When it comes to where and when we help our children financially, pater familias and I have taken a Marxist tack: To each according to their needs. It’s never overt. An offer of a helping hand here, a fiscal boost there. We’ve never totaled up who’s gotten what or whether the "books" are even. But…

So a friend asked, When does the shlepping stop? [See below] It’s a broader question, of course: When do we stop doing all those little things for our kids that they ought to–could?–take care of themselves? It’s partly an instinct to make life easier for them–as they struggle to find a footing in the adult…

A Vermont friend’s daughter has been to college in New York, to a first job in Boston, to a stint in Africa in the Peace Corp, to a university in Michigan to get her master’s degree, to an internship in Ecuador. Now she’s back home, 30 years old, and job hunting–here and abroad. For each…

I started to make a list of tools to use to find the road to a healthy relationship with my grown children–Notes to Self. The first iteration ran to things like, keep your mouth shut, walk on eggshells, wait to be asked for advice. And then it struck me, those were rules for keeping the…