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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: Staying on the job to help the kids out

    One friend is paying for her daughter's attempt to start a family through a surrogate pregnancy. The tab is high–$100,000 when all is said and done. Her husband is semi-retired and her daughter and son-in-law could never afford the tab. So she's continuing to work–"to pay the bill." At least, that what she says–that if she weren't paying for the surrogate's pregnancy and all the testing and medical procedures that were part of the pregnancy, she would retire–or work part time.

    Another friend is also not retiring. Her son has a prestigious job–but the salary is not nearly as high as the job's profile. Maybe someday he can cash in on all that prestige. Meanwhile, the parents want to be sure there's the wherewithal to help out–when the son's roof needs repair, the basement floods, the grandkids' dental bills mount–without eating up their retirement savings. So they, too, are continuing to work–despite tempting thoughts of retiring to travel around the world.

    Lots of us are doing the same thing–putting off retirement in order to have the cash to make life easier, better, more bearable for our children. Some of us are kidding ourselves that this is why we continue to work. A lot of us like working–like our jobs and the second family that work provides–or fear the loss of vitality that might come with retiring from the work force. We don't want to give it up, even if we are dog-tired weary by the end of the work week. While some of us continue to work "for our children," many times it's more of a mixed reason. What makes me nervous is any hint to the adult children that they are the reason we're still working. What a guilt trip that would lay down. And it might not even be true.

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

    where do you draw the line on helping your grown children with debts or big purchases, such as a car, house or college loan?

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

    Grandparenting: Bonding is better when the parents aren’t around

    A friend is planning a trip to California–to see old friends whose eldest grandson is about to have a Bar Mitzvah.  The California friends date back to my friend's youth and the two families–one on the east coast, the other on the west coast–have stayed close for years. My friend's children and their children are invited. It will be close-friends reunion.

    As a special treat, my friend is planning to fly out to Los Angeles four days ahead of time with her 10-year-old granddaughter, her first and oldest grandchild. It will be a mini-vacation together for the two of them. Last year, she took this much-loved grandchild to Paris. She sees the Los Angeles trip as a continuation of a tradition: Grandmother and granddaughter going someplace special together–and bonding ever closer.

    Then her daughter, the mother of her Grand, had second thoughts. Maybe she got cold feet. Or just wanted to be part of the holiday. Or something. "I'll come with you," she told her mother. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

    My friend said no, it would not be fun. It was, in fact, a deal breaker. It would change the whole nature of the trip. When the parents are around, grandchildren relate to their nanas and poppies in a very different way. Instead of being the center of the grandchild's world for those few days, the grandparent–no matter how loving or special–is second fiddle. There's no longer the one-on-one relationship. Actually, my friend put the bottom line this way: If her daughter came along, she said, "I'd just be a credit card." 

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

    Grandparent Rivalry: Does more time with the toddlers translate into love and devotion?

    "It's not a problem." This is what a woman I am talking to at a party tells me when I tell her I've just posted a blog on the subject of grandparent rivalry. Her son, his wife and toddler twins live in Los Angeles; she and her husband–the grandpop–live on the east coast. The other grandparents live in Los Angeles and "are co-parenting"  the twins, says my new acquaintance. But it is not a problem, she says, because they are "very giving people." When she goes west for a visit–usually for four or five days– the L.A. grandparents make themselves scarce, giving the east coasters plenty of space to bond. "It works out just fine," she assures me. Except once.

    The once: She went out for a longer visit–nearly 10 days. And while she was there, her son asked her if she would mind if the other grandparents came by. They wanted to say hello to her–and they wanted to see the children. "I told him, if they have to come they have to come. But I'm very angry about it. If you ask me if it's OK with me, it's not." They did not come.

    I came away from that conversation thinking about what was at stake and how I would feel in her place. Are the stakes the fear that the toddlers will love the other grandparents more? That they will have a stronger bond and more allegiance to the other set of grandparents? Despite my previous blog on the subject– based on a Dear Carolyn Hax query by young parents–I was surprised by my party-companion's reaction. And shocked.

    I'd like to think that I would be more generous and welcoming, that I wouldn't ask my son to have a "you can't come by" conversation with his in-laws who have, as the east coast grandmother has already acknowledged, been "very giving" to her son and his young family. But emotions can run strong–and overrule what is in your head.

    But there's another emotion running around my head when I'm the out-of-town grannie visiting one of my children and their children: loneliness. There I am in a city not my own, away from my usual routine and  comforts, far from my walking buddies, husband, job, whatever. It doesn't matter how warm and loving the grownchildren and their children are, it is still lonely. Personally, I would welcome a visit from the other grandparents during the long, slow daytime.And a chance to talk ad nauseum about my grandchildren. Who else would be willing partners in such a conversation?

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

    Money Matters: Putting money aside to help the grown kids and their kids

    This recession is hard on everyone–more so on those it affects directly: those with the lost job or the diminished 401k. But that hasn't stopped many of us from using what we've got to help those we love. A  study out of Britain may reflect what's happening here as well.

    Here are the basics of the report:

    13 percent of British grandparents are filling up savings accounts with money for their grandchildren to inherit:. A
    fifth of this group are saving upwards of £400 every year, which will turn into a £10,000 nest egg when the children turn 18. Additionally,
    a tenth of these over-50s are putting money into savings
    accounts to help their adult children through the recession.

    The
    study is in sharp contrast to a report released earlier that revealed that six in 10 over-50s are
    concerned that their pensions and savings will be insufficient to look
    after them in retirement.

    Meanwhile, back here in the U.S.A., a friend tells me what she's doing to assure that her 33-year-old daughter–unmarried and still struggling with job losses in this economy–will have savings in the bank on her far-in-the-future retirement day. She's has set up a Roth IRA in her daughter's name and is funding it for her–for now. More on this interesting idea in a future post.

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

    Fighting over the grandbaby: New grandparents behaving badly

    The Scottish poet Robert Burns had it right: "O would some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us."

    I was reminded of that line while reading a Carolyn Hax advisory in the Sunday Washington Post. Here's the gist of the complaint: Young couple with first baby are facing out-of-control competition by grandparents for them–new mom, new dad, new baby–to come visit. The divorced grandmother resents any visits to her ex–one of the granddads. Meanwhile, the young dad's  parents keep count of how many times they visit them versus one of her parents. "It has gotten so bad," the new mother [and someone's grown child] writes, "that they ask us where we are on weekends to see whether we are at another grandparent's house, and if we are, all hell breaks loose."

    I know wherein she speaks. Several of my friends have voiced concern that the other grandparents get to see their grandchild more than they do, that the other set will have more influence over, gain more love from, be more important to the grand child. The feelings run deep. I've had little inklings of them myself–don't we all? Fortunately, most of us keep these thoughts and emotions to ourselves or vent them to friends. As you can tell from reading this Post clip–"how can we help them to understand how hurtful it is to be given so much guilt"–the situation there is out of control. But more to the point, there's nothing these grandparents are gaining by making their grown children feel guilty.

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

    Granny as Nanny: Offering your services, even from a distance.

    The magazine where I've spent the past 20 years of my career has been sold. The new owners have, as they say, brought on their own editorial team. In other words. my work-family of 20 years is no longer under one roof. So now I am free to spend more time on this blog (a plus) and to be available to help my grown children, who live in cities far from me, should they need it. This is the message I relayed to Alpha Daughter. To which she replied: "Well, I have a real problem with child-care coverage on Wednesday and Thursday. It would be wonderful if you could come up here from time to time to help out." I would pick up my little Grand at school, amuse her, get dinner ready–in other words, I would be a helpful, hands-on grandparent and parent.

    It takes some recomputing on my part to figure out how this would work: Free to travel on a Wednesday and Thursday? I'm used to thinking Saturday and Sunday. But why not? "Have computer. Will travel. Can help out." That should be my new motto–if I can just wrap my mind and new reality around it.

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

    Traveling in Asia: Sharing your trip with the grandkids

    Paterfamilias and I have returned from our trip to Vietnam. We are still recovering from jet lag and the challenges of dealing with the impenetrable language [they use the same alphabet as we do but not the same pronunciation of the letters], the different culture [this was our first trip to a country not dominated by Western language and thought], the traffic [hundreds of thousands of motorbikes; no traffic lights!] and the climate [hot and hotter in the south, though it was winter].

    While we were there, we decided we would share the trip with our Grands. Almost every hotel we stayed at–from the shabby place in the Mekong Delta to the spiffy hotel in Ho Chi Minh City [Saigon] to the business-like hotel in Hanoi–had a computer with access to the Internet. So every evening before we went out to dinner we sat down at the computer and distilled the day for our Grands–filtering the day's activities to focus on what a 6-, 7- and 8-year old would find interesting.

    So, we gave them our rules for crossing the streets [if there's a Vietnamese person crossing, go with them. If not, wade into the traffic and walk across it at a stately, measured pace; do not look at the traffic–it will terrify you and make you stop in your tracks and that would be a dangerous thing to do.] We told them how hard it was to speak VIetnamese [Nguyen is pronounced Win; Thu is pronounced Toe; Thuy is pronounced Twee–and that doesn't account for having one of 8 accents on the vowel]. We told them how sweet and friendly the children were [When we were bike riding in rural Mekong Delta, kids would run over and call out, "Hallo, Hallo." One little boy jumped on his bike, rode over to us and called out, "Hallo, Hallo. Good Afternoon," and rode away laughing merrily.] We would describe an ancient temple or tomb we saw and give them Internet links to it. When we moved from city to city, we encouraged them to get their maps out and follow our progress from the south of the country to the north and then over to Cambodia.

    One of the wonderful things about emailing about the country and culture we were experiencing was getting an occasional email back–either a question from one of the Grands or a comment from one of our grown children to the effect of how much they were enjoying the reports and the details. In our last email, the day we were leaving to fly back home, one of the Grands is reported to have said, "Oh no. They're coming home. Does this mean no more emails?"

    Bottom line:The feeling of inclusion with our children and their children while we were far from home was beyond wonderful. We were still connected.

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

    Getting the Empty Nest Back: Living with you had its hardships on them, too.

    Most of the stuff I read on kids moving back home with their parents focuses on the challenges for the parents: The loss of privacy; the need to share personal space; the noise level that seems to keep rising; the questions over who pays for what. I could go on–and you can read all about it in some previous posts. Recently, I came across a Baby Boomer Grandparent blog that had some insight in what it was like for the grown kids to live with their parents in their parent's home. IN this case, the grown children, who had moved home [due to financial difficulties] and finally moved on, out and into a neighboring house.

    Here's an excerpt:

    "It’s moving day again!  Six months have passed since our son and his family [three small children] have moved in with us.  …. After their first week in their “new” house, I saw the immediate change in my daughter-in-law.  She was calmer and for the first time in months didn’t feel it was necessary to tell the kids to be quiet.  I gave her a hug and thanked her for being such a great house guest all those months.

    Six months have passed and although my son still doesn’t have a full time job, my daughter-in-law was called back to her full time job and he took her part time one.  They have settled into the house and are considering buying it soon."

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

    Money Matters: When does the dependence of grown children end?

    A friend tells me his friend's woes: She's a divorced divorce attorney with a small but steady practice. Her daughter has gone to New York City to pursue her dreams. She wants to be an interior designer–get right in there and help people decorate their homes. And she has a talent for it. Only trouble is, the daughter is 28 and has been in dream-pursuit for several years–without much luck. She has yet to land an entry level job with a design firm. The mother has been subsidizing her daughter–"paying a hell of a rent for a place in Hell's Kitchen," says my friend. The mother is feeling the pinch of supporting a second household–her practice is good but not that good. "At what point ," she asks, "do I just say no?"

    My friend feels he's been approached because his lawyer friend, a single mom, is looking for a male point of view–women being "more nurturing and not as practical," he says. His practical point of view zeroes in on his own turmoil with his daughter, who is in her early 20s and still in undergraduate school, having transferred colleges and programs several times. Now she wants to spend her winter break in California–with his financial help. "I can't seem to get her to focus on the notion that the purpose of college is to help you become self-supporting," he says. "When I was her age I couldn't wait to take control of my life."

    And that, he thinks, is at the core of some of the dependence that seems so prevalent today. His argument: We [our generation] couldn't wait to get a job and move out of our homes because there were so many restrictions on us. But kids today have so much freedom at home–free meals, free room and the freedom to have as guests in their bedroom anyone they want. "They can practically make love in the living room and no one would say a thing," he says. So, he asks, where's the urge to get out there in the real world and declare independence?

    It's a theory worth thinking about. How comfortable are we making it for those who've filled our empty nest? Or are living in their own little nests on our dime. Do some of them need a tough-love push? Are we a little late in delivering a practical message?