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

Empty Nesters: Dealing with the feelings of loss–and gain

01/21/2011

When it comes to our children–grown or otherwise–strong emotions roil through us, especially at points of passage: their birth, the first day of school and their leaving home for college. Whether we admit it or not, the latter is a big deal–the last big event that takes place under our protective roof, the transition from child to young adult, the end of our tenure as hands-on parents. It's hard to put in words just what and how much it means to us. And that's what I was looking for when I picked up Andre Aciman's recent essay in the New York Times, "The Day He Knew Would Come."

Aciman did not let me down. Written as his boys–twins and an older son–returned to college after the Christmas break, he ruminated on the stillness of his household. "..when you wake up in the morning, the kitchen is as clean as you left it last night. No one touched anything; no one stumbled in after partying till the wee hours to heat up leftovers, or cook a frozen pizza, or leave a mess on the counter while improvising a sandwich. The boys are away now."

He also takes note of the up side of life as an empty nester. "All things slow down to what their pace had been two decades earlier. My wife and I are rediscovering things we didn’t even know we missed. We can stay out as long as we wish, go away on weekends, travel abroad, have people over on Sunday night, even go to the movies when we feel like it, and never again worry about doing laundry after midnight because the boys refuse to wear the same jeans two days in a row."

One point that had especial resonance for me was his realization that he now had time to reacquaint himself with himself. "Months after they'd left, I finally realized that the one relationship I had neglected for so many years was none other than my relationship with myself. I missed myself. I and me had stopped talking, stopped meeting, lost touch, drifted apart. Now, 20 years later, we were picking up where we’d left off and resumed unfinished conversations."

I had a similar epiphany–not as well or deeply articulated perhaps–but, like Aciman, it came a few months after my children left the nest. It was a sudden realization that I was now number one, Numero Uno. Decisions on what movies to see, what to prepare for dinner, where to go for a vacation–I could now afford to think of myself first. Twenty years of child-rearing tends to drop you to the bottom of the "what do you want" list. During the years my children lived at home with paterfamilias and me (and even now, when they return for a visit), I was happiest when everyone else was at peace with whatever decision had been made. It wasn't all that easy readjusting to the new reality. I had to, as Aciman put it, pick up where I left off and resume unfinished conversations.

Let me end with another comment from Aciman: "The best thing is learning how to give thanks for what we have. And at Christmas I was thankful; their bedroom doors were open again."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparenting: Showing the love

01/17/2011

I am crocheting a baby blanket–just like I did for the birth of each of my grandchildren and as a birth present for the children of other people who are special in my life. This time, though, the blanket is much smaller. It is for a granddaughter's doll. It is not so small that it's for a Barbie, but it is big enough for her American girl doll.

This is not an expensive proposition. I am using yarn leftover from the presents for real babies, and yet time and effort go into this thing. My granddaughter, living in Berlin for a year, checks out the progress every time we Skype. She helped pick out the colors from the assorted leftover balls of yarn and now I hold it up to the Web cam to show her how long it is getting and how I am putting striples into the design. She is quite excited about it and has already told me "it is big enough for Felicty"–Felicity being the American girl doll she has. In a few weeks, when I bring it with me on a visit to Berlin, I'll bring a crochtet hook that 8-year-old fingers can use and teach her how to crochet.

While I sit and work on it–squeezing time in between work and making dinner and going to yoga classes– a piece of me says, 'It's crazy to hand-make a mini blanket for a doll. What a waste of time.' And then I remind myself, this is what grandparenting is all about. This is what no greater love means: giving something of and from yourself to a precious child.

This posting is one of several featured in About.Com's blog on parenting. You can read these takes on showing love to your children or grandchildren here.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Vacation Togetherness: Letting the kids make the plans

01/14/2011

When friends headed for a vacation in New Zealand, they had a two-fold purpose. One was to see the country but the other was to visit a daughter who had been living there for three years. The plan was to travel around the country with their daughter and one of their sons, who came along for the family togetherness of it.

What made the trip unusual was that the parents had nothing to do with the planning of the trip once they landed in New Zealand. They let their grown kids do it. "This was a country where my daughter was living for three years. So I wanted to see it through her eyes," says the mom. "She knew what she wanted to see. My son is a naturalist so he knew what he wanted to see. We let them plan it." They followed their kids' itinerary and sat out hikes or climbs when they felt uncomfortable doing them. "I wasn't going to climb a glacier," says the mom, who waited at the foot of the climb while her children made it to the top. And that was OK with her. They saw many of the natural wonders of New Zealand. When they got to a stupendous waterfall, the kids climbed a trail to the top of it; the parents waited below. When there was a chance to swim with dolphins, the kids got into wet suits; the parents didn't.

But that doesn't mean they didn't love the trip–and the uniqueness of traveling the way 20-somethings travel. "If we were leading it," she says, "we would have had a culture clash–we would have just gone to see sights."

Although there were uncomfortable moments, the trade offs made up for it. They stayed in hostels–the kids in dorm rooms; the parents in a private room ("bare bones but clean"). They had to make the beds and bring their own food. Not the way they usually travel, but the hostels were an entree to meeting a lot of young people who were backpacking their way around the world.

They found it easy to give up the control over planning since they had done this once before–letting a son who was living in Israel be their guide on a two-week trip. "He planned everything," says the mom. The main difference between the trips? "He got us nicer accommodations."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Money Matters: A calculus underlies loans to adult children

01/11/2011

The question was as abrupt as it was surprising: "Do you help your kids out?" It came from a friend we've discussed money matters with before. Our answer was as brief as it was open-ended: "We do, but it depends."

The friend who asked the question, says he does not. "I believe in fostering independence. They have to stand on their own two feet." And yet, it's more complicated than that–for him and for us.

The issue that prompted his question was a recent request by his married daughter–a mother of two and a lawyer who has opted not to work full time. She had called dad and asked him for $1,000 to cover the costs of a trip to Los Angeles to be with her best friend whose mother had just died. Dad declined. "It would be nice for her to go," the dad told us, "but this is something she should pay for herself. My wife and I worked hard for our money"–dad and wife retired a year ago–"We're comfortable but we don't have that much."

Paterfamilias chimed right in. "It's not an emergency, it's not something she absolutely needs. I can understand turning her down."

The dad then went on to say he had just lent his son money to buy a boat. A boat! The son is prospering in his job and has long dreamed of owning a boat. He asked his dad for a loan so he can buy it now. A boat may have more physical substance than a trip to L.A. but it's not exactly a necessity. And could clearly fall under the category of something he should pay for himself. And yet, dad said yes, no hesitation. Why? The son has borrowed money from dad before; he has always paid it back–on time and in full. The daughter, it turns out, has also borrowed money from dad–and never paid it back. Her requests for money come with a sense of entitlement–at least that is the way dad interprets the requests.

In effect, dad is applying a business-like calculus to his children's requests for financial help: A loan, yes, but only if the credit rating has been maintained. A gift, maybe, depending on what it's for and how good the credit standing is.

Our calibration is slightly different: different children, different situations, different attitudes. Ours don't ask for help. It's only when we learn about a need that we pitch in. And we try to do it subtlely. Sometimes it's couched as a loan; sometimes, as an outright gift. But beneath it lies a similar calculus: How responsible are the life choices they've made? They may take a financially risky course but a responsible one in terms of doing something worthwhile. If that creates a fiscal need along the way, we'd rather help them out now then leave it to them later. But the bottom line is similar to that of our friend's: We need to feel they have a sense of responsibility and accountability. We wouldn't feel good about lending or giving our children money if we felt it would be frittered away on, say, a sports car or a Prada purse. Not that grown children don't have a right to those things–they do. But only if they can afford them on their own.

The conversation reminded me of a scene from a PBS version of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: A married daughter runs off with another man, to the shock and opprobrium of her family. The father–wealthy man, of course; this is Jane Austen country–is livid. He refuses to welcome her into his home–but he will see to her comfort. For him, as for many of us a century later, however much the calculus swings against a grown child, we aren't going to let them face life's crueler side if we can afford it. Unless letting them face it is the only way they'll grow up.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.
Re-nesting: When the grown kid moves home for the long haul

01/05/2011
The tough economic times keep on coming on. If the downturn hasn't hit us directly, it may have hit our kids. They may need a safe harbor while they job hunt, reassess their life's plan, pull their post-college lives together. No one has the magic formula for making the move back home work. But here's some realistic advice–most of it the usual stuff– from a recent blog:

Starting with attitude, there's this reminder: "When the kids come back home, there's no doubt that there's an adjustment for everyone. Parents suddenly have a full nest. Kids don't really want to be back home, but need to be – at least for awhile. Individual roles shift and conflicts occur."

Seven Tips to Remember:

Recognize that the situation is only temporary (if it is).

Set some mutually agreed upon guidelines and parameters for successful cohabitation.

Share chores and expenses.

Consider each other as friends / roommates and behave accordingly (as much as humanly possible).

Spend some quality time together to build on the positives in the relationship.

Share your lives with each other to build trust and understanding.

When conflicts and/or resentments start to build, talk them out in a cool and rational way. Above all – treat others as you would like to be treated."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Anticipating the Empty Nest: A poet says it best

01/02/2011

Some parents say they stand and cheer when the last kid leaves the nest. Some of us get a bit testy. Even weepy. Here's a poem I read recently that brought a huge lump to my throat–and my kids left the nest years ago. It's by Mary Leader and I read it in Garrison Keillor's "Good Poems," a book, fittingly enough, given to me by my daughter to mark my most recent birthday. Here it is:

HER DOOR

There was a time her door was never closed.

Her music box played “Für Elise” in plinks.

Her crib new-bought—I drew her sleeping there.

The little drawing sits beside my chair.

These days, she ornaments her hands with rings.

She’s seventeen. Her door is one I knock.

There was a time I daily brushed her hair

By window light—I bathed her, in the sink

In sunny water, in the kitchen, there.

I’ve bought her several thousand things to wear,

And now this boy buys her silver rings.

He goes inside her room and shuts the door.

Those days, to rock her was a form of prayer.

She’d gaze at me, and blink, and I would sing

Of bees and horses, in the pasture, there.

The drawing sits as still as nap-time air—

Her curled-up hand—that precious line, her cheek…

Next year her door will stand, again, ajar

But she herself will not be living there.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Boundary Lines: Asking too much of our grown children.

12/26/2010

When our kids were young and living under our wing, parenting had a lot to do with setting boundaries. No, you may not go outside without me. Yes, you can have the car but you must be home by 10.

Now that they're grown up and living under their own powers, parenting still has a lot to do with setting boundaries–but this time it's all about our respecting those boundaries. An example of a worst-case scenario is in a recent column by Carolyn Hax. A woman in her mid-20s who lives in her own apartment and supports herself, complains that her parents "insist they are entitled to know my every move because they are my parents." If she doesn't respond to a phone message within 24 hours, they threaten to call the police. If she tries to withhold details of her Saturday night, "they become very angry and claim I'm disrespecting them."

If it sounds overboard and overly intrusive, it is. And yet, Hax assures the writer, "yours aren't the first parents to have boundary issues."

That's some of us she's talking about. The solution Hax suggests is for the daughter to employ a non-confrontational approach. She should answer general questions about how she is but if demands are made for "a transcript of Saturday night," the daughter can tell her parents that she's "not going to answer questions about tracking my movements." Another way to handle it, Hax says, is for the daughter to answer the question she wishes her parents had asked, as in "I'm doing great, thanks. How's work, Dad?"

When we find our kids evading our questions with that time-honored ploy, it may be a heads up that we're asking stuff that's over the boundary line. Hopefully, they'll tell all we need to know when they're ready.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparenting: How many grandkids visiting can you handle at once?

12/22/2010

"I'm no longer doing the gang-bang visits with my grandkids," a friend tells me. "I'm staggering them."

She and her husband have retired to a home near a lake in the mountains. What she is talking about is having all five of her grandchildren–three from one daughter, two from another–in her house at one time for an extended visit. "Having all of them together for a meal is fun, but anything more than that is stressful."

This has nothing to do with the children's behavior or ramifications from the variations in her daughters parenting styles. It's more personal than that. She's established a special relationship with each child–a relationship that she pursues and recharges every time she visits her grandchildren in their homes or when they visit her as part of their family's outing. "Each one has something special going on with me," she says, "and I can't replicate that when they are all here."

In other words, her stress comes from worrying that any one of her grandchildren will wonder just how special he or she is to grammie, that the feeling of being special or of having a special bond will break. If you have a special way of reading books with one child and of working on art projects with another, of playing "hit the bat" with one and poring over baseball statistics in the newspaper with another, does it diminish that bond if you dilute your attention and shower the gift on all of them? Do they notice?

On one all-one-big-happy-family visit, I realized that, past the age of toddlerhood, maybe they're oblivious to it. The cousins–my son's and daughter's children–don't live near each other, so on those few occasions when they are together, they are plain-old happy to see each other. They tend to run off to play, leaving Special Grammie and Grumps to fend for themselves. But that's a whole different stress.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Grandparenting: How to talk to an 8 year old.

12/17/2010

It's the issue that rises every time we pick up the phone or Skype to talk to our grown kids and their kids–our Grands: How do you start a conversation with a child old enough to sort-of hold a conversation? Asking, "How is school?" leads to a monosyllabic answer, as does the equally deadening, "How do you like school?"

A few days ago, I posed this question on a grandparenting blog.Susan Adcox, who runs the site, answered that question with some solid advice. (You can link to it here). For starters, she refers to a source who's done a lot of thinking about the issue: Selma Wasserman in her book,Grandparenting by Long Distance. Wassermann suggests that you keep questions specific ("What toy are you playing with?" is better than "What are you doing?"), assume the burden of keeping the conversation going (small children don't yet have the hang of small talk) and, for small children, come up with questions or statements that you use over and over.

Susan, a grandmother with several years of practice, says she's had success talking to her grandkids about things she did with them, asking about movies or TV shows they both may have seen and about any major events coming up–holidays, birthdays, competitions. She also recommends asking about friends: "If you can remember some details about your grandchildren's friends and ask about them, your stock will go up considerably. Friends are so important to older children."

A reader on the grandparenting blog brought up another point: understanding the words the young children are saying.Wildncrazygrandmas says she gets particularly frustrated when she cannot understand them over the phone or Skype. "I have to ask them to repeat what they just said, and I lose them!"

Been there, experienced that.

Checked in with my son-in-law who's a pre-school teacher. He suggested asking kids fun questions that they can answer on their level: Would you rather play in sand or snow? Would you rather be Batman/girl or Luke Skywalker/Princeses Leia? Would you rather be able to be invisible or to fly?

Anyone have any other ideas? Click the comment button and write on.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Vacation Togetherness: In tough times, our grown children travel with us.

12/14/2010

"In a shaky economy," SmartMoney writes, "young adults are taking more trips with Mom and Dad–who are footing the bill." The travel industry even has a name for the new togetherness: multigenerational or intergenerational vacations.

While the downturned economy may foster more of it–so many well-educated young adults; so few jobs–the mom-and-pop financed vacation isn't anything new. Many of us have been doing it for years and for other reasons–from habit or the desire to indulge our children or for the simple pleasure of their company. But now the travel industry is responding with discount packages that foster family togetherness. The SmartMoney article mentions hotels with special deals [such as grandparents stay free] or tours that cater to intergenerational activities.The most popular: wildlife safaris, Alaskan cruises and trips to the Galapagos.

The article also quotes me and references this blog and my post a few weeks ago on the Daddy Indulgence Curve, which talks about the transition from treating everyone for everything on a vacation to letting them pay their own way.