PenPenWrites

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

Hold that Thought: Why we temper the opinions and advice we give our grown children.

10/21/2011

You may think you're tiptoeing around–"Walking on Eggshells," as Jane Isay, the author of a book by that name, puts it–but that may not be how we come across. My friend Pat, who describes herself as a person who says what she thinks upfront, says that after a day of babysitting–and reporting on events to her daughter–her daughter told her she shouldn't be so frank about what she's thinking. "What she doesn't know," Pat says, "is how I'm holding my tongue, not saying what I might otherwise say. I have to be very careful what I say around my grown children."

Don't we all. The great fear, I suggest to Pat, is that if we aren't careful with what we say, our grown children–children who now have adult lives and are heads of families of their own–will get so ticked off they won't speak to us again, or there will be a coldness to our relationship and that will break our hearts. She nods in agreement but she also asks, how much of a mute can you be?

In the introduction to her book, Isay recalls swapping notes with a friend about touchy incidents that they had both had with their grown children–how vulnerable they felt and how hard it was to communicate with them. Isay lays the problem to our being pioneering parents. "We're the first generation to have raised our children so permissively." Now, after cultivating the "creative" and encouraging them to express themselves, we're stuck with the adult version of it. "Often their decisions [as adults] are not what we would have chosen–for ourselves or for them. We're at a loss to communicate our reservations, worries, and concerns, not because we can't put those feelings into words, but because the response we get often isn't pretty….the independence we worked to hard to instill in our children now feels to us like disinterest, and strong-minded youngsters sometimes grow into thoughtless adults."

Cold comfort, but all-in-the-same-boat comfort nonetheless.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Leaving a Legacy: Letting grownchildren in on the plan for your worldly goods.

10/17/2011

In the French movie, Summer Hours, three forty-something siblings grow apart over how to dispose of a beloved summer home and the valuable items inside it. When their mother died, she left no specific instructions–just the hope that the place would be kept going for the next generation. I'm not giving the ending away to say that the mother's wishes go unfulfilled and that the relationship among the siblings deteriorates.

King Lear also fumbled his estate planning. He let his children know who would get what–but not in quite the best way.

Movies and literature are filled with sad tales that surround the making or not making of plans for worldly goods. Estate planning runs amok or doesn't take place at all. While some of us have been orderly about the process–made out wills, told our children where accounts can be found. We may have skipped one important step: talking with our children about the disposal and dispersal of the lesser items.

Not that I've taken this advice myself, but I'm reminded of the need to make such arrangements–to ask my grown children who wants the piano and who would enjoy the Phyllis Plattner watercolor that hangs in the living room? Would anyone like my collection of wood, porcelain and tin cats? And what of the other things in our house–items paterfamilias and I might not prize but that may carry great sentimental value for one of them. I should gather our grown children together and do a walk-through. It needn't be gruesome. It doesn't mean we're about to leave this world. It's just a chance to put a plan in place that everybody is happy with–and avoid a post-mortem blow-up. Of course, we wouldn't be there to see the latter, but still….

In a Washington Post article, Adolf Gundersen wrote about his experience in doing just such planning with his 80-year-old parents and his siblings. The evening–his wife dubbed it a "pre-mortem"–of putting on paper what would happen when his parents were gone "combined the gravitas of a memorial service with the easy sharing of a holiday dinner. And the best part of it was that my parents were there to enjoy being the center of attention." The author and his four brothers decided what would happen to a cabin in the woods that they all loved but didn't want to manage.The get-together also touched on discussions about financial and health care planning that his parents admitted they were "weary of dealing with on their own."

Gundersen writes about some of the reasons why he, his brothers and parents waited so long to have this conversation. "Getting us kids actively and directly involved in so many facets of their lives would mean a huge role reversal….For a long time neither of them had seemed psychologically ready for such a gathering."

Depending on where we are in our life cycle, we don't necessarily have to invite our children into a full "pre-mortem" discussion. (One friend admits that her mother has a dispersal discussion with him and with each of his brothers whenever they visit. Her agenda: to find a home for her clown collection–something none of the children admire or desire.) But it wouldn't be a role-reversal for us to invite our grown children over to tell us which of our possessions they'd like to have once we no longer need them. Not that I need them to assure me that someone will keep my cat collection together.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Parenting Tensions: They may be grown ups but they can still be very irritating.

10/13/2011

Whether they are emerging adults in their 20s, settling down in their 30s or marching into middle age of their 40s and 50s, they are still our children, and that makes them a source of great joy and of dreadful anxiety. In a 2009 study of the relationships between adult children and their parents, Kira Birditt, the lead author of a University of Michigan study, notes that the parent-child is one of the longest lasting social ties human beings establish. "This tie is often highly positive and supportive," she notes, "but it also commonly includes feelings of irritation, tension and ambivalence."

In short, the study, which was published in Psychology and Aging, found that the majority of parents and adult children experience some tension and aggravation with one another. Those tensions and aggravations, however, are harder on us than they are on them, particularly when it comes to issues regarding our children's lifestyle or behavior (finances, housekeeping). According to Birditt, we may be more upset by those tensions because we have more invested in the relationship. We're more concerned than they are about seeing them launched into successful adulthood.

Other points from the report:
–Daughters were more of a source of tension than sons, not because sons are that much easier to get along with. Rather, daughters generally have closer relationships with parents that involve more contact and that may provide more opportunities for tensions.

–When it comes to unsolicited advice, moms are more the problem than dads. "It may be that children feel their mothers make more demands for closeness," Birditt said, "or that they are generally more intrusive than fathers."

–While the years when our grown children are in their 20s are filled with a lot of unresolved issues–what careers will they have, who will they chose as a life's partner–Birditt found it surprising that parental perceptions of tension increased with the adult children's age. "Middle-aged children," she said, "may be less invested in the parent-child tie than young adult children because they're more likely to have formed their own families and experience multiple role demands."

In related, unpublished research, Birditt analyzed the way some of us cope with the relationship tensions. While most of try to accept and understand our grown child's point of view, the more intense the tension level, the less likely we or our children are to use constructive strategies and the more likely we are to yell and argue or avoid the situation entirely.

But here's the kicker. Though many of us have learned to keep our mouth shut when we don't approve of something our adult children are doing–the way they dress or their choice of friends–Birditt suggests there are limits to such a strategy. "The old adage, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all,' isn't good advice for parents and adult children," she said. "Avoidance doesn't work as a strategy for dealing with conflicts. It appears to make things worse."

Go figure. Clomping around on the eggshells may be the healthier way to behave.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Parenting Grown Children: When they’re independent, the bitter-sweet news is, they no longer need us.

10/10/2011

When our children first leave home–for college, on their first steps toward finding a career–we realize the parenting isn't over. We may not be in control, but we're a very active guidance system, back-up and safety net. We're there to encourage, share the wisdom of our experience and, if we can, lend money to get them through some of the start-up gaps. As they move along toward independence, we may be asked to give final approval on the house they want to buy or be the reassuring voice when career decisions have to be made. The parenting never ends, we tell ourselves. And yet it does. A friend, who just returned from a visit to his grown son and the son's growing family, writes:

'My son has been successful in building a career and in his personal life. He's got a good family–my grandchildren are great; he's got a supportive wife and a nice house. They're a very close-knit family–they love each other and some of them love us, too. But my son doesn't need us anymore. His life is so intense–his career, the kids soccer and school, his wife's career–and absorbing that we are a side light. They're happy to see us. They were welcoming on this visit. But we're an adjunct, and it's painful.

I think back to when I was my son's age. I was driven to succeed. I didn't call my father as often as I should have. I loved him–he was my hero–but I didn't make efforts to keep him in my life. So I shouldn't be sur[prised that now my son is doing the same thing. It's great to see how inter-connected his family is and how well he's doing. But the visits are bittersweet."

In her book, "Walking on Eggshells," author Jane Isay notes that "understanding intellectually that we are no longer at the center of our children's lives is one thing, but in our hearts our children are still primary. So when things are not the way we dreamed, we blame ourselves."

In other words, we may understand intellectually that we are no longer at the center of our children's lives, but the reality of it is a splash of cold water–right in the choppers. It doesn't mean they love us less. They just have other people (a spouse) they are confiding in now; someone else they look to for advice. That's as it should be. It may even be a sign that we've done a good job in bringing them up. But, still, we feel less important. "I feel irrelevant," another friend told me after a week-long visit with both his grown sons and their families.

That's how many of our parents felt, too. They probably didn't get over it. We won't either. But life goes on, and so does our relationship with our grown child.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Re-Nesting: Do we put out the welcome mat or shudder at their return?

10/05/2011

My next door neighbor has three grown children, all of them in their 20s: a recent college grad, a part-time grad student/part time legal aide and one who is starting his own business. They all live at home with their parents.

These neighbors are from Uruguay, and they see nothing unusual in having their grown children live with them. The parents even re-did their children's bedrooms to make them more inviting for an adult to live in–new furnishings, fresh paint job, upgraded bathroom.

Not many of us feel this way when our grown children come back for re-nesting. Their appearance raises questions about their ability to be independent, to launch themselves into successful careers and relationships. Their return smacks somehow of failure–and a failure that reflects on us. (And they are returning in greater numbers during the Great Recession and Great Contraction. According to the most recent Census figures, adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are living in multigenerational households at a rate not seen since 1950.)

Economic pressures aside, I'm reminded that there is a cultural divide–of welcoming grown children back home as the norm versus readmitting them with a sigh of concern–by a recent piece in the New York Times.Why Rent When You Can Nest?

The author talks about a 28-year-old friend with a good job who is living at home with his parents to save money to buy into a business. He's Russian and it feels like the smart and culturally comfortable thing to do. The author, on the other hand, says he celebrated getting his first job by "promptly signing away half my take-home pay" on rent for an apartment. He grew up, he says, "with an unspoken assumption, just as my parents had, that I would live on my own after college."

"I suspect," the writer goes on to say, "that many young American adults who have to move in with their parents feel crummy about it. Most Russian immigrants I know do not. They don’t see it as a sign of failure but as a means to achieve their financial goals more quickly."

As to the parents, The Russian parents see their son's homecoming as the natural, expected one. American parents, on the other hand, "struggle to hide their disappointment when they tell their friends that their adult children have — oh dreaded words — 'moved back in.'”
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparenting: The moments they’ll remember us by

09/29/2011

When my daughter asked if I would come up and "babysit" her daughter–my Grand–for three days, she had her reasons. She had to travel for her job. Ordinarily, if she had to be away, she and my son-in-law would patch together a series of babysitters and play dates to cover the time away. But it was the first week of school. That can be traumatic any time, but even more so this year. Not only would my Grand be going back to school, she would be returning after a year in Berlin. I understood the request. I made it my business to get there.

It may sound like the easiest, most natural thing for a grandparent to do–grannie as nanny for three days–but it's not necessarily that simple. Work files have to be loaded on jump drives; bags have to be packed and spouses/grandfathers persuaded (that wasn't too hard) to drive you to the airport.

It may sound like a lark–taking over the care and maintenance of a child in school–but it has its not-so-easy moments. It can be a long day from 2:00, when I pick her up from school, until 6:30, when her dad comes home. And then there's the pressure to get my own work done.

So there we were, 4:00 on a rainy afternoon. She is banging out some songs on the piano and asking me if I think she's playing from sheet music or it's something she made up. I call out random answers while I have my laptop open and I edit a Q&A story on the mortgage interest deduction. She wanders over, pulls up a chair and asks me what I'm doing. I tell her I have to shorten a story I wrote–it has to lose about 200 words. She wants to help. We start with the introduction and I let her delete the phrases and sentences that can come out. As we move along, we come to a word, "sacrosanct" that I used to describe the deduction's place in the political pantheon. She doesn't know what it means. I tell her it is sort of like "holy." Well, she says, why didn't you say holy? I tell her some of the other subtle meanings sacrosanct has and why it seemed like just the right word to choose. We talk about it some more and then move on to another unusual word choice. She's interested in discussing why I called the deduction "the darling" of homeowning taxpayers. When I have to fact-check the year the mortgage interest deduction became law, she knows exactly how to go to Google, and we find the answer together: 1913.

Since this is a Q&A in which I have interviewed four experts, I have set it up so that each interview has a section of its own. The name and title of the person heads up each section. When we get to the first one, she wants to know if she can change the font for the name. Why not? She fiddles around and soon the name of the first interview–a housing economist–is maroon with a double underline. On we go, she deleting words as I tell her to, she redesigning the look of each name and title.

I can't say how long we worked on my story–an hour maybe–but it turned out to be the highlight of my visit. I was able to share with her a little bit of what I do–what writers and editors do–and she was able to show me how adept and creative she is at the computer. It was fun for both of us. But more than that, it made me realize that memories are made of this. Certainly, it was memorable for me–sitting side by side at the kitchen table, heads bent together, concentrating on what we were doing.

The three days may have had their tedious hours, but the reality is, you can't get to the heights of a memorable moment without trudging in the valley.

What did my editor think of the colorful copy I sent in the next day? He didn't say. But how often does he get copy with the name of the chief economist of Fannie Mae all dressed up in maroon Tahoma type with a double underline. For all I know, it may have been a memorable moment for him as well.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Life with 20-Somethings: Is this the happy ending to a job search?

09/26/2011

My friend Carol and I are starting out on a walk-and-talk when she blurts out this admission: "I'm a nervous wreck." Carol is normally a no-nonsense, assertive person; her remark is out of keeping with her hard-driving persona. The reason for the agita? Her 23-year-old son–he who graduated from a top college and has just finished up a low-paying internship with a nonprofit; he who she has been prodding and pushing to get off his duff and find a job–has finally been offered one and accepted it. He started working a week ago–when Carol and her husband took their son to the airport to catch a flight to the city where he'll be employed. A flight to Juba. Yes. Juba, the capital of southern Sudan–the country that broke away from northern Sudan, won its independence and is just beginning to set up a government and infrastructure. Juba does not have much of a Western presence–although that is growing. Carol's son is part of the opening wedge of that growth.

I think back to my own anxieties when my daughter went to live in Berlin for a year. But Berlin is an international capital and my daughter was attached to a major education institution. My worries were about missing her and her family–not about whether she would be safe or whether Americans would be welcome. Carol's son is attached to an NGO (Non Government Organization) that is in Juba on its first mission there.

I try to ease her worries. I talk about what an adventure this is for her son, what a challenge. If he doesn't do something like this at 23, when will he? Certainly not when he's started a family and has a mortgage and children to support. I tell her about the recent NYTimes article "What if the Secret to Success is Failure," which posits that happy, successful people tend to be ones who face challenges–even if they fail at them. I also remind her that her son is smart, that he lived in an Arab-speaking country for a semester, has studied Arabic and is an athlete who's used to team play–all of which will help keep him safe.

It is cold comfort. There's only so much positive you can say to the parent of a grown child who has put himself in a potentially dangerous situation–not out of some sense of adventure but to get a job. The latter was made particularly clear the night before he left. A neighbor who has a son the same age as Carol's, stopped by to wish him well and tell him how much she admired what he was doing. "My son is hanging around here, doing the boring city thing," she told him. His response: "I wish I were doing the boring city thing, but this is the only job I was offered."

No wonder Carol is a nervous wreck. It's not like her son is going off to pursue a dream he's had all his life–to walk across India or climb the Chilean Andes. He's no happier about this "great adventure" than his parents are. That's the reality of the Great Recession, and its follow-up, the Great Contraction. Jobs are hard to find. Our grown children are shipping out to the far reaches of the Third World to make a living–even though they would really, really rather not go there.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Leaving a Legacy: Something to remember us by

09/20/2011

My mother's tea cups: three cups and saucers, gilt edged and hand-painted–each with a different flower. When my mother died several years ago and I flew down to Florida to clean and clear her apartment, I placed those tea cups on a heap marked "donate." When Alpha Daughter arrived to help out, she scarfed them up. She loved them. Of course, as a grad student living in a one-room apartment, she hardly had room for them. So they were boxed up with rolls of bubble wrap and shipped to my home to store until the she was ready for them. A child, dog and small house later, the time was still not right. The tea cups are still boxed up in my basement, awaiting the right and safe place to display them.

And they are a reminder to me of the power of a legacy. My daughter wanted those tea cups not for any inherent material value. She wanted them as a reminder of her grandmother, of my mother's love for things delicate, her desire to surround herself with things of beauty, no matter how fragile. When she was alive, the tea cups sat on dainty wood stands, two in little niches on her desk-armoire and one on the side table, next to the porcelain lamp with the pleated silk shade. My mother and daughter shared an aesthetic–among many other things. No wonder my daughter wanted the tea cups, even as I saw them as so much stuff to be cleared away.

They are also a reminder to me to figure out what I want my legacy to be–to my children and grandchildren. Paterfamilias has already started down that road. When he found in his files a 5-page, typewritten manuscript–A Portrait of Courage, it was entitled–he knew what he wanted to do with it. The manuscript had arrived years ago from a neighbor of his father. PF's parents had lived in a garden apartment in a working class neighborhood in Queens. His neighbor, typing the story out on a manual typewriter, wrote about how she saw my father-in-law leave for work every morning, dressed immaculately in suit and tie. They would greet each other with a good morning and go on their way. When she found out, she wrote, that he was dying of cancer, she would stop to ask how he was. He never complained, she wrote. He talked about the weather and the fine day it was. As he grew thinner and thinner, she worried about him. A few days before he died, she saw him walking to his car to go to work and asked how he was. "Not so good," he said. "But it's a beautiful day."

PF scanned that manuscript into his computer and sent the pdf off to Uber Son and Alpha Daughter. He wanted them to remember who their grandfather was–and, when the time came, for his grandchildren to read this simple tribute to him and his courage. It is part of a broader legacy PF is working on: Letting his children and grandchildren know from whence and what they came. His most recent "legacy:" a book he wrote about the congressman he worked for in the 1970s. [People's Warrior: John Moss and the Fight for Freedom of Information and Consumer Rights.]

I am finding the road to legacy more slowly. I doubt I will do what some friends are doing: recording a disc that their children and grandchildren can play years later that holds words of advice or wisdom from them. It's a fine idea for the right person, (remember Alex Baldwin as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, spelling out "advice" to his unborn son?). It is not my kind of thing. And just when I thought I was coming up empty, I realized that my legacy has been simmering for years. I've been keeping a collection of notes on all the funny and clever things my children said when they were small–and still say now, my grandchildren as well. One of these days, I'll write up all those stories. We're an anecdotal family that loves a short, punchy story. I'll leave them all the evidence.

Legacy lived.

Why do we go to all this bother? PSYCHOtherapist or other expert on what it all means.

Dana Points, the editor in chief of Parents magazine. “Today’s grandparents don’t feel like they look or act like the grandparents of a generation ago,” she said, “so there can be a weird disconnect with the official term.”
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparent Rivalry: The perils of proximity vs the longings of long-distance

09/16/2011

When Lola's daughter had Lola's first set of grandchildren, Lola was just a tiny bit jealous of the other set of grandparents. They had sold their condo in Florida and moved to Nashville to be close to their only son and his children. They were there to do the burping and diaper changing; they were available for babysitting. They were there to see the first steps and hear the first words. They bought the pretty yellow and pink quilt for the granddaughter's first bed and, when their son and his family went away on vacation, they painted the child's room to match the quilt.

Lola, who lives 700 miles away, is the visiting grandparent. She sees all the other grandparent's influences and it makes her wonder whether her grandchildren will know and love her as much as they do the other grandparents. And even more to the point, whether she will have the same influence over them–the same input on family history and family values.

If that was her concern when her grandchildren were toddlers, it is less so now. The grandchildren are teens and pre-teens. They no longer want their room painted by grandpa when they go out of town. And even more, Lola's daughter has her hands full with a mother-in-law who believes in order and imposes it wherever she goes–even in her son's house. She has redone kitchen closets, alphabetized the spice shelf, re-ordered her grandson's bookshelf and refolded her granddaughter's clothes.

This is not to say that either the grandchildren or the grown children love one set of parents/grandparents less. Only that there are irritations in proximity. The visiting grandparents are like visiting firemen–a novelty, a treat–and people whose advice or remembrance-of-things-past may come as a refreshing moment rather than an "here they go again."

A two-week stay with her daughter may be intense, but Lola leaves with the hope that they'll be glad to see her come again. And that her closeness to her grandchildren has nothing whatsoever to do with their relationship with the other grandparents. There's room for both. And just because they live nearby, doesn't mean they have more input into the way the grandchildren think about life, values and all the other important ways we hope to influence our children's children. One quality conversation with a child who's troubled about some issue can be the important idea that child carries with him or her. You never know where or when that moment is coming. It doesn't matter if we're a constant presence or a sometimes visitor to have it happen.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Emerging Adults: Even if they do get a job, there’s plenty to worry about

09/09/2011

A major concern for most of us whose children graduated from college recently is whether they'll get a job. It's a nasty market out there. Sometimes we blame our kids for not trying hard enough –it may seem like they're doing nothing but they probably are checking those job-search Web sites regularly.

Here's a point to remember when they finally to do find employment: The pay may be puny–way below what a college grad has been led to expect. A recent study found that, after adjusting for inflation, entry-level wages for students who graduated from college in 2010 was lower than a decade earlier. Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the Economic Policy Institute, found that after gains in the 1980s and 1990s, entry-level hourly wages for college-educated men (without advanced degrees) were down 4.5 percent from 2000. For college-educated women, they were down 5.2 percent from 10 years earlier.

If that isn't discouraging enough, her study concludes on an even more pessimistic note: “With unemployment expected to remain above 8 percent well into 2014, it will likely be many years before young college graduates — or any workers — see substantial wage growth.”

Makes it tough for a college grad to pay off those college loans–they are kind of underwater, just like some homeowners–or for the parents to feel the college bill they paid will pay for itself in no time. It may be quite some time.