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PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Rightsizing: How I cleared my closets and dumped all the stuff my kids didn’t want.

06/15/2020

National Gallery, Hannah Steele

“You are my inspiration,” my friend Eva tells me. She’s not referring to anything creative or ingenious I’ve done. The reference is to the method that helped me downsize/right-size from a sprawling 4-bedroom suburban home (where Paterfamilias and I brought up two children) to a tight, two bedroom urban apartment that’s short on storage space. It's a method that would work for anyone who wants to lighten the storage load in their house, whether or not they are moving out or just tackling the untackleable during the corona quarantine.

My inspirational mantra–You won't need to know Sanskrit to follow it–is this: A bag a day.

Prosaic, perhaps. It's not the full Marie Kondo, but it worked. Every day I would fill a bag (the gold standard: a large black garbage bag) with stuff to either give to our children, gift to charity or toss in the garbage. No matter how tired I was after work, I would head for a closet or a file cabinet or a dark recess of the basement and fill a bag—sometimes it was only the bronze standard of a brown paper lunch bag. Consistency was the point: a bag a day.

Sometimes it was easy. I came across file drawers full of old photographs—from the days when camera shops processed your film and gave you doubles of all your photos. All duplicates in my file drawer were dumped in a bag, along with both sets of photos of the backs of the heads of my children, or a fuzzy focus, or of people I no longer knew or cared about. Ditto for the negatives. Thumbing through envelope upon envelope of old photos was an emotional trip down memory lane but the save/no-save decisions were mindless.

More mindful was the china, glassware, porcelain figurines, silver-plated candelabras and other objects we inherited from both sets of parents. When our mothers were young women growing their families and enlarging their households, they both collected the same sorts of things. Though one set of parents was more affluent than the other, both mothers had accumulated sets of silverware—8 places setting for one, 18 for the other. The candelabra was smaller for one than the other, which was not only large but had many Rococo branches. (Whenever there was a storm and our house lost its electricity, the candelabaras and their three candles apiece lit our way through the dark evening.) Both mothers had collected sets of hand-painted tea cups that had been displayed on bookcases and side tables in their homes. Both had porcelain figurines—peasant figures playing the flute or herding one of Bo Peep's lost sheep—that graced their bookshelves or sat on coffee tables and end tables.

I’d had these objects in storage in my basement since we inherited them. Would my children want them? I took out my iPhone, snapped a shot of my mother’s gold-rimmed dinnerware and texted it to my daughter-in-law. “Would you like this?” I asked this mother of three of my Grands. Within a minute her ping came back at me: “I haven’t used my wedding dishes yet.”

For sentimental reasons, my daughter took a few of the hand-painted tea cups but the porcelain figurines and candelabras met universal resistance. I closed my eyes, held my nose (figuratively speaking) and put it all in bags for charities that, presumably, will sell them to pay some of their bills. My one flirtation with "monetizing" these treasures came when I opened a box filled with fur jackets and stoles my mother had amassed. (My father was a furrier.) I went up on eBay to see what the market was for them. The answer: Not worth my time or effort to sell. They got packed up with the porcelains.

It was guilt-inducing but easier to part with the inherited items. What of the things I had collected or amassed? I had written regularly for the Washingtonian Magazine for a dozen years back in the 70s and 80s. I had every issue of the magazine from that time in my basement. I asked myself, Would my grandchildren read these? Would they even look at them? We all know the answer. I tore out a few articles that represented the variety of stories I had written, promised myself I would digitize them for posterity and recycled the rest of it. Ditto with other clips from my pre-Internet, freelance years: save a few; dump the rest.

Paterfamilias's boxes of law briefs from big cases he had worked on met the same fate. He had to do a lot of shredding, but he made his way through it slowly and methodically.

We started our purge a few months before we put our house on the market so there was no need to rush. Just a bag a day. That held for serving platters, pots, pans, small appliances. I had to harden my heart, but I was amazed at what I could part with once I set my mind to it. Add it felt good to know I was fulfilling part of my legacy to my grown children: clean closets. That is, when the time came and I was no longer around to do it, they wouldn't have a mess of stuff to clear out.

We moved into our apartment nearly four years ago. I have yet to miss a pot or platter or candlestick holder. Come Spring, what I miss is my garden. But I saved a few pots for that.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparenting during the Coranavirus: Seven tips for keeping long-distance visits safe

06/08/2020

Many of my friends who have grandkids living nearby have loosened the visitation rules: The Grands and Grownkids can come to their backyards–outdoor visits only!–but no hugging. They can have a meal together–at separate tables with separate food, preferably cooked in separate kitchens. There may even be a BYO plates rule.

What about little ole us whose kids and grandkids live too far away for a casual backyard visit? One friend was invited by her son and family to visit for a long weekend at a small, rented house on Cape Cod. Sounded delightful–despite the 6 hour drive. But. But. But. The daughter-in-law had gone back to work as a physician assistant at a clinic whose patients were under court orders to attend drug rehab programs. My friend's antenna went on alert. She wasn't sure what safety measures were in place for personnel at the clinic. She decided a small house and loved one who was working at an essential but possibly Covid-exposed job were not the best mix for her.

If it seems like it's safe to go on a visit, the grandparents I know or have read about have gotten in their cars and driven straight through to wherever their grandkids are–be it a 3-hour drive or one that's 10+. The stays have been brief–only a day or two when the drives are on the shorter side. They've kept their masked distance–not wanting to pick up any virus from their grownkids or grands and taking pains to ensure that they don't bring something untoward into their child's house.

We are hoping to see our children and grandchildren this summer. They live 400 and 450 miles away from us but 150 miles from each other. Long-distance driving is not a viable option for us–even though it is supposedly safer than flying. So our thinking is that we would fly to one child's home city, rent a car, visit and then drive to the other child before flying home. Sum total: 2 airplane trips, one 3-hour drive, 2 pet bunnies, 4 grandkids and 4 adults seen and hugged. Yes hugged. There are ways to do it safely. We can do it! But. But. But. How safe is air travel? Would we be endangering ourselves or our children and grandchildren by moving through an airport and sitting on an airplane with other passengers.

We've gone as far as to check out safety tips. One thing I learned is that I don't have to worry about the air in the planes. When the ventilation system on planes is operating, planes have a very high ratio of outside fresh air to recirculated air — about 10 times higher than most commercial buildings. Plus, most planes' ventilation systems have HEPA filters. These are more efficient at removing both smaller and larger particles.

In addition to the usual–and important–advice to wash hands, wash hands, wash hands, here are seven other safety tips if, like us, fly you must.

Social distance seating. Best bets are airlines that are minimizing capacity and spacing passengers by not using middle seats and having empty rows. Call airlines to check on their policy.

Short flights are safer. That is, they minimize risk by making it easier to avoid using the lavatory and cutting down on exposure time to an infectious person if there's one on board. (That would mean cross country trips taken in two or three separate legs, which sounds like additional exposure to me, plus using the lavatory in the airport. But that's what some experts recommend.)

Choose a window seat. Since there's a wall on one side it helps reduce the number of people one is exposed to during the flight–not to mention all the people going up and down the aisle.

Question the airline. Does it have engineering controls to isolate hazards. These include ventilation systems, on-board barriers, and electrostatic disinfectant sprays on flights.

Bring your own. Travel with hand wipes to disinfect every surface you touch–including the seat belt buckle–plus carry along plastic zip bags for personal items that others may handle, such as a license or passport.

Stay put: Once settled into that window seat, stay there until the plane lands.

Wear a mask. We owe it to each other. But don't trust what the airlines say about requiring masks. Recent newspaper reports indicate that the airlines may request masks and even say they insist on them for crew and passengers alike. But they don't enforce the use of them.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

The New Rules for Grandparents during the Corona Crisis: The where, when and how of visiting hours

05/29/2020

Pieter de Hooch@National Gallery

Is it safe for our grandchildren to visit us or for us to visit them? For the past two and a half months of the coronavirus pandemic, visits have been limited to waves from backyard windows or FaceTime calls. For most of us–those of us who don't live with our grown children–in person contact has been verboten. As state economies open up and Phase 1 morphs into Phase 2, some of those visits are moving toward in-person get-togethers: socially distanced, well-masked and one family group at a time. No hugging allowed.

Some of us are willing to take the risk of mingling with our Grands (and our grown kids), even as our grown children are hesitant. (They look at that ugly CDC statistic: Eight out of 10 deaths from Covid-19 are in people aged 65 and older.)

Surely there are ways to make in-person visits safer. After all, we need to take into account not only our physical well being but our mental health as well. We get lonesome for our loved ones; isolation is depressing.

The experts have some advice about how to make visits with Grands and their parents less threatening to our well-being. Tara Parker-Pope provided such guidance in her story “When Can I See My Grandkids?” Here are some of the tips:

—No one self-evaluates as reckless. Do a reality check about the actual level of vigilance by every member of the visiting household. Some questions to ask every member of the household would cover: How many times did someone go to a store or meet a friend for a walk. Did a teenage boyfriend/girlfriend stop by for a visit? At the park, did the grandkids run up to another child before the parents could stop them? Does everyone wear a mask?

—There's no perfect. But greater vigilance should be hyped up for 14 days before a visit.

—The al fresco answer. The transmission risk is far lower outside than inside. But even outdoors, everyone should wash their hands and stay at least six feet apart (10 to 12 if anyone has a chronic health condition). Everyone over the age of 2 — and not just the grandparents — should wear a mask. Children are more likely to wear one if they understand that it’s to protect someone they love.

You've heard it before on the importance of masks, but here it is again from an expert with enough research and hands-on experience to know what he's talking about, Dr. Asaf Bitton.

“A sneeze without a mask can spread up to 20 feet. It’s also the act of speaking — we expel droplets even in quiet speech. The mask really contains a great amount of them. The mask is protecting all of us from each other.”

So in-person visits from grandkids who live nearby are possible for those of us lucky enough to have backyards or access to outdoor parks. But the hugging part–that will have to wait.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Refilled Nests: Coronavirus, adult children and our no-longer-empty guest bedrooms

05/19/2020

painting: Edward Hopper (at National Gallery)

Some of our grown kids have come home to ride out the Covid-19 crisis. We may be happy to have them under our roofs again and to provide safe shelter in the corona storm. But the impact on us is not negligible: Keeping the refrigerator stocked. Cooking bigger meals. Sharing bathrooms. Overhearing conversations. Feeling frustrated by online habits. Dealing with their hygiene and laundry. Plus, the diminished privacy of having another adult in the house all the time. We love our adult kids but we don't necessarily want them living with us again.

This is an issue addressed recently in the New York Times, with a headline that acknowledged the reality: "Young Adults Take Refuge in Parents’ Empty Nests." The article also notes that some parents are moving in with their adult children. For some single parents, it means avoiding the loneliness of sheltering alone. It can also be helpful to children who are raising young children and can use an extra pair of hands, especially if they are telecommuting to their jobs.

There are all kinds of situations and reasons for re-habitating with our grown up children or them with us. Here's a link to the full NYTimes story, but if you don't want to read the whole thing. here are three highlights:

One mother summed up the reality of her refilled nest this way:

We have to rethink everything. What we've worked really hard to get to–our independence, their independence–is just gone."

An economist's observation on the impact on careers, particularly of children who have moved back home and left their jobs behind.

There are lasting consequences, a qualitative impact on workers who are forced to take a step backward, and that can really perpetuate a downward career spiral.

An historical perspective on multi-generational co-habitation:

Multigenerational households have been on the rise since 1980, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center report. In 2016, a record 64 million people, or 20 percent of the U.S. population, lived with two or more adult generations.

FOR ANOTHER TAKE on what it's like when a college student moves back home, here's an essay from The Atlantic. Stuck at Home With My 20-Year-Old Daughter

The author, Todd Purdum, writes about his own reactions (The family of four together again for family dinners.) and talks to his daughter about what the adjustment has been like for her. Here's some of what she told her dad:

“One of the hardest things has been going—and for better or worse—going from being independent to suddenly living in my childhood bedroom again. I would go to the dining hall or I would cook for myself, but I would be on my own to secure three meals a day. And I would do my own laundry—and wouldn’t have to do other people’s laundry!”

“I just miss being a college student and making, you know, a fine but maybe mediocre dinner in someone’s communal kitchen. And having a sense of purpose.”
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Mother’s Day, GrownKids and Guilt: Does anyone else dislike this “Day”?

05/13/2020

I'm not sure what possessed me, but when I was a youngish mother of 'tweens I told my kids not to do anything for me for Mother's Day. It's not a day for me, I told them. At the same time, it was a day when I had to call my mother and make sure the card and a gift were in the mail. Ditto mother-in-law.

Well, now I am the mother of mothers–my daughter and my daughter-in-law. I still feel Mother's Day is not My Day. Now I see it as a day that's just a pain in the neck and a source of tension. It is such a struggle to be a mom today. I don't want my grownkids-mothers worrying about whether they sent me a card (the cards are too treacly anyway) or calling me because that's what you do on the second Sunday in May. I'd like to send them daily bouquets of flowers to honor the job they've done so far. (They are a major reason I have such wonderful grandchildren, if I say so myself.)

I'm ambivalent about this holiday. I see it as a guilt-maker, as a day of emotional demands suggested and policed by outside forces. It's not as though it's a day specific to someone–like a birthday or a remarkable day in their life.

I'm reminded of these queasy feelings by a Carolyn Hax column that appeared close to Mother's Day.

The Dear Carolyn writer, like me, seems to be pulled in many Mother's Day directions. Her story: When she was younger, she had "felt the Mother's Day guilt of wanting to make my mother and mother-in-law happy." Now, she sees how overwhelming it is "for young mothers to be pulled in many directions" when it comes to dealing with Mother's Day. Since she once felt that emotional workload, she has asked Carolyn, "What is the best solution for mothers of adult children with their own families? "

Here's part of Carolyn Hax's answer:

[You] can tell them that [your] Mother’s Day gift to them is an unconditional release from all obligations on Mother’s Day. Say you’d love to see them (if true), and will be happy to plan or play along or observe it on the day of their choice, or babysit so they can have time alone, or whatever else (if true), but you will not be a duty they have to fulfill.

To that I say Amen.

Here's a further point a reader made:

Don't just free them for Mother's Day. Do it for all the holidays.

Wouldn't you rather have a sweet phone call a week after the fact than hear, "Why didn't you call?" So would your children. The benefits are enormous for everyone. No worries, no guilt.

I give that another Amen. And a thanks for helping me feel less alone in my perverse reaction to Mother's Day–although I have good company in painter Mary Cassatt.

Here's this from the National Gallery expert on Cassatt::

When I curated the Gallery’s exhibition Degas/Cassatt in 2014, I learned that Mary Cassatt—known almost exclusively as the painter of motherhood—was dismissive when the idea of creating Mother’s Day was first proposed in 1913. As a staunch supporter of woman suffrage, she thought granting women the right to vote was a far more pressing issue than a single day celebrating mothers. Two years later, Mother’s Day was established by an act of Congress. Women had to wait five more years for access to suffrage, much to Cassatt’s disappointment.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grown Children, Us and Covid-19: Updating Advanced Directives

05/06/2020

Romare Bearden Tomorrow I May Be Far Away

I am no longer a New Yorker but, in this time of coronavirus, I am a regular viewer of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's daily press briefings. When he reports those stress-inducing intubation statistics, he reminds us that 80 percent of patients who are intubated and placed on a ventilator don't have what he calls "a good outcome." He doesn't spell it out but the data shows that those who survive the worst trials of Covid-19 may have continuing, life-altering struggles.

The decisions about what to do if we were on the cusp of being intubated will fall into the laps of our children, spouses and siblings. A friend of mine's daughter-in-law who is a hospice doctor says she now spends a lot of her time counseling families who have to deal with these very difficult ventilator-related decisions.

Which brings me to this point: We may have left our children general guidance (advanced directives) about how we want to be treated if we can't make decisions for ourselves, but in the Age of Coronavirus they may need an update on what we want done for or not done to us. I brought up this question briefly in a post that ran a few weeks ago. Since then a NYTimes article has been even more blunt, headlining its story: "Do You Want to Die in an I.C. U.? Pandemic Makes Question All too Real."

The article starts off with what a 69-year-old retired teacher told her son–her health care proxy–about whether or not to put her on a ventilator should she become ill with Covid-19. Her son, who happens to be president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, said his mother discussed her concerns with him. He was able to understand the pragmatism behind her directive. He knew what she would want him to do it worst came to worst. Beyond the particulars of his own situation, a point he made was this: “It’s the kind of conversation everyone should be having with their loved ones.”

The article also brings up an issue that, even if months or years ago we gave our children general Advanced Directives, there's one point that may not have been covered in that guidance:

When seniors and their families engage in what’s called advance-care planning, they often focus on the D.N.R. question — whether patients would want to be resuscitated after cardiac arrest.

But because Covid-19 is a respiratory disease, the more pressing question will likely be whether a hospitalized patient who’s seriously ill will accept intubation and ventilation.

It's never easy to discuss these kinds of issues with our children–they resist; neither they nor we are keen to deal with our mortality. We figure we'll talk about it 'one of these days.' But with coronavirus cases still on the rise in the U.S. and treatment more complicated and drastic than anyone imagined, that day may be here.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

What our grown kids don’t understand about us and the coronavirus

04/24/2020

Some of my friends are strict isolationists: They're locked down, venturing out only for a walk around the block. Food is delivered. Groceries wiped down. Family visits via FaceTime, Skype or a wave from the backyard. It is a point of pride that their grown children have laid down isolation rules for them–and insist they keep. And well they should: Many of them have serious underlying conditions and need to steer clear of any exposure.

Clearly, our children are worried about us. After all, adults over 65 account for 8 in 10 coronavirus deaths. No wonder they are scared that something dreadful may happen to us, and they won't be able to be there to come to our aid. So they have, in effect, become our parents–the ones who tell us what we can and cannot do. They're grounding us.

But there are those of us who find our backs stiffening when our grown children try to set limits on our activities, when they insist we stop shopping at supermarkets or taking long walks in public parks–even though we have no underlying conditions with the exception of our age.

The pressure to isolate ourselves comes from everywhere and is internalized in different ways. I went to my local farmer's market on Sunday (limited access to the grounds, masks on all) and overheard this little, old, grey-haired lady complaining bitterly to one of the vendors: Neighbors keep offering to pick up groceries (the nerve!) for her when she is fully capable of doing so herself. "There's nothing wrong with me," she huffed. "I don't feel I'm an old person. I can do anything they can do." Her children are pleading with her to stay home and not go out at all. "Why shouldn't I go out for a walk?' she complains, visibly shaking with anger. She was on a rant–too long and strident for my comfort. (I was next in line, so tick-tock.) But I understood what she was saying–and agreed with some of it.

Enough of us do that our grown children have taken to meeting in Zoom-rooms or other online chat spots to grouse about how ungovernable their aging parents are. They hear the statistics about deaths among the elderly and are sick with worry that their mom or dad will fall prey to the disease and they won't be there to comfort us. It's just like when they were small children and we worried they would run out into traffic. Only the roles are reversed now.

Although people our age are dying disproportionately from this dreadful disease, many of us are fortunate enough to be hale and healthy. We don't feel we need to live by more stringent rules than our neighbors. So, why are we less worried about ourselves than our children are about us?

I got a partial answer to that questions in a piece in the New York Times. There is, evidently, scientific research that explains why some of us seem almost cavalier in the face of the coronavirus death threat.

One finding is that, as older adults, we may not experience the same level of threat as younger people do. We have become, in effect, sunny side up. According to researcher Claudia Haase, there are "age-related shifts in the service of making negative emotions smaller and positive emotions bigger. Older adults are often masters in turning their attention away from information that is threatening, upsetting and negative.” The priority of older adults, she adds, is to make the most of their limited time on earth, and their highest value is social connection.

And then there’s this: We older adults may not see ourselves as old, even if we're well into our 70s and 80s. Here's Haase again: “Older adults may not think of themselves as being at heightened risk for Covid-19 because old age carries a lot of stigma. There’s a huge reluctance to view oneself in those terms.”

There may or may not be scientific research on another point: Some of us look ahead to the ills that could fell us and we think, "Better to go this way." That was a sentiment expressed by a friend of mine who lost her mother to breast cancer and who's faced several rounds of chemotherapy for the disease herself. The author of the NYTimes article, Julie Fingersh, reported a variation on that thought by her 88-year-old father. When she asked him if he were afraid of becoming sick from the virus, he answered, "What's to be afraid of? If I get it, Sayonara!"

The article was not written with us in mind. It was fodder for middle-aged children who wanted to "persuade blithe parents to respect the threat."

Good luck with that. Tara Brach has this zen-like advice for our grown children: "There has to be a letting go, because ultimately, you cannot control them. They're responsible for their living and dying."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Love in the Time of Corona: Being sheltered by your grown child? Calvin Trillin rates it ***

04/15/2020

Like most of our friends where we live, Paterfamilias and I are sheltering alone in our apartment. Our grown children live in cities far from us. Unlike our friends with children living nearby, we do not get picture window visits–blown kisses from our children or grandchildren standing in our backyards or on sidewalks below our windows. Groceries with love notes in it are not dropped at our door. We are strictly in communicado via FaceTime, which does the job–except for the hugs.

Unlike some people we have not been whisked away by our grown children to shelter with them in their remote second homes. Calvin Trillin has. I have been alerted to his adventure by my very own grown child, who has no second home to offer but who sent the link. Trillan's New Yorker piece is comic relief for those of us who need it.

Here's a taste of what's to come.

Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate my daughter, Hilda, arranging to have me snatched from the dangerously crowded city and harboring me at her house in a semirural part of the state. I appreciate the efforts of my son-in-law, Desmond, who drove the getaway car, and of my teen-age grandsons, Jason and Justin, whom I now refer to as my tech-support team. So you must be wondering why I intend to give the establishment run by Hilda and her family only three stars on TripAdvisor.

Enjoy.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Covid 19, ventilators and a guiding message for our grown children

04/09/2020

I am thinking out loud here. I have just been on a walk with a friend–6 feet apart; masked (scarfed in my case). We started talking about the wrenching decision a cousin of hers had to make. The cousin's 70-year-old brother, who lived in a group home and had a severe speech defect, was in the hospital with coronavirus. Doctors had called her, the sister, for permission to put her brother on a ventilator since he was fighting any attempt to put anything on his face and couldn't articulate his wishes. Brother and sister weren't close; she didn't know what to do. My friend is a doctor; so is her husband. They couldn't make a decision for the cousin, but they talked her through what might happen given his current health. The cousin called the next day; her brother had died before she could get back to the doctors with her decision.

Ventilator decisions are ones families, ICU doctors and nurses are faced with every day. As coronavirus cases keep spiking and ventilator availability may not be able to keep up with need, hand-wringing discussions are taking place in medical circles: How, if it comes down to it, to make the decision of who gets one and who doesn't.

The decisions health professionals may have to make may get down to one of life's basic ethical questions: what is a life worth? More specifically in this time of the corona, whose life takes precedence when it comes to ventilator decisions. What a time we are living through–not only a pandemic but a crisis of supply (of both machine and medical personnel)–that we may have come to a point where medical professionals have to make decisions like this.

My friend and I talk about directives we have given our families–our spouses, our grown children–about what we want done should we suffer debilitating diseases and not be able to make resuscitate decisions for ourselves. The question we debate on our walk is whether these directives–written months or years ago and meant as guidance during a personal health crisis that affects only us and our loved ones–apply to today's situation. What if we become ill with coronavirus and become sick enough to need aid in breathing. Do we want medical personnel to make the decision about whether a machine should breathe for us–possibly at the expense of someone else. Where do we want our loved ones to draw the line. What do we want them to tell the doctors and nurses overseeing our care? "Yes, do anything to save her," or "No, she feels she's lived a good and long life, and she wants you to use your resources for someone with their future still ahead of them."

We ended our walk in total agreement on what we want to tell our spouses and grown children. But when I got home and brought up the question, my spouse had a very different answer.

It is a very personal decision. I would never tell anyone beyond my grown children and spouse what I want done. There is no right or wrong here. But there is some thinking to do. If it should come down to it, our children deserve guidance from us.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Coronavirus and our grown children: Showing us they care by parenting us

03/30/2020

Governor Andrew Cuomo, photo Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

Our son is on the phone again. "Are you doing Take Out for dinner?" he asks. We are. "Don't go into the restaurant" he tells us. "Have it delivered."

We are looking forward to the short drive to the restaurant. It's what passes for an outing in these times of social-distancing. The dash into the restaurant to pick up the food that's been pre-ordered and pre-paid: We're okay with that. We don't argue with out son. We don't have to. He's not our parent. We'll do as we think best when we click off FaceTime.

But here's the thing. Our friends are experiencing similar "parenting" phone calls, many even more directive. Their sons and daughters are telling them to stay home, quarantine themselves, don't go to the supermarket, abide by the strictest set of isolation rules–rules beyond those suggested for the general shelter-in-place population. Of course, we are all well over 60 so our children are worried about us, as public health officials have suggested they should be. We are staying home–except for daily walks, supermarket runs and the occasional take out dinner–and are healthy with no underlying conditions. So are they, but now they are parenting us.

Should they? The Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, says that he, at 69 year of age, is willing to, well, take one for the team if it means saving the economy. He suggests we should be willing to do it too. I guess that means we should spend our money on the economy and if we get sick, no ventilators for us. We "oldies" should be willing to cull the senior herd. No sacrifice too great for our kids.

Our kids and our grandkids are sending a different message: They like having their Nanas and PopPops around. New York's Governor Cuomo hit an emotional high note when he told a press conference, "My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable."

Thank you, Governor.

Now we're going to go pick up our sushi dinners at the Japanese restaurant where every surface in sight is wiped down and where we customers (and the men and women who deliver for GrubHub, DoorDash and the like) are kept at a safe distance.

For us, picking it up ourselves means one less contact with the package of food. We are staying safe as best we can. We are not Dan Patricks and our kids don't want us to be.

Thank you for letting us know, kids.