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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.

    Bank of Mom and Dad: The trend line on supporting grown children

       The need for a financial boost from the Bank of Mom and Dad–it seems endless. They may be twenty somethings not yet able to establish an independent-life beachhead, thirty somethings buying their first home, forty-ish kids with unexpected and uncovered medical bills. Do we help? If we can afford it and we're asked, do we loan or gift them money for something we consider important or approve of?

    Study after survey tells us that more and more of us continue to help out our grown children. A July 2014 survey by American Consumer Credit Counseling, a Boston nonprofit, found that one in three U.S. households assist adult children financially, compared with one in five supporting elderly parents.

    A November 2014 survey by Bank of America reported that more than a third of adult millennials receive regular financial support from their parents, and one in five still live at home rent- or expense-free. The support goes not just to those struggling to get started. The poll, which had 1,000 respondents ages 18 to 34, found that among those earning more than $75,000 a year, 25 percent were getting help from their parents to pay for some groceries and 21 percent for clothing.

    We also dole out cash to cover rent, cell phones, cars and vacations. Some of us invade our retirement accounts to pay for a child's wedding or down payment for a home.  One financial adviser reports that cash supplements run the gamut from regular allowances (to those not earning enough to cover rent and food), to help with legal bills if a child is going through a divorce, to occasional payments for a coat or plane ticket.

    One concern, of course, is what it's doing to the money we'll have available when we retire or, if we're retired, whether it will deplete our nest egg while we're still tottering around in our old age. Unless we're expecting our kids to take care of us –most of us do not have that on our Wish List!–we need the wherewithal to pay our bills as we age into our 80s and 90s. 

    Then there's the question of what this continual support is doing to our children's ability to reach financial independence. An indulgence here and there is one thing–it's one of the pleasures of having a little extra money in the bank and does no harm to the receiver. But barring unusual circumstances, covering their rent, paying their credit card bills, picking up the tab for their cell phone may send the message that mom and dad will pay for a life style they can't afford on their own. In which case, there's no way they'll be ready, willing or able to help us out (sound that Beatle's beat) when we're 94.

     

    Related articles

    Observations: Parenting insights from the romantic movie "5 to 7"
    Where's Waldo? Feeling left out when we're left out of our grownkid's photoshoot
    A Generational Guilt Shift: Our sons seek a better work-life balance than their dads did.

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

    Whose Side Are You On? An advice columnist’s take on our gifts to grandkids

    I love reading Philip Galanes, the New York Times' Social Qs columnist. Not just because his answers to life's queries have a wonderfully light and amusing touch  But more importantly–or equally important–is this: He's often on our side. Even when we, as parents of grown children, behave somewhat badly, he understands, he guides our adult children to acceptance and empathy.

    Here's the most recent example of what I'm talking about. The reader-writer is upset that her parents-in-law give her five-year-old daughter "girlie, pink, princess-themed toys and outfits." The mom doesn't like the message the gifts send. She has asked Galanes to help her find a way to tell her parents-in-law to back off on the girlie stuff.

      Galanes answer: "With respect to you (and “Dirty Dancing”), I disagree: “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Your obligation is not to prevent your daughter from ever donning a sparkly tiara. That’s just another corner. Your job is to make sure she feels equally free to reach for baseball caps, firemen’s helmets and astronaut’s bubbles (with proper ventilation). I am not worried about your little girl because she has a mother who is vigilant about protecting her choices. Lucky duck! Try thinking of your in-laws as covering the pink end of things, freeing you to help your daughter explore the rest of the rainbow."

    Perfect answer. I would only add this real-world info to the mom in question: When one of my three granddaughters was of the age of her daughter, she loved twirly skirts and tiaras and everything and anything pink. (Her two girl cousins did not). We too indulged that Grand's penchant for the pink. When she was six, she gave up the twirly skirts. By seven the princess stuff was history. Her favorite color became blue and she dressed only in jeans. We shifted our gift-giving accordingly. As your typical indulgent grandparents, we've taken our gifting cues from our Grands–but always with a quick double-check with the parents. They've been wise enough to let us go with whatever spot on the rainbow applies at the moment.

     

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    Social Q's: What to Do About Feeling Faceless
    Observations: Parenting insights from the romantic movie "5 to 7"
    Observations: Fran Lebowitz on the parent-adult child relationship today

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

    Observations: Parenting insights from the romantic movie “5 to 7”

     

    Blogger Sally Torbey writes about "5 to 7,"a film she describes as being about "how to love an adult son who is making some questionable decisions that are hard to accept." For most viewers the film is about a young man's romance with an older woman who, being married with children, can only see him for two hours a day–from 5 to 7. Here's her key point for those of us who are parents of adult children:

    "We had the pleasure of hearing the writer and director of the film, Victor Levine, speak about the film after the screening. I loved learning that the funny quirkiness of Glenn Close's character [the mother of the adult son] is partly based on his own mother's antics. I want to channel her character's inspiring ability to cast aside her preconceived notions as to how her son should lead his life, and embrace the woman he loves and who loves him, despite the initial shock and ongoing concerns of the circumstances of their relationship and the potential downsides of this romantic liaison. Although her character is critical of her son's desire to be a writer and nags him to attend law school instead, she is unconditionally supportive of him when he falls in love, even though I suspect her "mom radar" detects that this might not end well for him. Glenn Close's character motivates me to judge and lecture less, and appreciate the directions our children's lives might take them, and perhaps remember that being their parent and a part of their lives is more of a privilege than ever."

     

    Related articles

    Observations: Fran Lebowitz on the parent-adult child relationship today

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

    Where’s Waldo? Feeling left out when we’re left out of our grownkid’s photoshoot

     

    "I feel petty," a friend says before launching into a complaint about her grown daughter.

    The daughter lives abroad–four years in South Africa, now a transfer to Singapore. When the transfer came, my friend flew off to visit–to see where her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren would be living. It was a friendly visit and went as well as a visit for more than two or three days can go. But there was a downside.

    Here's how my friend describes her complaint:

    "We took lots of pictures– of the kids in their beds and going to school, of a side trip for a weekend outing, of places we went to visit together. When I got home, my daughter sent me a stream of the photos. There were no pictures of me with the kids, my daughter or anywhere. I feel petty even mentioning it. I don't exactly feel excluded but I sure don't feel included in their family either."

    When children live far from home–countries and time zones away–the family gestalt may change. Not so much to exclude Nana or PopPop, but as a means of self-protection. Our grown child may have to rely on friends, neighbors and co-workers for day-to-day support in life's daily challenges. Need to take one of the children to an emergency room while the spouse is out of town? Can't call Granny in Boston to babysit in Singapore.

    This is by way of explanation not justification. A once a year–or even less frequent–visit from or with a grandparent may feel like a special event to us but it may translate into a tie that's less binding. Even though they're the ones that left, there may be a feeling of abandonment: We aren't there when they need us.

    Or the us-less photo shoot may have been pure absentmindness or simply something that happens when busy people are trying to balance a whole lot of things. It doesn't necessarily signify.

    But the emotion it engenders–of feeling left out–does. It may be a little thing but it hurts.

     

    Related articles

    Five tips to keep arguments with grown kids from going over the edge
    What are the unexpected joys of parenting grown kids?
    Guidelines from the grown kids on how to be a good parent to them
    Detachment Parenting: We can interfere in their lives but only if we do it subtly

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

    A Generational Guilt Shift: Our sons seek a better work-life balance than their dads did.

     "When they’re asked about the time they spend with their children, dads are much more likely than moms to say it’s not enough."

    This is a Pew survey talking and it is all about the guilt our grown kids feel about the limits on the time they have to spend with their children. (The study was published in the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family).

    For those of us with grown sons who are dads, the finding is of particular interest. It helps explain where we–not necessarily the editorial "we" but the Paterfamilias and I "we"–are on our children's pay-attention pole. Not that we're ignored but unless there's a problem or we express a need, we are fourth in line (after spouse, children and career) for attention. By attention I mean communication, which includes phone calls, emails, texts and visits. When we're together, we feel the love. But when everyone's back in their respective homes, we feel like we've dropped off their radar screen. Most of our friends admit to the same dynamic–especially those who, like us, have children living far from home.

    The priorities for attention are as they should be. They were the same for us when our children were young and our parents may have longed for a little more attention.

    What seems different is the extent to which so many more young father's feel the tug of home life. It's a generational shift. What we've observed–of our own situation and those of our friend's–is that our sons are much more involved in child rearing and in overall family life including household chores, than their fathers were.

    If you're interested, here are the survey stats in two charts:

    Among Working Parents, Fathers More Conflicted About Time Spent with Kids

    For Working Dads, Time Spent with Kids and Parenting Success Go Hand-in-Hand

    Related articles

    Mom, don't feel so guilty
    Detachment Parenting: We can interfere in their lives but only if we do it subtly

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

    Observations: Fran Lebowitz on the parent-adult child relationship today

       In her acerbic riff in Elle about fashion style and how so many of us (men and women alike) lack a sense which clothes looks good on us (don't get her started on men in shorts), Fran Lebowitz, photographer extraordinaire, found a fashion reason to compare today's adult child-parent relationship to that of her generation's. 
     
    After wondering why young people are dressing with so little outrageousness or flair ("…someone my age should look at what young people are wearing and think, 'What the hell is that?' Instead I'm totally bored."), she heads straight to the core of what she sees as the relationship that's failing to fuel the revolution:
     
    "To me, the main difference between young people now and the people I was young with isn't so much style, it's the relationships they have with their parents. Their parents like them much more than ours liked us. Our parents weren't our friends. They disapproved of us. All our parents cared about was how we behaved, not how we felt, not what we wanted. But now I see my friends on the phones with their, what, 30-year-old kids? And they're talking about feelings. You would think this kind of relationship would make this adult children more relaxed, but instead they're more concerned. Parent-child relationships have become so collegiate. And so when these grown children go into the world, they expect a certain amount of attention. And they're very disappointed."
     

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    'Men In Shorts Are Disgusting', Musician Jonathan Mann Sarcastically Songifies Fran Lebowitz's Fashion Advice
    What are the unexpected joys of parenting grown kids?
    Fran Lebowitz Wants to Ban Yoga Pants On the Street, Fine Offenders

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

    Detachment Parenting: Does it apply when a grown child has a serious illness like OCD?

     

    One of the arts of parenting grown children–particularly emerging adults who are just getting their independence-footing–is to keep from interfering in their lives, to practice detachment parenting, to become an advisory parent instead of one involved in their everyday decisions.

    When a child becomes seriously ill, how do we walk that line: making sure they are getting appropriate care and still letting them be in charge of their lives?  Writing in the first person, Janet Singer addresses these issues in "Overcoming OCD." While it was written to be a helpful tool for other parents whose children or loved ones are ill with OCD, the book is also about the struggle between child and parent, for the adult child's need for independence and the parent's obligation to know and act on what's best for their child.

     Singer is frank about the emotional roller-coaster of parenting a 19-year-old child whose illness could curtail his lifelong dreams and ambitions (since childhood, her son has wanted to be an animator; the art college he was attending did not allow for a break in the course series) and his ability to live a fulfilling and independent life–to say nothing of enjoying the pleasurable socializing of college life.

    One issue that runs through her narrative applies to any parent of an adult child who's ill: Who makes decisions about his future. Is it the young man under the influence of his therapists, or his parents? In Janet's case, the therapists specializing in her son's OCD condition (at a residential facility), recommended he not return to art college, arguing that returning to school would take away from the continuity of his recovery–even though not returning meant he would have to give up on his ambition to be an animator.

    Her son had voluntarily entered the residential facility during the summer to undergo intensive therapy so he could return to college in the fall. Wavering on that goal when under the care (and influence) of his therapists, he told his parents he was dropping out of college–he wanted to relieve himself of the pressure to keep up with the course work and concentrate on recovery. At the same time, though, he wanted to go back to the college town and live with his friends and roommates in a house they had all rented.  "I need to be independent," he told his parents. "I want my freedom."

    A good chunk of the book revolves around the role of the parents in this decision ("who knows the whole person better?" a psychologist-adviser reminds Singer.), the emotional ups and downs of deciding whether to intervene and how.

    It's her honesty about the struggle with her ill son  and her belief in his future that hit home. In one way or another, we have all been there.

    (Full disclosure: Author Janet Singer is a friend of a friend, and I received a free copy of Overcoming OCD from the publisher Rowman & Littlefield)

     

     

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

    Detachment Parenting: We can interfere in their lives but only if we do it subtly

     

    One of the by-laws of parenting adult children is to take our sticky hands off the steering wheel. We're practitioners of the art of detachment parenting now.

    But there are times when we can mess around in some of the quotidian parts of their lives and do it in a way that is so subtle it doesn't churn the family waters. That's what my friend Lily did when her daughter (an assertive banker stationed in Hong Kong) let an unfortunate situation develop with the education of her son, Lily's Grand.

    Here's Lily's tale, as she told it to me:

    "My daughter got a wonderful promotion–she was transferred to Hong Kong and put in charge of Southeast Asia for her bank. Even before she got to Hong Kong, she found a good private school for her son who was starting first grade.

    On the first day of classes, she went to the school to pick him up. She looked at the math paper he had in his hand and saw it was stuff he already knew. My daughter can be somewhat abrupt. She went right up to the teacher and said, "He's working at a much higher level than this. I hope you're going to do something about it!"

    Since then, the notes from the teacher have been curt and formal. The teacher uses only her formal name, never her informal one and that is a sign that she doesn't like the family.

    When I went to visit my daughter and her family this winter, I decided I would go to the school and spend a few hours there. I thought I could show them that not everyone in the family is curt, that we're friendly people. I observed a lot of the lessons. I told the teacher how I was a teacher before I retired and how impressed I was with how she handled her classroom. Five hours later I headed back to my daughter's home. All my daughter knew was that I went to school to observe. I shared my observations with her–nothing more.

    I think I made a difference. A few days later, a note came from my grandson's teacher and it was signed with her informal name.

    Taking on a role in a grownchild''s relationship with a child's teacher can be a minefield. Trying to undo a situation that your grown child inadvertently created can cause deep resentment on the part of the grownchild. It's none of our business what their relationship is with the school and the teacher. And yet it is in that we care deeply. We want our grandchild to settle in happily and peaceably and be a joyous learner.

    There's a fine line here. It's not as though Lily went to the school and apologized to the teacher for her daughter's abruptness. She didn't say, "That's how she is" or anything like that. She just showed a friendlier flag and let that work its way through the system.

    Related articles

    Guidelines from the grown kids on how to be a good parent to them
    Five tips to keep arguments with grown kids from going over the edge

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

    Guidelines from the grown kids on how to be a good parent to them

    In a posting on parenting, a mother of three grown children waxed eloquent about the steps she had taken to meet her goal: having "an adult, pleasant relationship" with each of her three children. She started when she first faced an empty nest–her children were 20-somethings. Now that they're in their 30s, she is feeling pretty good about achieving her goal, even though "some years along the way have been far, far less than ideal."

    What did she do to get so close to this best of all possible worlds?

    Step one: she treated herself to therapy.

    Step two, she read (twice), "How to Talk So Kids will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk." 

    Step three was a simple duh moment: She asked her kids to suggest ways she could "be a good parent to them as adults."

    Some of the pointers her kids gave her were specific: "You don't have to put that Spider-Man on my birthday cake anymore."

    But they did address bigger-picture items and few principles on which they should agree:

    –A tardy or a non-reply to a text message should not be taken personally.

    –Questions about anything going on in their lives is okay but an acceptable answer is, "I don't want to talk about it."

    –Before any family meet-up, alerts should be sent out ahead of time if there's a specific agenda. Nothing important should be sprung on parents or siblings unannounced.

    –Gossiping about each other is a no-no.

    –Sarcasm is not funny.

    Not bad for a start. Sounds oh-so reasonable and probably easier said than done. I would guess it would take many a deep and deeper breath to de-personalize or not worry about the non-reply or the "don't want to talk about it." But then, parenting adult children takes flexibility and the ever-elusive ability to let go. Hopefully, we figure out–possibly with a few suggestions from them–how to do it well before we're in our dotage.

     

     

    Related articles

    What are the unexpected joys of parenting grown kids?

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

    What are the unexpected joys of parenting grown kids?

     

    Over at grownandflown,a question has been posed: What are the unexpected pleasures of raising children? Answers from 15 women are featured–from moms of newborns to parents of fully grown adults. Some of the answers are funny, some deep and all from the heart. I enjoyed the list not just for its content but because it got me thinking about what I've found to be the most surprising gift of raising children.

    Like one of the parents on the site, a major joy has been in how amusing my kids are–how they make me laugh. And, as another mom put it, it's been delightful to see the world anew through their eyes.

    But the most surprising pleasure has been in the access they've given me to worlds and universes I knew nothing about. In the early years, there was the entry into the dynamics of gymnastic's competitions (parent alert: the judging at meets is the pits when it's your child up there on the balance beam) and the pressures of soccer tournaments (parent alert: it's harder to be the mother of the sweeper who's defending against a goal than of the forward charged with scoring). 

    Now that our kids are adults, we've been pulled (intellectually only; no more managing from the sidelines) into even more dynamic and fascinating universes–brainwashing, educating disadvantaged children, use and misuse of databases. Our adult children recommend books and link us up to articles about subjects we would never have chosen on our own.

    It's fascinating and exciting stuff for us–Paterfamilias is a regulatory lawyer; I'm a financial columnist. Who knew about mind control or classroom management? We may have shepherded our children through their growing-up years, but now they're leading us to new terrains for our minds. It's a pleasure. A great one.