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

Money Matters: A saving plan for the grand kids

05/18/2012

We've been squirreling money away for our Grands. We started out by putting money into 529s, but the 2008 recession and the follow-on downturn in financial markets have discouraged us from plowing more money into that vehicle. I've opened savings accounts for each of them. The interest rate on those accounts is, like the rest of the investment firmament, discouraging. Those accounts are not even keeping up with inflation–but at least the money isn't melting away into the downs of the stock market.

The idea behind my and Paterfamilias' savings for our four Grands is simple: We want to make sure there's some money there for their education. Their parents will bear the bulk of that burden; maybe the Grands will have to take out loans to finance some of it. But we hope our little bit will take the edge off the cost. Our parents did that for our kids–every birthday they sent a small check to put in an account for the kids. The wonder of compounded interest made those accounts a help when the college bills started rolling in. It's a role model we plan to emulate. But how to do it in today's difficult financial time?

PBS's new Web site, Next Avenue, which aims to cover financial (and other) issues of concern to those of us moving further along the age continuum, currently has a video with the heady title, "Saving for Your Grandkids." You can link to it here. It won't give you answers to or even ideas for the investment questions we're all wrestling with, but Ric Edelman offers very generalized caveats and options for those of us who want to put money away for our grandkids.

My take-aways from the video:

You can set up ways to save for their education or to save for their retirement. Few of us think about the latter. (How to do it, he doesn't say.)

Whatever plan you create for the grandkids you have, be sure you can replicate it for grandkids that might come along in the future. Fair is fair, even if someone's a latecomer.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Money Matters: Our college grad’s expenses are our expenses–our worry too

05/14/2012

Will the surveys never stop? Here's another one–this time from Ameriprise Financial–on how generous we baby boomers are toward our grown-up children–and how worried we are about their future financial security and ours.

A December 2011 survey of baby boomers with $100,000 or more in investable assets reports that nine out of ten–93 percent–say they have provided some kind of support to their adult children. Paying for –or lending money for–college tuition comes in at 71 percent; help in buying a car, 53 percent. Parents are also helping with the upkeep of life's many expenses, like helping to pay for car and health insurance, rent and utilities.

Where does the money come from? 45 percent take it out of their spending money; 35 percent hit their regular savings accounts (about 8 percent tapped into retirement accounts) and nearly 15 percent take out loans to help their kids.

At the same time, more than one-third–35 percent–are worried that their children haven’t learned to manage money responsibly. More than that–nearly half–say their children don’t understand what it takes financially to prepare for retirement–even as they report that they are spending what they should save on their adult children.

As to those adult children at the receiving end, the survey found that more than half of them point their fingers back at their parents: they say they rarely or never talked to them about how they budget the family’s money.

Should we be surprised that kids coming out of college today are drowning in student debt? Or what the New York Times recently headlined as A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Parenting and grandparenting: A reminder to lead our own lives–and not through theirs

05/11/2012

Over at the educated grandparent, a recent post admonished those of us retiring from our careers and jobs to remember to keep up with–or develop–interests beyond immediate family. It's not healthy for our grown children or us to live our retiree years through our children or grandkids.

The post headed with this attention-grabber

You can read the whole post here. For me, the important take-away was this:

"Many people define themselves by their careers. What then? Some grandparents become completely involved with their grandchildren, who become the focus of their lives. …We cannot depend on our children to fill our lives. That is our job."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Visiting Privileges: We’re guests–not parents–when we overnight at a grown child’s home.

05/09/2012

The travel section of a newspaper isn't the most likely place to find a story on a major parental adjustment. Dominque Browning managed to turn a trip to Boulder into a tale of her first journey, as a newly minted empty nester, to her youngest son's new nest and her recognition that she was no longer the homemaker-mom but a guest in her son's home.

Her son moved from the east coast to Boulder. Boulder's a fun town to visit–I won't go into those details–but Browning had some thoughtful insights on the experience of realizing her youngest son was a grown up with a home of his own–a home that was wasn't hers and that was, moreover, half way across the country.

Her first point: "There is a moment of truth all parents must face, usually on a sofa bed. Children eventually make their own lives, entirely separate from ours, and we participate in them only by invitation. It is a wise mother, indeed, who remembers the lessons that once came out of her mouth about how to be a good house guest."

About that sofa bed. It was another wake-up call. As Browning and her son settle in for her first night at his apartment, he let's her know where she'll be sleeping. She won't, he tells her, "be taking my bedroom. That's the master bedroom. I am the master. I don't want to sleep out here. This is the guest room." That was, Browning writes, "the moment. That was when I realized the earthshaking reality of having traveled to see my child, only to become a guest in his home. He was not my child, but my host, a grown-up. I could feel the tectonic plates of power shifting and grinding between us. A volcano of protest sputtered out, and I agreed that the living room, er, guest room, was the perfect place for me."

It is a shocker of a moment. I remember the first year when uber son and his family booked and paid for the vacation condo and, when we arrived, instead of commandeering the master bedroom–as we did lo those many years when we booked and paid for the condo–we were relegated to an upstairs bedroom that one of our grandchildren vacated to accommodate us. Not that we had any complaint. (Or that they hadn't graciously offered to move out for the three nights we would be there. They did offer. We declined.] It was breathtaking recognition that the tectonic-plate had shifted–we were no longer the masters in charge with all the rights and privileges that come with that master's degree.

Browning's blog follows up her New York Times travel piece, sharing with her readers the bits and pieces from her article that were left on the cutting room floor. Here's one item that struck home and that underlies my Note to Self about good housekeeping tips. Browning, it would appear, managed to find subtle ways to share such tips with her son, Theo:

"Driving my rental car to Target for supplies, Theo discussed the challenges of living on his own. “I think the tub leaks when I shower.” We bought shower curtains. “Isn’t it hard to pour boiling water from the pot to a teacup without spilling most of it?” We bought a kettle. “I should have taken the vacuum cleaner you offered me from home.” We bought a broom."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Emerging Adults: Calling a halt to the helicopter parenting

05/07/2012

When I was growing up, some of my friends had over-protective parents–parents who marched over to school if a low grade or negative report was sent about their child, parents who labored with their children over the homework or had their kids call home every hour or so if they went out with friends for the evening–and this was well before cell phones. With the haze of hindsight, I saw the hovering come to an end by the time my friends went off to college.

Today we call it helicopter parenting and many colleges report that it doesn't stop when the kids leave home and become college students. Now it's not just phone calls; it's also texting and Facebook and social media check ups. And in-person interference. Parents have even been spotted crashing Freshman meet-ups.

Studies from academia suggest the perils our children face when we hover, helicopter or otherwise over-protect. They may end up unable to make decisions for themselves, to accept responsibility for their lives, to adjust to the demands of the workplace.

A list of the 10 detrimental effects from helicopter parenting–along with notations of the academic studies–are in this blog. Read it and hope you don't see yourself there.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Misusing Social Media: Rules of etiquette with grandkids and grownkids

05/02/2012

Will we ever get it right? The do's and do not's for interacting with our grandkids' and grownkids' Facebook pages and Twitter streams are tricky enough. But, turns out there is an etiquette to be followed with email. Susan Adcox, on her grandparenting blog, had a post on a letter a grandchild wrote to Miss Manners about her grandmother's barrage of forwarded emails–you know, those mass emails telling you not to eat banana peels or warning you of a dangerous computer-destroying virus.

In her letter to Miss Manners, the grandchild (a college student) wrote after her grandmother complained about her granddaughter's lack of response to the forwarded emails–one of which contained a nasty virus link that the grandmother clicked on. The granddaughter had to help her grandparent clean up her computer and the result was a cooling in the relationship. As the granddaughter put it, "I finally realized I didn’t have time to sit and reply to ridiculous forwarded e-mails when I have other priorities, such as keeping my GPA up. I saw my grandmother a few weeks ago, and I could tell she wanted to make a rude comment about my not responding to her e-mails. I still think it’s absolutely ridiculous to respond to a forwarded e-mail."

MIss Manners, in her usual droll manner, started out with this trenchant observation: "Before you make Miss Manners responsible for your GPA, allow her to suggest a less time-consuming way of handling the situation. That would be to deal with the underlying problem, rather than the surface one." She pointed out that the underlying issue was probably more about the lack of communication than the response to the mass emails and that the granddaughter might cure the problem by shooting her grandmother an occasional email, as in "I'm busy studying for chemistry exam. Thinking of you and hoping your garden is flourishing," or something like that. I would add to that: ditto to the grandparent. Mass forwarded emails are not a substitute for bona fide communication.

Susan Adcox goes a step further and offers grandparents two guidelines for email behavior, which apply whether it's in interaction with a grandchild, grown child or anyone else: "First, don't send forwards to people who never send you forwards. They are obviously not interested in receiving such information. Second, don't click on a link in any email that looks the slightest bit suspicious, even if it comes from a friend or relative.

"Being tech-savvy means constantly adding to one's skill and sophistication, but it's worth it to have a solid electronic relationship with grandchildren. Besides, it's good for our brains. Recent studies show that using the Internet well requires decision-making and complex reasoning skills–the kind of skills that warn us not to click on a link in a spammy email."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Money Matters: Another way to look at lending money to adult children

04/30/2012

Scratch a financial adviser and you get this answer: If you can afford it and you're going to lend money to your adult child, put it in writing. Sign a contract that lets your child know what the repayment schedule is, when you expect to get your money back. That makes it more of an arms length operation.

While I was doing some research on the topic for USA Today's The Best Years, I came across a financial planner whose advice took a different tack–one that resonated with me. Personally, I could never see myself asking one of my children to sign an IOU. It just doesn't fit or sit right with me.

If you can afford to make the loan, what did Marty Kurtz, have to say? "I'm not real crazy about lending kids money. It's okay for smaller amounts. But why would you loan for bigger amounts? It puts you in the position of being a debt collector and that’s going to impact your relationship." As Kurtz sees it, big loans are what banks are for. If credit ratings are a problem, you could go to the bank with your child and co-sign the loan. Yes, you're on the hook if he or she defaults. But as Kurtz points out, if you made the loan yourself and your child failed to pay you back, you would be in the same position. At least with a bank, it can put the repayment screws to your kid.

There is the option of making a gift of the money. If you want to "teach the virtue of diligence," Kurtz says, you can make it a gift with strings. That, Kurtz says, is kind of like a bribe, but it can be very effective.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparenting: Getting some respect for being silly

04/27/2012

I've never thought of myself as a blithe spirit–a wish-I-were-a-kid-again kinda gal. There doesn't seem to be a little kid inside me pleading to get out. Never was. So imagine my surprise to find myself in my son and daughter-in-law's basement playing the part of a pizza-eating monster to my four-year-old Grand's pizza pie on the run. (script by 4-year-old; sound effects by 9-year old sister). Not only did I have to seek to find the gobble-able pizza pie, but I was playing the role in front of an audience. Well, okay, it was just uber son and Paterfamilias. But still.

Was it fun? Sort of. Did it win me brownie points with my Grands? Maybe. DId it win me major credit with uber son? Absolutely.

The link I posted a few weeks ago on 10 ways to be a fabulous grandparent, mentioned not being afraid to be silly. But here's what I'm thinking: When we get "silly" with our grand kids, they don't think that much of it–it's business as usual: they're silly with each other and their playmates and what are we but a big, overgrown playmate?

But to our grown children, we're someone willing, able and clearly happy to enjoy their children and take pleasure not just in their accomplishments but in the pure delight of being with them at their level.

When I think of it that way, I don't feel so silly.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Emerging Adults: Putting the burden of student loans in perspective

04/25/2012

A few days ago I posted a blog on the heavy burden our college students carry in loans. It's hard for me to get my mind around $1 trillion–the amount of outstanding student-loan debt. I found these charts on NPR's Planet Money. They give some perspective on the bubble-like growth of debt college grads are currently saddled with.

1. Americans now owe more on student loans than they owe on their credit cards.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

2. The amount of student debt being taken on every year has been rising rapidly for years now.

Source: College Board

Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Parenting Grown Children: When a daughter and family plan to move far away

04/23/2012

A friend is in a state of high distress. Her 39-year-old daughter–the mother of 6-year-old twins–is talking about moving half way across the country in another year or two. The daughter's husband–a man who started his military career at a young age–will be retiring from the army with a pension. The young family is looking to the future. They want to live in a place where the cost of living is lower and where there is easy access to the great outdoors.

"They won't have all the free babysitting they get here," says my friend, who provides 99 percent of that babysitting. They also won't be leaving Sunday dinner at my friend's house laden with enough "leftovers" to last a week. And the daughter and husband won't have those get-away weekends when the Grammy and Gramps take the boys and entertain them for three days at their house.

When my friend retired this winter, she joined a health club–not necessarily the one she liked better but the one that came with an indoor pool where small children were allowed to be guests. She's already had the boys over for swims four or five times.

It is hard for her to fathom why her daughter would voluntarily move away from all this loving support. It threatens her peace of mind. She is very attached to the twins–after all, she's helped nurture them since they were born.

So what's a mother or father to do? We don't really have a say in what our children decide to do with their lives–beyond advice, if we're asked and occasionally, advice even if we're not asked.

But the bottom line is that we won't be around forever. Maybe that's part of what is so disturbing about the threat to move away: when our grown children make plans for the future, we are neither central to that future nor a major factor in it. Plans are made to carry on without us. Ultimately, isn't that how it should be?

Once again, it is matter of our "letting go." It comes in various forms at different stages of parenting. It never gets easier.