PenPenWrites

They're moving home again. Sixty percent of young adults move back home–staying for no one knows how long.  The rules of the house that worked so well when they were youngsters don't quite apply now. So how do you work things out? Do you ask them to pay rent, lay down cleaning and cooking rules? Do you still wash
their socks?

I found some pointers recently on how to manage the move-back so that everyone remains on speaking and civil-living terms. The advice sheet notes that happy “re-filled" families tend to have several things in common. Here they are in brief:

Set limits: Talk about how long the live-in arrangement will be: three weeks, three months, a year? And define mutual expectations for house rules and responsibilities.

Set Goals: Talk frankly about the reasons, financial or
otherwise, behind this new living arrangement, and lay plans for the
transition back to independence.

Discuss Rent: Some families start at one rate. Then, as an incentive for their child
to move out, they raise the monthly rent a predetermined amount as the
months tick by. Others charge rent, but set the money aside and present
it as a nest egg when their child is ready to move on.

Set Chores: Whether it’s in lieu of rent or in addition, include
household chores–making dinner twice a week, for example, buying
groceries, doing laundry or yard work.

Discuss Guests and Booze: It's unrealistic to set curfews
for a fully-grown, independent adult, but you can discuss and
agree on a set of household rules, particularly on
hot-button issues such as late night or overnight guests,
relationships, and alcohol or other substance issues.

Make a Contract: Whatever the plan,
whether it’s rent, chores or household rules, spell it out beforehand and put it in writing.

We all have our markers for recognizing that our children have grown up and left the nest–taken that giant step into independence. I don't mean when they leave for college, although that's usually the first most common step along the way. I mean a way of noting that great big void in our lives. In families where the high school kids were active on athletic teams, it may be the freeing up of Saturday mornings–or the emptiness of a day without a soccer or basketball or baseball game to attend. Or the stillness of the house when you turn the key in the lock and there's no music bouncing off the walls and singing through every inch of the house.

I just read a moving take on The Moment in a Michelle Slatalla column in the New York Times. It came when she went up to her daughter's room to clean it up–this, after her daughter returned to college after winter break of her sophomore year. "I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me," she writes. "Everybody makes a fuss when you send a child off to college for the first time. You're expected to feel pangs when you separate from a freshman." But, she goes on to write, "waving goodbye at the end of sophomore winter break turns out to be much harder." It is, she explains, the realization that as time goes by her daughter would start to "come home for shorter periods and call home less often, and that the center of gravity of her life has shifted away."

We are not just our parents all over again. We rule. The majority of families in the U.S. today do not have young children at home, according
to a the most recent population survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. Compare that with our parents' generation: In
the early 1960s, almost 60 percent of families had children younger
than 18 living at home; that percentage has now dropped to 46 percent. Go back even further in time: In 1880, 75 percent of
couples in the U.S. had children at home.

The implications for us–we parents of grown children–are enormous. In a recent column, Abigail Trafford looked at the impact of those population stats on marriage. "After the traditional tasks of child-rearing
are completed," she writes, "the main agenda for gray marriage is mutual
satisfaction. Couples who have been together for decades have usually
learned how to resolve conflicts. But that is not enough. What predicts
happiness for older couples is the presence of positive elements: joy,
playfulness, humor, adventure, caring, empathy and common interests."

  I would add to that our relationship with our children who are no longer young or being reared. We still have a relationship with them that can affect, as it did when they lived at home, our marriage [when our kids went off to college, i was struck by how many fewer arguments paterfamilias and I had] and our sense of well-being. There's an old aphorism: "You're only as happy as your unhappiest child." And that still holds true, even when they've moved out and on with their lives. Given the longevity stats that are in our favor, we will probably get to "enjoy" those grown children longer than our parents got to "enjoy" us.