Category: empty nests
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Paterfamilias and I had dinner with friends the other night–friends whose oldest child is about to graduate from college. They are recovering from the $50,000 a year it's been costing them and looking forward to his independence, particularly his financial independence. He doesn't, of course, know exactly what he wants to do. He's hoping to…
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Lots of self-help tips for parents of grown children center on what to do when the adult kids move back to the family home. But now there's a new trend: The U.S. Census reports that there is a 75 percent increase in parents under the age of 65 who are now living with their adult…
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We've been through the basic steps of parenting–from being a caregiver for an infant, through manager of school-age kids and advisors to our older teens and young adults. Now, we're moving from consultants to the final stage: colleagues to our mature, adult children. Sounds like the best of times but it's no easier than the…
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A little historical perspective: We may all hear about–and some of us experience–a return of our adult children to the nest–but their leaving before marriage is a relatively new phenomenon. And one some of us may view from a biased perspective. Michael Rosenfeld, a social demographer at Stanford University says almost 41% of singles ages…
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I am now more than a decade past shipping uber son and alpha daughter off to college. They've graduated, started careers, moved to other cities and coasts, are leading successful and independent lives: just what any parent could wish. I couldn't feel better about them. And yet, I still remember to this day the first…
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There's a new book out on talking to your adult children–and the advice we all give each other to "keep your mouth shut." Ruth Nemzoff, a scholar at Brandeis University, pulls together her studies on the subject in "Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships With Your Adult Children." Here's one of the…
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We are not alone. The phenomenon taking place here is also raging in the U.K. According to this survey of British home life, Nearly one in ten parents have grown-up children living with them–young adults who have been "priced off the housing ladder." The parents are not only looking after their kids well into adulthood,…
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There’s an interesting discussion on the perils and pitfalls of helicopter parenting–of the sour fruits parents reap when they don’t let their grown children grow up and take care of themselves–at this web site. While many of us think of the moms as the overprotective parent, this is a story about a dad who does…
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At last, a financial planner who isn’t all bean-counter and estate-protector. There is, says Aaron Katsman, more to having an adult child move back home than rental agreements or fees for food. And more to providing them with a temporary stipend than a loan contract. Keying in on the recent, economy-based phenomenon of older adult…
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Parents of 20-somethings–especially recent college graduates–are experiencing a steady march of children returning to the nest. It’s a hostile economy out there: difficult job market; horrendous credit crunch; rising prices for everything. And it’s not just the 20-somethings, as the reports noted in earlier blog entries make clear. But all that raises the question of…
