Social Qs reader about a mother-in-law who seemed to have lost her sense of boundaries.

Returning home from a trip during which my in-laws stayed with our kids, I discovered my mother-in-law had replaced our kitchen chairs with a set she bought at a neighbor’s garage sale. Who does that? .... I am appalled that someone would change my furniture without permission. BTW: I hate the chairs. What should I do when she comes over and sees that mine are back?--Anonymous

Here's some of what the Social Q guru Philip Galanes had to say, first about the chairs and then about the crossing of lines by "helpful" parents:

It is the greatest disappointment of my week that I can’t show our readers a picture of these chairs, for the sake of anonymity. (They are wantonly hideous!) Sadly, though, there is a bigger issue here: boundary-busting by your mother-in-law.

You don’t mention any history of inconsiderate behavior on her part....It also seems unlikely that she’d be respectful for years, then — wham! — new chairs appear without your blessing.

Acknowledge the germ of generosity here. Say to your mother-in-law: “Thanks for watching the kids and for your gift. I don’t care for the chairs, though. I like to choose my own furniture. Would you like them?”

Just a little reminder that we can be helpful on little things (if they don't like the left-overs, they can toss them out on the way home. No harm done.). But they are in charge of their homes and hearths.  Note to Self: It's their life.

Supporting Grown Children: Golden Handcuffs Edition

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to be financially generous to our adult children--to support them if an unexpected need arises or to indulge them so that they can do or buy something they've always wanted. If we've got that bit of extra to spare, there's a deep pleasure in seeing our children enjoy it now rather than later--when we're no longer around.

And our kids are grateful. Why shouldn't they be? We've offered them support out of love for them and respect for their ability to handle the resource well. But sometimes, there's a little less of a heartfelt thank you. There can even be resentment, especially if there are strings attached. This letter that appeared in an advice column in a local Colorado newspaper spells out the dangers of attaching those strings--even if we do so indirectly:

When I met my wife five years ago, I had no idea of her financial status. I knew that her parents had a nice home and spent a lot of time traveling but she lived frugally and worked hard. When we got married, I learned about the extent of her family's substantial resources. Admittedly, they have been very generous — helping us with the down payment on our house, taking us on family vacations and starting college funds for our kids. The issue is that they've increasingly put pressure on us to raise the kids in specific ways, build our schedules and vacations around their needs and spend money according to their values. We, and my wife in particular, have been struggling to say no because of everything they continue to give us.

The letter was signed: Locked In Golden Handcuffs

The couples coach who answered the plea from "Locked" talked about the "aging" parents and their need to feel relevant. They also focused on what was triggering the son-in-law's negative response, such as feeling a loss of empowerment, freedom or authenticity or a sense of emasculation.

Whatever it is, it's not something I would want to visit on my son or daughter or their spouses. To give is to give freely. It's their lives to live. We are not in the driver's seat--even if we bought them the car.

 

 

Observation: Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond on supporting grown kids financially

 

Writing on The Sweet Spot, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond tackle a question from a reader about financial support for their grown children and if it's fair to withdraw that support while they are still dependent on the parents. 

Cheryl Strayed:

You’ve been deeply generous because you wanted to provide your children with an education, security, comfort and ease. Well done. Now you must be deeply generous in another, seemingly paradoxical way: by giving your grown children the gift of independence and self-sufficiency.

They don’t pay for their own way in the world for one reason and only one reason: because you do. I encourage you to stop doing it. Allow your adult children to find a way to do it instead. And allow them to struggle with doing it.

By providing all that you provide your kids at this point in their lives, you’re preventing them from learning how to problem solve, sacrifice, persevere, and suffer and benefit from the consequences of their own decisions. In other words, from becoming adults.

Steve Almond:

The reason it’s been challenging for you to stop paying for your kids is because it’s a reversal of the way you’ve operated since your kids were born. They needed something, and you paid for it. That made sense for a time. But it doesn’t make sense now, and it hasn’t for a while. Your children aren’t children anymore and they don’t truly need you to pay for their lives, even if they find it convenient that you do.

 

Part of being a good parent is modeling healthy boundaries for our children, and this is ultimately that. In establishing yourself as a person who knows and states her limits, you’re showing them how to do that too.

 

Weddings: Planning your daughter's wedding? Remember whose Big Day it is.

Several years ago, when my daughter became engaged, her future mother-in-law called me the next morning. She introduced herself, chatted a bit and then asked if I was excited about planning the wedding. I mumbled a "Hmmm,"  but the unspoken answer was more precise. "I will do my duty."

No kidding. Not all of us are excited about planning our child's wedding--and that doesn't even get to the point of whether or not the couple getting married want us to do it. In my case, my daughter, who was living on the West Coast, was busy working to support herself and applying to graduate schools. So it fell to me, who lived on the East coast where the wedding was going to take place, to do the ground work and pull together a basic plan--subject to the bride and groom's approval, of course.

Most parents, particularly mothers of the bride, are excited and energized about taking an active role. But that helping role is more fraught than ever. Today's weddings tend to be bigger  with more guests, more dinner courses and events, to say nothing of those weddings that are weekend extravaganzas in far away places.  There are many more choices and more moving parts, which means too many decisions where mother and child can have differing opinions and difficulty reining in their positions. Also, grooms play a more active role in the wedding plan than they did, say, 20 years ago--which gives negotiations an additional corner to turn.

My wedding-planning days were pre-smartphone and as I understand it, texting, email, FaceTime, Instagram bring a more immediate way to communicate about little and big details. In today's Social Media world, planning a wedding can create a higher level of inclusiveness. (Some of the emails Hillary Clinton did not want disclosed had to do with  details for her daughter Chelsea's wedding.)

This feeling of heightened closeness builds on a pre-existing condition. As Deborah Tannen, the linguistic professor and author, has noted, mother-daughter relationships today "are closer than a generation or two ago. Many mothers identify as their daughters' best friend. They rely on their phones to text, Snapchat, email and speak daily. But it’s not just the mothers seeking participation. It’s the daughters, too.”

All well and good. But here's the issue about parents and a grown child's wedding: Close as we may feel to our child and they to us, and as accessible as details about menus, dresses and flowers may be, it is the bride and groom's marriage and a reflection of their commitment to each other.

Beyond consulting on the wines and the seating arrangements, we need to keep our distance and to back off when--whether or not we're footing all or some of the bill--we don't agree or approve of a decision the wedding couple make. As Deborah Tannen points out, “Close bonds always run the risk of feeling like bondage.”

If the bride and groom choose to replace formal shoes with matching sneakers to walk down the aisle, our role is to mention our point of view but ultimately to accept and add a pleasant "I do."

 

 

 

Related articles

Grandparenting: Being careful what we say to our grownchildren about their children

Privacy Issues: Would you read your son's college journals? Class notes? Letters?

Unexpectedly,  we came across a cache of Uber son's college memorablia. The family that bought our house last year found a large box cramped under an eave in a remote section of crawl space. It had our name on it.

Paterfamilias and I hauled the very large, dust-coated box to our apartment. We peeled off the packing tape and found, among other things, assorted English Lit novels in bind-broken or yellowed condition, a framed college diploma and several shoe boxes full of photos, letters, college essays and a small, rubberband-bound journal.

We had no qualms about dumping the spoiled books, the college papers and the snapshots that were curling at the edges. But what to do about the journal and the boxes crammed with letters. (Our son went to college in pre-email days.) The stuff was our son's and remembrances of his young adult life. If he lived nearby, we would ask him to come by and dispose of the materials himself. But he doesn't. 

Here were our choices: We could trash everything and pretend the box had never surfaced (as well it might never have). Or, we could edit the materials down to travel size and bring the most interesting stuff with us on our next visit to our son and his family.

There is only one way to edit down material--sift through it to see what should be tucked into our suitcase and what should be tossed or shredded. This is where we faced "invasion of privacy" issues. How far along to read the letters to figure out whether they should be saved for further inspection by the person to whom they were addressed. Who was still important enough to him that letters written some 20 years ago would be meaningful.

It was a quease-producing process. The reading gave way to quick looks at return addresses. We plucked a few for posterity--like the one from a professor telling him how much he had enjoyed having our son in his class. The journal, an inscrutable pictograph account of an adventure with college friends, made it into the suitcase. The framed diploma? We texted about it and got a "no thanks."  The final treasure was an 8 x 10, framed, color photo of our son with three college teammates, two soccer coaches and one soccer ball. We packed it.

When we finally handed over the curated treasure trove, our son seemed mildly interested in the college prof's letter, greeted the journal with a "hmmmm," and laughed out loud (LOL'd) at the soccer photo. So did his kids. But we have proof that he was really pleased to see it. He posted it on Facebook.

Found in the attic of my parents' house. My kids told me I could share this picture if I managed to crop it enough to not show the mortifying short-shorts (OMG. Dad, put some clothes on!)....

 

Related articles

Parenting Grown Children: We are at our peril when we give advice they didn't ask for

Helicopter Parenting: There comes a time for our grown kids to keep us at a distance.

"What a b---- he turned out to be." The b---- my friend Cate is talking about is her first-born, 25-year-old son. He got his MBA last June and finally landed a career job this fall. But when Cate and the proud papa emailed him with a request to stop by to see him at his office--they would be in the neighborhood--he sent this email: "I appreciate the gesture, but i think it's time for you to stop visiting me at my workplace."

A few months ago, when he had been a summer intern at a high profile government agency, she had asked to stop by--she wanted to see what the department looked like inside. "All I got to see was the lobby and the cafeteria, where I bought him lunch." Now she was feeling put out about not being welcome in his latest workplace--or this latest phase of his life.

"It's part of growing up," I tell her, "He's setting adult boundaries."

"He's pushing us away," she says.

Comes to the same thing, no? Helicopter parenting has a sell-by date. Our kids are no longer singing in the chorus of the school play or playing for the local soccer team. When it comes to their career, there's no seat in the cheerleading section for us.

Not that I don't sympathize with Cate. It's hard to let go of that desire to experience up close and personally the bits and pieces of our grown kids' lives--the way we did when they were little kids and living under our roof. Our very own Uber son dis-invited us to his adult soccer league games. There were some hurt feelings on the parental side, but the only ones watching the game are a handful of girlfriends and wives. Having mummy or daddy there would probably make him feel, well, like a little boy. An office workplace has even higher stakes.

No one said letting go was easy. It's hard sometimes for us to believe there are boundaries between us and our children. But there are and should be. At least Cate's son was polite about laying down his mark. 

Related articles

Empty Nests: They're independent now. So why don't we feel good about it?

'Tis the Gift Giving Season: The instinct to indulge vs. the urge to hold back

The Complaint List: We may think we're being "nice;" our grown kids may find it smothering.

Uh Oh. Here it comes again. Read any "advice" column and you come across the usual litany of complaints about us by our daughters-in-law or sons-in-law: We're too critical, judgmental, intrusive. We want them to run their households our way. We use money to control their vacations and other comings and goings. Some of us have made adjustments when we've recognized an untoward behavior but otherwise, when we read the columns, we just stew over the unfair picture of mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law.

This time, Carolyn Hax works a compliment from a reader about her mother-in-law into what it really is: a complaint about smother love. It's hard not to take it to heart.

Her in laws, a woman writes, "are too nice." Case in point: when her husband [the son] and and son [the grandchild] visit the mother/grandmother, she sends back "gifts." Unfortunately, they are usually "foods we're trying to avoid." Worse, each of the gifts "requires a special phone call of thanks." The in-laws also want phone calls anytime the family travels long distances or in bad weather. "They keep track of our kids' doctors' appointments so they can ask how everything went." What this Hax correspondent wants to know is whether there's a polite way "to get them to back off, just a little. We love them and appreciate that they are always there for us, but it's just too much of an emotional burden to handle their anxieties about our everyday life."

So what does Carolyn have to say about too much niceness? It is, she writes, a variation of smother love.  "You describe a mother-in-law who is manipulative, controlling, insecure and boundary-challenged." Hax then asks whether the husband is "as uncomfortable with this as you are? Is he ready to set some limits, or has he too bought into the “nice” canard? I suspect you’d both benefit from reading on boundaries and emotional manipulation. Don’t tune me out: The best read on this topic is “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker. It will seem like a loopy recommendation for “just” a fussy mom, but it’s actually square on point."

Having suffered through a non-smothering but manipulative mother, I'm heading for the Gavin de Becker. Better late than never. Besides, I want to make sure I don't see myself in it--that all the "niceness" I like to confer on my children is above suspicion, that it is not turning me into a secret smother-mother or mother-in-law. I will report back on what I learn. Stay tuned.

 

Related articles

Leaving a Legacy: A writer's memoir adds a dimension to the intangibles we can leave our children.

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

Mother-in-law: too nice, or just plain controlling?

Great Expectations: The payback--or lack of it--when we help our kids out

When their daughter and son-in-law bought a house, the parents helped out--with advice and counseling (both solicited) on the building plans and by babysitting their grandson, especially on moving day. They also helped paint rooms and gave the young couple furnishings from their own house that they no longer needed.

Their problem, as they expressed it in a letter to Carolyn Hax, is one of feeling left out. The daughter planned a house warming party and didn't invite the parents. When the mom complained, the daughter told her she was "over the top" to be upset.The mom, who signed her letter, "sad and disappointed" expressed her pain this way: "It seems to us that we were good enough to do all the legwork but not good enough to be invited to the celebration."

Ah yes, The left out feeling. No one likes it. Being slighted is one of the least feel-good feelings in the world. And to be excluded by our own children! But as Hax pointed out, "when adult children live near their parents, they're faced with a small but sensitive puzzle: how to lead social lives that are both independent and inclusive."

Hax's advice to the mom, who said this was not the first time she felt like she was the "hired help rather than part of the family," was to look at the situation in a more positive light.Instead of saying "We're the hired help," the mom could tell herself, Hax writes, "We're already a huge part of their lives. I'm glad they'll have this time with friends."

In other words, we are often hurt when we get over-invested in our children's lives--and especially so when we expect them to repay our many "investments" with a coin from another country. We may love our children and they may love us, but we aren't --and shouldn't try to be -- their social life.

Visiting Privileges: We're guests--not parents--when we overnight at a grown child's home.

The travel section of a newspaper isn't the most likely place to find a story on a major parental adjustment. Dominque Browning  managed to turn a trip to Boulder into a tale of her first journey, as a newly minted empty nester, to her youngest son's new nest and her recognition that she was no longer the homemaker-mom but a guest in her son's home.

Her son moved from the east coast to Boulder. Boulder's a fun town to visit--I won't go into those details--but Browning had some thoughtful insights on the experience of realizing her youngest son was a grown up with a home of his own--a home that was wasn't hers and that was, moreover, half way across the country.

Her first point: "There is a moment of truth all parents must face, usually on a sofa bed. Children eventually make their own lives, entirely separate from ours, and we participate in them only by invitation. It is a wise mother, indeed, who remembers the lessons that once came out of her mouth about how to be a good house guest."

About that sofa bed. It was another wake-up call. As Browning and her son settle in for her first night at his apartment, he let's her know where she'll be sleeping. She won't, he tells her, "be taking my bedroom. That's the master bedroom. I am the master. I don't want to sleep out here. This is the guest room."  That was, Browning writes, "the moment. That was when I realized the earthshaking reality of having traveled to see my child, only to become a guest in his home. He was not my child, but my host, a grown-up. I could feel the tectonic plates of power shifting and grinding between us. A volcano of protest sputtered out, and I agreed that the living room, er, guest room, was the perfect place for me."

It is a shocker of a moment. I remember the first year when uber son and his family booked and paid for the vacation condo and, when we arrived, instead of commandeering the master bedroom--as we did lo those many years when we booked and paid for the condo--we were relegated to an upstairs bedroom that one of our grandchildren vacated to accommodate us. Not that we had any complaint. (Or that they hadn't graciously offered to move out for the three nights we would be there. They did offer. We declined.] It was breathtaking recognition that the tectonic-plate had shifted--we were no longer the masters in charge with all the rights and privileges that come with that master's degree.

Browning's blog follows up her New York Times travel piece, sharing with her readers the bits and pieces from her article that were left on the cutting room floor. Here's one item that struck home and that underlies my Note to Self about good housekeeping tips. Browning, it would appear, managed to find subtle ways to share such tips with her son, Theo: 

"Driving my rental car to Target for supplies, Theo discussed the challenges of living on his own. “I think the tub leaks when I shower.” We bought shower curtains. “Isn’t it hard to pour boiling water from the pot to a teacup without spilling most of it?” We bought a kettle. “I should have taken the vacuum cleaner you offered me from home.” We bought a broom."