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© Penelope Lemov and Parenting Grown Children, 2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given.

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

    Refilled Nests: Setting rules when a grownchild moves back home

    Feed at birdhouse

    "We  need to talk." That's what my friend C told her 28-year-old son when he moved back into the bedroom of his youth. He wasn't home because of financial challenges,  a career in stall or an inability to manage on his own.. Rather, he and his girlfriend were planning to move in together and get married. The lease was up on his  apartment; she was  in graduate school in another city until May. They were waiting for her to get a nursing job offer at one of the hospitals in the area before they figured out where to hunt for an apartment.

    He would be home for four months. C wanted to make the house rules clear. She'd just "hosted" her  younger son for a year while he tried to figure out the road he was going to travel. He'd been sullen and unhelpful and the "stay" had been fairly unpleasant.

    Here's what she set out with her older son. It had nothing to do with groceries, doing the dishes or paying rent. They were general principles that she felt cleared the air and set a positive tone for his time at home. They are so simple and clear  that I thought I'd share them with those of you who are expecting the unexpected extended home visit of a grown child

    Rule 1: Pick up after yourself, especially in public spaces. Don't leave socks, shirts, or other personal items in the living room or family room or dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

    Rule 2: Be helpful. If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don't wait to be asked. If the kitchen garbage bin is full, take out the trash.

    Rule 3: Be pleasant. A friendly greeting, an occasional smile, an acknowledgement that the parents exist and are people deserving of courtesy–these are things that can make a home-stay tolerable for all parties.

    Rule 4: Make sure the toilet seat is down in the guest bathroom.

    Related articles

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

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

    Social Media Etiquette: Instagram and the risks of sharing photos, part II

    Tao3

    Following on last week's post about posting photos on Facebook, here's another source of unknown ramifications our grown children with teenagers are parsing: the photos on their children's smart phones.

    According to a Pew Research Center survey, 24 percent of teenagers are online "almost constantly." They aren't just playing video games. If they are like my teen grandkids, they are spending time posting photos on Instagram and Snapchat. It's a way to stay in touch with friends.

    While they're Instagraming or Snapchatting, mistakes can be made–posting a too-sexy photo, say, or forwarding an unflattering one of a friend or classmate. Do parents have a right to edit what their children post?

    Many parents–a recent survey put it at just under 50 percent–check out what their child is posting. My daughter and son-in-law do and they require a "take down" of any photos that are deemed to be "inappropriate." But some kids–my granddaughter is one of them–also store photos on their phones in a camera roll and those photos are often the source of Instagram posts. Is the camera roll fair game for parental eyes?

    I was witness to a kerfuffle on this point that broke out during a family weekend visit. It was hard to tell–the flash point became red hot so quickly–just what the parents (my daughter and son-in-law) were trying to check out. All I knew as the grannie in the awkward position of observing a family row was that my Grand huffed off to the guest room in tears, phone clutched to her chest, door slammed shut. Everyone was upset and, with my limited knowledge of the issues swirling around smart phones and teens–and no experience with those issues–there wasn't much I could do to ease the situation or to give what could possibly pass as wise counsel. So I did what I do best. I waited a few minutes, asked my daughter if she minded and then knocked on the guest room door.

    Here's what I learned. My Grand agrees with the Instagram rule. She is willing to take down any photo her parents don't think should be up there. And she agrees that they have a right to check her Instagram account whenever they want to. But she sees the camera roll as her private domain. For her parents to peer into it: that's an invasion of privacy.

    While I have no experience with camera rolls and teen behavior thereof, it struck me that in my Grand's eyes, the camera roll was tantamount to what in my day was a personal diary. Parents wouldn't read their children's diaries. Or would they? One key difference: There is little likelihood that the scribbles in a personal diary would go viral and be read by everyone in a child's high school.

    Writing in the Washington Post's On Parenting, columnist Meghan Leahy repeated this piece of tech-parenting advice a friend gave her. It was about texting but it seems to me to apply to photo scrutiny as well.

    'Unless you suspect real danger or have real concerns, do not read your child's texts on a daily basis. It will erode the good trust you have with your child, promote sneakiness in your child and create a 'gotcha' atmosphere in your family.'

    Then Leahy, who has three children, added a word or two of her own in reaction to that advice. Her words are ones that we, as parents of grown children whose children are online, can bear in mind–and pass along if it seems appropriate:

    Do I still glance at texts, Instagram and Snapchat? Yes. But I tell my child when I do it and what I learned, and then I go into  listening mode. The main message is: 'I care. I am watching. I know your heart. I love you. You will make mistakes. I will always be here for you. I am listening.'

    Related articles

    Grandparenting: Being careful what we say to our grownchildren about their children
    Parenting Grown Children: We are at our peril when we give advice they didn't ask for

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

    Social Media Etiquette: Facebook, Instagram and the risky business of sharing photos on the Internet

    Social media buttons

    They are so adorable. Of course we want to share the photos of our Grands on Facebook, Instagram and everywhere else our friends may follow. Only maybe we shouldn't–unless we've asked the parents first. There are, it seems, all kinds of ways photos can be misused.

    Take this Ask Amy letter from a distraught mom whose mother-in-law has been sharing on Facebook photos she (the mom) has posted of her children. The problem, as the mom tells it, is the way in which the shared photos can get posted, re-posted and spread around to who-knows-what.

    Here are the specifics from the mom:

    A widowed aunt has been speaking to men over Facebook, and one of these men shared a photo of my daughter to his Facebook friends! This was truly alarming.

    I immediately asked this person (whom I’ve never met) to take the photo down. After a day I was still so shaken that I deleted my account. My mother-in-law was heartbroken."

    I don’t want [my mother-in-law ] sharing so many pictures, because others in her circle seem to think that by her sharing, they are welcome to do that as well.

    There you have it. Inadvertently we may cross a social media line–making the parents of our grandchildren uneasy about the safety of their children. So we're stuck with keeping those photos to ourselves to enjoy–unless we clear the share with our Grand's parents. It can be a dangerous world out there. The tech-safety challenges weren't around when we were bringing up our children, but they are here now, and we may not understand all the ramifications.

     

     

     

     

    Related articles

    Social Media R Us: Staying in touch with our kids, Part 2
    Social Media Etiquette: The many ways to stay in touch with the grown kids

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

    Observation: Philip Galanes on covering the costs when our adult children vacation with us

    Philipgalanes

    I've always felt the genius behind Social Qs had our back–most of the time. Here Philip Galanes covers us again.

    A dad writes about his three grown sons–ages 26 to 32. Every year he invites them to vacation with him and his wife, all expenses paid. They always accept, except this year, one of the sons declined. He made plans to go away with friends to pursue one of his hobbies. The dad understood. What he didn't understand was the son's complaint that the dad was not paying for the trip with his friends when he was covering the costs of his brothers' vacation. "Are we being unfair?" the dad wanted to know.

    Galanes does not suggest that paying for an adult child's portion of a family vacation is somehow wrong, that it's or spoiling or infantizing a grown child. After all, if we can afford it, it's more of a self-indulgence than a child-indulgence. But let me let Galanes sum it up:

    Spoiled brat at Departure Gate 39! Your son is an adult. …The implicit bargain of vacations like yours is that parents cover the costs of their adult children’s travel to facilitate more time together. It is not a voucher to parts unknown.

    As to what the dad could possibly say to his son, Galanes offers this bit of tact:

    We hope that you know the purpose of these trips is bringing us all together. We'd be delighted to pay for you, if you want to come along."

     

     

    Related articles

    Whose Side Are You On? An advice columnist's take on our gifts to grandkids
    Vacations with Grown Kids and Grands: Update on easing the stress of too much togetherness
    Observation: Philip Galanes on the limits of our control over our adult children's choices
    Parenting Grown Children: We are at our peril when we give advice they didn't ask for
    Grandparenting: Being careful what we say to our grownchildren about their children

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

    HolidayTogetherness: His. Hers. With which family do your grown kids spend the holidays?

    Idea puzzle

    It's a time fraught with angst. For those of us with children grown enough to be married or in a committed relationship–or with adult children whose parents maintain separate households–now is the time of their holiday splits. It's not just the winter solstice and the Christmas-New Year holiday. It can happen in the fall for Thanksgiving,  in the spring for Easter/Passover or the summer's Father's Day.

    The puzzle is this: With which parents will they spend all or part of a holiday? It's not up to us: They make the choices; we make the guilt trips.

    It has always been so. Friends, now parents of 20-something children, remember back in the day when they first married and announced to their parents their holiday "Treaty of Versailles." They would spend Thanksgiving with his parents; New Years with hers and the next year, reverse it.

    It didn't work out well. Here's my friend R to tell you why:

    "Our parents never seemed to remember where we had been the year before and why we weren't coming this year. They complained a lot about feeling overlooked or ignored. The worst part of it was that my family did Thanksgiving really well–it was the highlight of the year. Hers did New Years really well. But instead of picking mine for Thanksgiving and hers for New Years, we had this system that didn't make anyone happy."

    R tells me this to tell me what his married child decided to do. Rather than split the holidays the way the parents did, the couple are splitting themselves. They live on the west coast and come east for a week over the Christmas-New Year stretch. Both sets of parents live within roughly 50 miles of each other. The plan now is for each child to spend a a day or two alone with his or her parents–without the spouse being there.

    R likes the solution. He loves his daughter-in-law and enjoys her company but he and the mom also love having their son to themselves–without interruptions and without having to accommodate others. The old nuclear family: alive and well if only for a brief, shining  moment. Except for the occasional lunch or coffee together, most of us have had to adjust to sharing our children with their significant other whenever they come to visit. That's as it should be. And yet, to have time alone with our children is a gift, one that's enhanced by its rarity. 

    How this variation on the holiday splits will work out once R's son and daughter-in-law have children remains to be seen. But for now, R sees the system as a vastly improved version of his Treaty of Versailles–and he is taking advantage of it as long as it's offered.

    How do your children split the holidays? (Worth Mentioning covered one variation this week) Love to know and share with others.

     

     

     

    Related articles

    Vacations with Grown Kids and Grands: Update on easing the stress of too much togetherness
    Parenting Grown Children: We are at our peril when we give advice they didn't ask for

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

    Grown Children: They feel the pain of our partings–from a house or a spouse.

      Bird fight

    They're grown and flown–living in their own homes with their own set of friends and family. What goes on in the old homestead shouldn't have that much of an affect on them. They've got their lives. We've got ours. Or so we think.

    What we learned when we sold the house our kids grew up in is that they did care about the loss of their old home–not morbidly or in a let's-stop-them mode. But they did feel the pain of parting. They even referred to the sale as being like a divorce–from the house.

    A recent New York Times story tells us our grown children are never too old to feel the pain of another form of parting. With the climb in the divorce rate among couples 50 years old and older, therapists are seeing a rise in the number of their adult children seeking help.

    A woman who started a blog on the topic–after finding herself emotionally undone by her parents' divorce after 45 years of marriage–said her blog readers left comments on her posts saying their parents' divorce left them feeling "devastated," that "the pain of my parents divorce has brought me to gut-wrenching tears."

    As is often true with a divorce when children are young, the kids get dragged into the messiness of a family break-up. For adult children no longer living in the home, it's a slightly different drag: the parents may want to share their pain with their adult children–something that's a no-no in therapists' view. Their advice: Parent up.

    Beyond the no-sharing, the burgeoning field of therapy for adult children of divorce has some common sense pointers for those parting ways with their children's other parent:

    –Don't announce the news by email or text–or even by phone. Do it in person if that's at all possible and if there's more than one child, try to tell all the kids together–even if it casts a pall on a holiday when you're all finally together. 

    –As in divorces where young children are involved, adult children still need to be reassured that the divorce isn't the result of anything they did or did not do.

    –A divorce this late in the parental marriage often affects an adult child's perception of their own lives when growing up. What clues to unhappiness had they missed? What does a happy marriage look like?

    –If there has been a "betrayal of trust"–one parent, say, is leaving the marriage for a new partner–the "sinning" parent shouldn't be defensive or cast blame on others (especially the offended spouse) but ask for forgiveness. Alienation of an adult child can be devastating and long-lasting.

     

     

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    5 Worst And Best Effects Of Divorce On Children
    The Harsh But True Realities of Divorce

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

    Money Matters: How much does it cost if your kids refill your empty nest?

    Feed at birdhouse

    There are lots of studies that give us the price tag on raising a child. The U.S. Department of Agriculture pegs it at $250,000 for the first 18 years. Now comes a British report that lets us know how much it costs us should our young adults (21-year-olds) return to the nest–or continue to live at home: Each year, British male children cost their parents an average of £2,195 (that's around $2,800 in our currency); women a mere £2,036 (or $2,600).

    The study cross referenced those figures with data that suggested that in Britain many grown kids don't leave home until they're 30 years old. In which case, the price tag for providing all the feathers of the nest for an adult child comes to nearly £20,000 ($25,000) –or £19,489 for men, and £19,837 for women. 

    Here's how the researchers got there. Their survey base was 1,000 parents with adult children over the age of 21 living at home with them. They took into account increases in weekly food bills, utility bills, broadband use and pay TV subscriptions as well as such incidentals as household insurance premiums. The kids weren't total freeloaders. They made some contributions to household expenses and that was factored in.

    The point of the research was to study the impact of rising rents and housing prices on young Brits. So the study looked at the reasons children chose to remain living at home. The top answers:

     –34 percent were saving for a deposit to buy their first home.

    –33 percent weren't earning enough money to move out.

    –23 percent liked the quality of life at their parent's home.

    –13 percent enjoyed their parents' company.

    That said, there were downsides:

    –35 percent said there were parent-child clashes over the housekeeping and help or lack of it.

    –28 percent argued regularly over money.

    –11 percent said the parent/child relationship turned sour.

    One Brit financial adviser's solution: Lend the kids money to buy or rent their own place. It's cheaper in the long run.

     How relevant is the Brit experience to ours? There are certainly some parallels. And then there's the Brexit vote. I'm just saying…..

    Related articles

    Emptying the Nest: Blame it on dirty laundry when grown kids don't move out and on.
    Emerging Adults: Detachment parenting means letting go of our great expectations for how they'll "turn out."
    Emerging Adults: Just when we think they're launched, they may be floundering

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

    Supporting Grown Children: There is such a thing as a “brat allowance.” Benefactors beware.

    Wolf piggy bank

    "Parenting has changed to obsessive paternalism over time. Well-meaning parents are taking over the financial lives of young adults….The adult child needs to be weaned away. Lines need to be drawn."

    This sad state of affairs and the heartfelt advice that accompanies it comes not from the mouth of a financial advisor or self-help columnist here in the U.S.  I came across this paean to the fostering of the financial independence of adult children in The Economic Times of India.

    Uma Shashikant was exhorting her readers to save for retirement and reminding them that the greatest hindrance to building a nest egg is a soft-spot for indulging adult children financially, particularly children who have jobs and are earning money. She goes on to describe three forms this indulgence takes: a subsistence allowance, a cushioning allowance and a brat allowance.

    India is not so far removed from us that the three categories don't apply here. In the spirit of sharing ideas from other cultures, here are Uma's descriptions of the ways in which Indian parents rationalize their financial support of adult children and the ramifications of doing so.   

    Parenting has changed to obsessive paternalism over time. Wellmeaning parents are taking over the financial lives of young adults.

    Parenting has changed to obsessive paternalism over time. Wellmeaning parents are taking over the financial lives of young adults.

    The subsistence allowance: We would call this the return to the empty nest. Parents provide a place to live, food to eat and a means of getting around. While Shashikant admits that this form of assistance can help a young, working adult build assets, she also notes that "these sheltered young adults will not know how to manage within their own incomes. …Persistence of this subsidy can lead to a situation where young adults see even core expenses as burdens."

    The cushioning allowance: Parents pay insurance premiums, fund their children's share of holiday and celebration expenses and chip in for or take on large expenses. "When the financial status of well-placed parents is better than that of the young adults, these expenses are either willing subsidies or a result of emotional blackmail," Shashikant writes. "Parents effectively bear the  decisions made by young adults, dangerously separating action and consequence. Not an advisable practice."

    The brat allowance. If subsistence and cushioning are bad ideas, the brat is worse. This is when parents pay off their child's debts (loans, credit card bills) and, in Shashikant's words, "also fund the adult children's demands for upgrading to better cars, gadgets and homes." If their adult child's income is not up to their lifestyle, the brat allowance provides cash to meet life style expenses. We don't need Shashikant to point out the flaws here, though she sums them up this way: "The brat allowance clearly encourages the young adult to live beyond their means, assuming that the parents' assets are theirs to access and use as they wish."

    Reading this piece reminds me how universal are the issues of parents, money and adult children. For Shashikant (and for most of us) there's an unpleasantness about a defined allowance–certainly of a brat allowance and its sense of entitlement. Where to draw the line? Here's Shashikant's advice: "When help comes without asking, the sense of entitlement increases. Parents should wait for the children to seek, ask, request financial accommodation, before jumping in to bail them out."

    My take-away: An occasional helping hand, yes. Open-ended allowance, never.

     

     

     

     

     

    Related articles

    Emptying the Nest: Blame it on dirty laundry when grown kids don't move out and on.
    Observations: A Stanford Dean on the effect of helicopter parenting on college students
    Emerging Adults: Detachment parenting means letting go of our great expectations for how they'll "turn out."

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

    Social Media Etiquette: How much texting is too much texting when our kids have grown and flown?

    Tao2-2skype

    They've left the building–our building, that is to say their childhood home and the comforts of their bedroom, our company and the family pets. They're off to college or to their own apartment. From day to day contact–and pretty constant text or email updates on whereabouts and what-they are doing–they are living a more independent life.

    We have an empty nest. We're no longer in control of daily decisions–what did you eat for lunch? Curfew is midnight. Who's driving you home? But we still have access to a possible 'control' button–the icons on our cell phones that let us tap out a text message or a Facebook comment.

    So, how often should we use social media to stay in touch, and do we abuse it if we use it to make us feel our empty nest is still filled?

    This is a question raised in a NYTimes story. Henry Alford interviewed several recently emptied-nest parents to explore where on the continuum of keeping in touch we should land–a continuum that flows from being a hands-on, controlling parent to an advisory counsel.

    Actress Alfre Woodward, whose younger son, Duncan, left for college in 2012, had this advice:

    “You have got to leave your kids alone. The only time you text is if you have something really slammin’ to say. Something you know they’re really into. Like, Duncan is a big golfer, so I’ll text, ‘Oh, no, Rory didn’t!’ That’s all I’ll say. What you don’t want to write is ‘Your room is so warm!’ Or ‘Have you eaten?’ Or ‘Do you have any friends?’ ‘Are you drunk?’”

    Karen Coburn, the senior consultant in residence at the office of the vice chancellor for students at Washington University in St. Louis, had this observation of college kids and warning to their parents:

    "Some students say that no way do they want their parents on social media. Others say they like it because it means they don’t have to communicate with their folks as much because the parents get an idea of what the kids are up to. But one of the worst things a parent can do is to ‘friend’ one of their kid’s friends. One of my students told me, ‘Another student came up to me and said, ‘This old woman friended me on Facebook, I think it might be your mom or grandmother.’ The ‘old woman’ was probably 45.”

     As for Alford, he ends with this sage piece of advice that covers not just the etiquette and wisdom of being part of a social media presence in our children's lives but our overall relationship with them once they've left the building:

    "The greatest lesson for many empty nesters may be learning to be their child’s coach or inspiration rather than a child’s concierge or critic."

     

    Related articles

    Social Media R Us: Staying in touch with our kids, Part 2
    Social Media Etiquette: The many ways to stay in touch with the grown kids
    Guidelines from the grown kids on how to be a good parent to them

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

    Money Matters: Is your gift giving in line with your values?

    Presents

    Just in time for the Holidays, here's a way to think about the gifts you'll be giving friends and family–especially your grown kids and their kids. It comes via the Sketch Guy, a financial columnist and blogger for the New York Times.

    In a recent column the Sketch Guy (aka Carl Richards) raised this provocative question: Is your spending aligned with your values? The Sketch Guy's point: It pays to look at the things we spend money on (invest in, in his terms) and see if the spending furthers our values or if there is a better way to invest (spend) on that value. (His example: Two men meet for lunch once a month; it costs them $40 each. What they really value is getting together to talk, not eating a lavish meal. They've switched to taking a hike together once a month.)

    Does value spending apply to how we handle gifts for our grown kids, their kids and our disposable income? 

    You bet. The first friend I asked about it told me this story.

    Two years ago, when the oldest of her daughter's daughters was having a Bat Mitzvah, she and the GrandPops went up to her daughter's home in Connecticut a few days early. Her son-in-law asked her to take the Bat Mitzvah girl and her younger sister to a particular beauty salon to get their hair styled for the big event. The bill: $140–not something my friend couldn't afford but she resented it. She did not see the value in spending that much money on hair cuts for young girls. So this year when the younger daughter was having her  Bat Mitzvah, she and the GrandPops once again went up to Connecticut for a few days. This time when her son-in-law asked her to take the girls to the beauty salon, she asked him for the cash to pay for it. She wasn't going to spend money on something she didn't value.

    That was a lesson she started to apply to gift-giving. When one of her granddaughters wanted a GoPro video camera for her birthday, my friend thought about it carefully. She was wary at first. GoPro is not inexpensive (around $200 for a simple one) and it seemed like a fad but that didn't drive her decision. "She's interested in photography and film-making. It was something that furthered her interests." my friend says. "I didn't mind buying it for her." When the younger daughter wanted a floppy, fuzzy floor chair for her birthday, my friend applied her value reasoning. "It wasn't something I would chose, but she loves books and I could see this as a cozy place for her to read."

    Another friend says she and her husband applied the value-spend test to a family vacation to celebrate their 50th Anniversary. Where some of their friends have taken their families to luxury resorts to celebrate, they took a different tack, As scientists who've supported a host of environmental causes, they booked a trip for ten–their two adult sons, their wives and four preteen and young teen Grands–to the Galapagos Islands for a week.  They saw it as a chance to introduce their grandchildren to the natural wonders of the world. Expensive? Very. But a worthwhile investment: Who know where the exposure to natural habitats and Darwinian change might lead. To say nothing of an introduction to blue-footed Booby birds.

    Paterfamilias and I are not quite as rigorous as some of our friends. We have been known to indulge American Girl Doll requests (Value? Her interest in a particular point in history was piqued) and a Lego car racing set (Value? Putting it together is problem solving). But we have drawn a personal spending-value line: Jimmy Choo shoes, no; soccer boots, always.

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