PenPenWrites

Just when you’ve reached a point in your own career where you’re at peace–blind ambition turns into bound ambition–you’ve got your grown children’s careers to worry about. Are they advancing, are they thriving at their work? Hey, even more basic than that, are they working? My friend G’s son–he’s married and the father of twin toddlers–just got laid off from his job-, along with 75 other people in the company. How comfortable a place is that to be in the economy we’re living through now? It’s hard on the son and on my friend. Not only do we, as parents of grown children, worry about our children’s psyche in a loss like this but also about how they’re going to pay the rent. But we also know–or fear–in the deepest recesses of our hearts that when the unemployment checks run out and the 3-year-olds need new shoes, we’re going to tap the resources we have set aside for our retirement or fork over the cash we might otherwise put into that account. Or we’ll squeeze our needs to meet theirs.
The question we face is this: Are we going to help them out, whether we can really afford it or not? And if we do, do we get to approve of the way they spend that money? From G’s point of view, her son "lives large." He’s got expensive tastes. If she has to help him out, does she put strings on the aide–or can she just quietly pay the rent and fill the fridge with basics. If she  sends a check, will she eat her heart out if her son uses it for a dinner out at an expensive restaurant?
Or should she just say no to helping out? Could you?

I have another friend–the Zs–whose son is out of work. Both the Zs are retired and money is tight. They’ve marshalled the whole family to help out their son–a computer salesman who’s divorced and the father of three teenagers. The Zs’ daughter and two uncles send checks, as do the Zs. It wasn’t too hard on everyone the first month or two but now, eight months into unemployment, the cash drain is taking a toll. The son is job hunting; he’s moved into his parents’ house. But that takes a toll, too.