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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.

    Money Matters: The perils of lending your child money to start a business.

    Here's how the father put it: “It was an investment my wife and I made because we think that’s what parents do. Parents help their children.”

    The father happened to be Nathan Deal, who is running for governor of Georgia. He and his wife lent their daughter and son-in-law $2 million to open a sporting goods store. Then they doubled down by guaranteeing bank debt worth another $2 million.

    The investment soured; the store failed. And because Deal was in the middle of a campaign, all the facts about his big bet on his offspring became public knowledge. The daughter and her spouse have filed for bankruptcy; Deal and his wife are scrambling to avoid that particular ignominy. The losing investment was used against him in the campaign–as a challenge to his fiscal competence.

    The road to helping our children financially is pocked with pitfalls. It's hard to  turn down a grown child who has a good idea for setting themselves up in a good business–especially if we can afford it. 

    And perhaps that's the underlying point here. As Ron Lieber of the New York TImes points out in article he wrote on the matter, the first principle of financial planning is this: "Never invest more than you can afford to lose. The Deals may well avoid bankruptcy by cashing out retirement accounts and selling one of their homes and other land. But they clearly stretched the definition of “afford” in this instance."

    The other principles include checking out the business plan and asking the same questions of your children that you would of any business you were thinking of ivnesting in. Another tip: invest in phases. That can instill discipline.

    Given the financial perils Deal and his wife now face, Lieber's final line is worth remembering: "Nobody should ever put themselves in this position if they can possibly help it, no matter how much they love their children."

     

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

    Vacationing Together: The Daddy Indulgence Curve

    Back in the day when my children were moving through their college and post-grad years, a colleague at work used to tease me about the many ways Paterfamilias and I made life easier for our grown children–things we did for them that her parents had never done for her. She loved to refer to Paterfamilias as "daddy indulgence."

    More recently, I was thinking about her phrase when I was called by a reporter from SmartMoney about a story she was writing about money issues revolving around vacations with grown children. It struck me that as long as we've had children–that is, since they've been babies–we've taken them on vacation with us. It wasn't until they were college age and older that the idea of their paying for all or a piece of that vacation crossed anyone's mind. Certainly, in those post-college years when our children had yet to get career jobs–or were in graduate school–there was no question about who the deep pockets were and who would pay for vacation. If they would deign to join us–skiing over the Christmas holidays or hiking in Vermont in the summer–we would foot the bill. Any significant others on the scene would join us free of charge–that is, they'd bunk in with our kids–but would pay for their own incidentals, such as ski tickets and beer. That was the high point on the daddy indulgence curve. If we didn't indulge, they couldn't afford to join us. And we preferred to have them along.

    But when does the Daddy Indulgence curve start to dip down? And how do you get there? Certainly, by the time grown children are in their prime earning years, they should be paying their own way–and we should be making sure that any joint vacation plans are within their means. But there are several years between post-grad and prime.  Do you start by splitting the rent on a condo, having them pay their own airfare to wherever it is you're going, letting them buy groceries? And what if one grown child is more in a position to take on a fair share of the vacation costs but the other isn't? The Daddy Indulgence Curve does not arc smoothly or make a perfect bell. It can live on the rise for one child and his or her family but dip for the other. And how does that make each grown child feel–both the ones who still need a subsidy and those who can pay their own way.

    Any one else out there with some experience on the Daddy Indulgence Curve? Can you share how you've handled the ups and downs?

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

    Parenting as a Grandparent: New parents feel their way toward appreciating your help.

    I checked in with Mom Oasis–I had commented on one of the talking points the host posted and wanted to follow the string. It was worth the trip over. The subject was "How do you balance needing help from your parents with your own desire for independence?" We all know how we feel about providing that extra measure of wisdom, comfort, helping hands and shared love for their child/your grandchild. What's less clear from our side of the parenting equation is, how do they feel? So here was a chance for some first-hand information.

    I found one comment particularly insightful, coming as it did from a grateful recipient of grown-child parenting and grandparenting. The key point for me was this comment: "I went through a long period where I felt I had to prove myself and felt weak if I called upon my parents for help.  Now I am at peace with their involvement [and] so appreciative of their role in raising my children."

    We should all be so lucky to have our children feel so positively about our role in their lives. But clearly, this young mother didn't get to her appreciation point easily. I take this as a reminder that there are times when we have to stand back–but still stand in there.

     

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

    Proud Parents: Celebrating a Grown Child’s Success

    I read my friend Pat's email with delight–I knew just what she was feeling. Her grown daughter had just launched a Web site–momoasis.com–and she was spreading the word. Isn't that what we do: encourage, support, let others know (without bragging, of course) when our grown child has done something noteworthy or interesting.

    Then I went up on the site. It's written for the harried mom in the midst of her child rearing years. It isn't about parenting so much as it's about finding a moment of calm in the storm, of figuring out how to take care of yourself while you're still busy taking care of others. Or as the author's blogger-in-chief put it, "Mom Oasis was created as a calm and pleasant place to go to as a brief respite from the hectic, isolating world of motherhood.  Many sites reach out to provide moms with help for their children's emotional issues (tantrums, sleeplessness) but there are few that address those of mom."

    While those pressures have lessened for parents of grown children, they haven't disappeared. Some of us are still loaded with responsibilities–caring for an aging parent, working full time, maintaining house and home, being a responsive spouse and friend, keeping up with the book club reading. We still lead busy lives and many of us need to find that precious moment for ourselves.  You might find there's something in Mom Oasis for you–or for your daughter. I did–and not because Pat is my friend.

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

    Refilling the Nest: The unpleasantness of having grown sons home for the summer.

    The first surprise is the beer. Carol and I usually have walk-and-talk lunches so asking our waitress for "the coldest beer you have" is not in the order of things. "I need to celebrate," she says by way of explanation. "Thank God they're gone."

    "They" are two sons–young adults. The 20-year-old flew off to college the night before. The morning of our lunch, the 23-year-old packed up and left for a training session for his first non-summer job–as an AmeriCorps volunteer at an inner city school in a city about an hour from home. Having them in residence for the summer was exhausting–mostly because of the nagging it took to get them to do anything she wanted them to do. "Anything" covered everything from finding a summer job [neither succeeded], helping with household chores and projects, studying for graduate school exams, filling out forms for the next semester at school–you probably know the list. She found her boys to be "lazy" and spoiled–"They expect us to do everything for them without any strings attached."

    Let's put her frustrating summer in perspective. The boys–young men–were 20 -somethings: "Emerging adults," according to this New York Times article by Robin Marantz Henig. "The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course," she writes, "as young people remain un­tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life."

    Here are the stats the author uses to back up her point: "Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s"

    And that leads to this conclusion: "To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to."

    And when that adjustment takes place in our home–up close and personal all summer long–it leads to a cold beer when the kids–finally–go back to school or move out to test the waters of independent life.

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

    Money Matters: Do your grown children know where you’ve stashed your money?

    A lot of us avoid having conversations with our children about money–how much we've put away; how we'll finance our retirement; where our investments are if, suddenly, we're no longer on the scene. It's a tough chat to have.

    A friend found an unusual way to educate his daughter. Mind you, he didn't mean it as an education. Mostly, his daughter, a sophomore in college, was having a hard time finding a summer job. So he hired her. He had been meaning to use a software program to catalog and follow his financial holdings but never found the time to do it.  "I didn't necessarily want to hire an outsider to look through every nickel and dime we had," he says. So he paid her an hourly wage to do it–and to work for him and her mother on a business they run out of their home.

    It worked out well. He got his financials organized. But there was a second if unintended consequence. "She now knows so much more about what we do, where our money is invested and how it comes in. And that's a good thing." 

    During the summer, she also transcribed notes, did some research and was all-around helper for her parent's business. And that led to one other benefit. By paying her a regular wage, the dad says, he felt free to ask her to run errands. "If she wasn't working for us, I never would have asked her to run out to pick up a box from one address, take it to Federal Express and send it out. And, by the way, while you're on your way back, pick me up a ham and cheese on rye."

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

    Grannie as Nannie: A rise in the professional ranks

    The latest stats that count this kind of thing–they're in a report from Pew Social Research–finds we grandparents offering care, coddling and shelter to our grandchildren are part of a growth trend: The number of American children being raised by gramps and grannie rose sharply after the recession began. In one year–from 2007 to 2008–there was a boomlet of a 6 percent rise in the numbers and share of children living with grandparents. 

    According to the report, the sharpest increase in the number of children who had a grandparent as a primary caregiver was among white children, even though this family set-up is generally more common in black and Hispanic families.

    Here's another interesting point from the report: Nearly half of the children being raised by grandparents also live with a single parent, and 8 percent live with both parents in the household–in addition to the caregiver grandparent.

    Just another sign of difficult times–and the role grandparents play in it.

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

    Granny as Nanny: You’re fired.

    Her daughter-in-law was not as blunt as Donald Trump in Apprentice, but the effect was the same. Gail used to show up at her son's house every morning at 9. He would already be at work, but the two toddlers would be finishing up a morning snack and their mother, as soon as Gail arrived, would walk up to her office in the attic and work there for five hours.

    Gail took care of the kids. When they were babies she fed and burped them and rocked them to sleep. As they grew into toddler-dom, she took them outside for games and walks and trips to the playground. Now they are 4 and 3 years old and she is out of a job.

    Her daughter-in-law got a new contract that will require her to work longer hours. She is placing the children in an all-day pre-school. She found it disruptive to hear her children crying or being disciplined by the grannie-nannie.

    And that, for Gail. is that. She is out of a job without so much as a two-week notice. She's sad about it. She misses the kids.  It's difficult to catch up with the family on weekends.

    This is one of the perils of being nanny as a granny. You may be family but you are still "hired" at the will of the parents. And if their needs change, well, so does your job title.

    Not that there are any bad feelings between Gail and her daughter-in-law. In fact, Gail hopes to be re-hired. A baby is due this winter.

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

    Vacation Togetherness: When is enough, enough?

    I read the headline of this Ask Amy column and my first thought was: OMG. One of my children has taken up pen to complain about paterfamilias and me. "Husband wants a break from vacations with in laws," it reads. The letter writer says he is a married man in his early 40s who lives carefully within his means. His in laws live 2,000 miles away, and for the past 10 years, he and his wife and family have gone to visit them twice a year–and that's become a point of argument with his wife. "Am I wrong," he asks, "to want to do something else with my vacation once in a while?"  And, P.S., it only made him feel worse when his in-laws offered to settle the argument by paying his family's airfare.

    "Ask Amy" is on his side. "This isn't really about money" she writes. "This is about not wanting to spend every single vacation with your in-laws. And brother, I'm on your side."

    Hard to argue with her point or her tone. Are we sometimes tone deaf? Or cling too much to a grown child who has moved far away? Or allow our grown child to cling? Sometimes we can kid ourselves into thinking we're being incredibly generous and helpful–inviting our grown child and family on–and paying for–vacations. Togetherness on vacation is a fine, fine thing. But you can have too much of a fine thing. Certainly, your child's spouse can.

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

    Grandparenting: How much babysitting do you want to do?

    "You're a pushover!" These are the words my friend Gale hears when she mentions she's babysitting for one of her grandchildren. My friendship with Gale goes way back to third grade. We no longer live in the same city, but as long as I've known her as an adult, she was always the worldly one: Want to know the best new trendy restaurant, don't-miss Broadway show, terrific museum exhibit? Want to know a charming place to stay in Tuscany? She's always been the one to ask. 

    And now, this pushover business. Her sons, their wives and children live in the same city as she does–one 20 minutes to the north; the other 25 to the south. Both the families have regular babysitters but when there's an emergency–a child at school feels ill or a 5-year-old doesn't want to go to camp one day–Gale gets the call. "I'm the go-to girl," she admits. And she doesn't mind. "I love being part of their lives," she says. "They are such interesting little people. I love knowing who their friends are, what they like, what they don't like."

    As to being a pushover, she says it isn't as though her grown children were asking her to do something she, personally, didn't want to do–say, be the regular babysitter two days a week. And if she felt she were being put upon? "I have a big mouth. I might not complain to my daughters-in-law about it, but I sure would pick up the phone and let my sons know."

    So far, she hasn't had to. She'd just like those "pushover" remarks to go away.

    They probably won't. Whether friends have grandchildren living nearby or have to fly across the country to see them, everyone seems to have their own style–or pace–for being with their grandchildren. Maybe it's their own personal toleration for being around children. Or a commitment to helping out their grown children.  But when friends aren't available to do things with us, many of us lean back on that old saw and think–they're being taken advantage of by their kids. Or they're giving up their autonomy and I wouldn't do that. But that's saying our friends don't know how to say No if they don't want to do something. Most of the time, we want to do it. Or we wouldn't do it. It's part of our autonomy.