PenPenWrites

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

Happy Holidays: The torch passes and our kids put their stamp on Thanksgiving.

11/30/2008

It is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I am still peppy. Usually, at this point in the Thanksgiving weekend, I fall into bed in a state of total exhaustion. But I've just spent three days with three families under one roof [paterfamilias and I; uber son and his growing family; alpha daughter and hers]. All three of the "big" grands were there, and all the running around and energy that a 5, 6 and 7 year-old can expend in their waking hours were expended. Footballs were thrown, dress-up was played; special "performances" were given. Plus there was all the cuteness, sweetness and smiley-ness of a 6-month old–and all the constant parenting and protecting that involves. A big dinner was served [turkey as well as tofurky and many many trimming] and lots and lots of other meals [both regular and veggie]. Beds were made, dishes washed, stories read, long walks taken. And yet, here I stand, feeling perfectly refreshed.

The difference? This year our family–each of us live in a different city–convened at uber son's house. He, and most especially my daughter-in-law, took on all the responsibilities for shopping and figuring our where everyone would sleep. I helped with the cooking–I made some of my favorites–but I was second mate. New dishes or new variations of dishes were introduced. My daughter-in-law [AKA second daughter] has a real flair for floral arrangements and, with what seemed like little effort, a lovely and appropriately low-key arrangement was created for the center of the table–as opposed to my smooshing flowers into a vase.

It didn't matter how much I pitched in to help, the reality is this: It wasn't my house . Is it that simple? Not really. As usual, I wanted to do everything I could to make things easier for my children–by helping with their kids, running an errand, doing a load of wash or whatever. Still it wasn't that tiring because others were in charge. Maybe it's because paterfamilias and I experienced what my friend Marian, the psychiatrist, calls "flattening of the hierarchy." At moments, paterfamilias, who is much less involved in making the household work, came close to what my friend Steve calls "feeling irrelevant." Not that either of us felt irrelevant–but we were not the center of the dynamics. Connections were being made between daughter and daughter-in-law; between daughter-in-law and son-in-law. Reconnections were being made between son and daughter who don't see each other very often. Bonds were being forged between pint-sized cousins. We are the original connective tissue, but they are stretching out without us. Which is how it has to be.

I kinda liked passing the Thanksgiving torch. I didn't miss all the shopping, cooking and bed-making that having eight visitors in my home entails–to say nothing of the many trips to the airport to pick everyone up with suitable car seats in cars. But paterfamilias was of another mind. Of course. He likes being master of the house. He likes filling it with his children and his children's children. He likes the routines we had–the zoo on the day after Thanksgiving, the setting up of his old but still-runnable electric trains. Being head of the table and of the family. He is not tredding lightly on any flattening of the hierarchy. On this Saturday after Thanksgiving, he wants to re-think what we do next year and who does it.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

De-Nested: When adult kids move back home, politeness is strained.

11/19/2008

I'm a sucker for a new phrase, especially when it captures the definition of the moment. Here's my most recent find: Economy of gratitude. It refers to the breakdown in the way we treat each other–we being the parents and ourr adult children who have moved back into the family nest. It's when family members notice only the inconveniences and ignore
the nice things that we do for one another.

According to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times, that doesn't have to happen. "Children and parents can peacefully coexist by approaching the
new living arrangement as they would if they were taking on any
roommate: Agree in advance on how to handle household purchases,
cleaning and other responsibilities. Resolve the question of who is in
charge and how the house is to be governed, and the situation may not
seem so bad after all."

The L.A. Times is covering the issue because California is one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis. One of the phenomenons of that tragedy is that people who are losing their homes or in danger of losing their homes, are bunking in together intergenerationally. That is, parents with children or children with parents. But that phenomenon is not limited to the usual–parents and their 20-something children. It involves older children. And here's why

An AARP study–released in September and reflecting 2007 foreclosure woes–found that more than a quarter
of the foreclosures and delinquencies in the second half of 2007
involved homeowners ages 50 or older. SInce then there has been the calamity of the plunging stock market and the unraveling of the financial safety net for many
midcareer Americans and their parents. No reliable figures yet exist on the number of adults forced to move in
with parents because of the financial crises–or adult children moving in with their parents to help the parents–but it's clear this group
consists of older, previously well-established homeowners.

The time are a changin' and it's not for the better.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Money Matters: Health insurance for your grown kids is not an indulgence

11/11/2008

Paterfamilias and I had dinner with friends the other night–friends whose oldest child is about to graduate from college. They are recovering from the $50,000 a year it's been costing them and looking forward to his independence, particularly his financial independence. He doesn't, of course, know exactly what he wants to do. He's hoping to take a year or two to figure it out.

That brought back a lot of memories for me and the pater. When our kids graduated from college–lickety-split, within one year of each other (talk about recovering from tuition stress)–our daughter headed out to the West Coast : She loved painting and wanted to be an artist. Our son went to New England: He wanted to see if he could make it as a writer. Both of them took part time jobs to support themselves–to pay their share of a shared room in a group house and their share of the spaghetti that they lived on. So they were independent–except that they did not put aside any of their earnings from part-time work for health insurance. Naturally not. What 22-year-old who has had nothing more than some sports-related injuries to deal with, thinks about health care coverage.

But we did. There they were, far from home and on their own. But what if something terrible happened to them–an illness that put them in the hospital or required high-priced specialist care. Naturally, we'd want to make sure they were in the best hospital for their problem and hire the best physicians we could find. There is nothing in life that we love or treasure more than our children. So we took out so-called catastrophic health insurance policies for them. I say for them–it was not something they were going to do. And we didn't see it as an indulgence. We weren't insuring them so much as our assets. A 10-day stay in a hospital and a few visits to a specialist could wipe out our savings.

Our friends at dinner hadn't had the chance to think this little "dependence" issue through yet. One thing that has changed in the past year or two is that several states have passed laws allowing parents to cover their adult children–most set limits at 26 years of ag but in Florida, it's 30.

Insurance for those young adults is something worth planning for. We'll all need our assets for the little luxuries of life for our children's children–when they finally arrive.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Empty Nesters: Filling the adult child’s nest–with you

10/26/2008

Lots of self-help tips for parents of grown children center on what to do when the adult kids move back to the family home. But now there's a new trend: The U.S. Census reports that there is a 75 percent increase in parents under the age of 65 who are now living with their adult children–in their children's homes.

What's behind this reverse trend? Some of it is the troubled economy–foreclosures, loss of jobs (older baby boomers have a particularly tough time re-attaching once they've lost employment) and overall difficulty making ends meet.

According to the census
data, the average size of both families and households grew from
2000 to 2007, after shrinking slightly in the 1990s. The average
family in 2007 had 3.2 people, up from 3.14 in 2000.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

The Old Order Changeth: Making new plans for Thanksgiving

10/18/2008

The first Thanksgiving dinner I made is a vivid memory. My two children were toddlers; we didn't look forward to the four-hour long drive to my mother's house and even less to the traffic-delayed return trip–six to eight hours stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike. Suggestions were made. And taken. My mother and brother and his wife would come to our house.

We never looked back. Thanksgiving has been at our house for more than 30 years–through births and deaths and additions of our best friends and their children, plus assorted others. Everyone loves it. Well, that's what they tell us. But life changes. Our best friends are gone; their children have moved away. So have our children. For the past decade, our children and their growing families have piled onto airplanes and come home for the holiday anyway. It's exhausting for everyone but it's wonderful to fill the house with all that excitement–and noise and mouths to feed. It's also expensive: we are talking about 8 airfares plus, this year, renting a van to transfer the family of five [a new baby!] from airport to home and back again.

So this year, suggestions were made. And taken. Thanksgiving will be at uber son's home this year. Alpha daughter and her family can drive over–it's only three hours away. We'll fly up a day or two early. I'll do most of the cooking–my daughter-in-law has her hands full with two school-age children and an infant.

Sounds fine. And it is. And yet. It is the old order changing and yielding place to the new. We say that this arrangement is only for this year, that each year we may do something different–our house, daughter's house. Could be anywhere. And yet it is a sign of passing time and years. Another flattening of the hierarchy, as my friend Marian the psychiatrist likes to say. We are moving even further off the center stage–we've acknowledged that in many other ways–and this is just another Rite of Passage. We don't feel old; we don't feel like we're ready to be flattened. And yet there comes a time when it's Their Time.

I've always loved Thanksgiving. It isn't laden with all the gift-giving or religious symbols of other family holidays. It's just turkey [well, tofurkey for some] and pumpkin pie. It will be fun to put it all together in another kitchen. But it won't be the same. The torch is passing.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Family Vacations: The discomforts of togetherness

10/09/2008

Summer vacations are over but Thanksgiving is upon us. So I thought I'd share these notes I made when friends talked about their summer vacation with both their sons [neither of whom lives near them or each other] and all their grandchildren–six adults, five small children together in one large vacation house near the beach for a week.

SHE SAYS:

"There were many wonderful moments. There was so much interaction between the little kids. It was great to see them playing together. But…

"There were too damned many dynamics. My two daughters-in-law have never jelled. So they avoid each other. One harbors a lot of anger over her brother-in-law yelling at her a few years ago for something she said to me. She's never forgiven him so he withdraws when he's around her and I get upset about that.

"When they're around us, my sons regress in their behavior and slip back into old patterns. And if the little kids would have a fight, I would intervene and if I did on behalf of one son's kids, the other son would get upset with me as though I were siding with his brother.

"One of my son's and his wife are quite strict with their children. It isn't just discipline; they don't let them do anything out of their sight. They are very careful and cautious. My other son and his wife are looser. They give their kids a lot more leeway. So, when he and his wife disappear for a while and let their kids make their own lunch, play in the yard by themselves, my other son and his wife feel like they have to be responsible for their brother's kids. They end up making lunch for them, watching out for them. And that creates a lot of tension.

HE SAYS

"I enjoy having my sons around. They help me do things–like major repairs to the house. And I like both of my daughters-in-law. They're both very pleasant to me. But during most of the visit, I feel irrelevant. "

…..

For those of us whose children live in other cities far from us and from each other, we often make heroic efforts to bring everyone together–to rekindle that "ideal family" spirit; to make it possible for the little cousins to get to know each other, to enjoy seeing our children and their children have fun together. And then we either get caught in the middle of a resurgent sibling quarrel or, if they and their spouses are finally having a nice bonding moment, we feel totally left out.

Another friend rents a house for six weeks over the summer. Each of her sons comes to visit for a week of vacation with his family. Do they ever come at the same time? "Are you kidding?" she says. "They know better than that. The wives don't dislike each other but they don't particularly like each other either. The boys are brothers but they're not particularly close anymore. And, even more to the point, the young families have very different parenting styles. So serial visiting is the way we go."

Not that there are lessons to be learned here. Just the comfort of
knowing we are not alone in struggling with the many dynamics–whatever
they may be–when our intergenerational families get together.<

Have any of you found a way to get everyone together for holidays or vacations and still enjoy the togetherness?
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Money Matters: The Brits are just like us.

10/05/2008

The Brits are not just our friends across the pond: They seem to be very much like us when it comes to giving their adult children a financial boost. A recent survey by the insurance company Liverpool Victoria had these findings:

94 percent of parents surveyed still make financial contributions to their children's education and major financial purchases, such as houses and cars.

55 percent assist with general costs of living, even more so during the credit crunch.

In the current economic climate [it's just as bad over there as it is here], the parents are the hardest hit and tend to bypass their own needs to help out the kids.

Eight out of 10 of those with grandchildren were helping to support both generations

Almost half of parents aged 70 or older said they were still helping their children financially.

Almost
two-thirds of mums and dads said they helped their adult children
because "they need the assistance", while 17 per cent said their child
had asked them for financial support.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Letting Go: Parenting styles for the ages

09/30/2008

We've been through the basic steps of parenting–from being a caregiver for an infant, through manager of school-age kids and advisors to our older teens and young adults. Now, we're moving from consultants to the final stage: colleagues to our mature, adult children. Sounds like the best of times but it's no easier than the first 18 years when they lived at home. A recent story goes through those stages and makes the point that what's good for one stage of parenting doesn't work so well for another. Let the parenting style fit the child's age.
So, what's a colleagues stage all about?

"This final phase of parenting," the article states, "recognizes
that there comes a time when our grown children become friends as well
as offspring. The unique relationship of parent and child never really
ends. As our children join us in adulthood, however, they often begin
to share common values, goals and experiences with us. These can be the
foundation of a friendship that will be special to parent and child
alike."

So far so good. Sounds like the ultimate goal of parenting. But, the writer warns, "Some parents are unable or unwilling to 'go with the flow'" … It's the fit that's important."

And here's the final word:

"Letting go" of
our children may be one of the most frightening things we ever do. Yet,
it can be one of the most rewarding as well. Oh, and we will make mistakes. There is no doubt about that, either. What is important is that we learn from our mistakes."
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Boomerang Kids: Return to the empty nest

09/21/2008

A little historical perspective: We may all hear about–and some of us experience–a return of our adult children to the nest–but their leaving before marriage is a relatively new phenomenon. And one some of us may view from a biased perspective.

Michael Rosenfeld, a social demographer at Stanford University says almost 41% of singles ages 20-29 in 2005 were living apart from their parents, compared with 11% in 1950 and about 19% in 1880. His analysis shows almost 39% of single women and
almost 46% of single men ages 20-29 lived with a parent in 2005, up
from 36% of women and almost 42% of men in 2000.

It may only be a blip. “The boomerang idea,” he noted in a USA Today story, “flatters our parental sense that our adult children need us more than they think. They think they’re going to be independent, but we know they’ll come back to the front doorstep and need us again.”

Many of us hope that's not so.
PARENTING GROWN CHILDREN: The children may be grown but we still have our issues.

Empty Nested: The warring emotions

09/12/2008

I am now more than a decade past shipping uber son and alpha daughter off to college.
They've graduated, started careers, moved to other cities and coasts,
are leading successful and independent lives: just what any parent
could wish. I couldn't feel better about them. And yet, I still
remember to this day the first month of the empty nest–my children are
one year apart in school years and when my youngest left, the house was
suddenly so cold, so empty. No loud music blaring from the stereo;
no basketball being bounced in the living room. Paterfamilias and I,
who've had a good marriage, found ourselves quarreling with each other. Nitpicking. Not being nice. It took a while to
realize that we were both feeling incredibly sad at the loss of the children. And it is a
loss, no matter how happy we are to see them set those feet on the road
to independence. And as in any marriage, it always helps when one is
feeling up when the other is going through a down. But here we were,
both down. We got through it and started to enjoy the next stage in our
lives. But there are dangers in letting our children see those emotions–it's called a guilt trip–and there are strongly competing emotions as well, as therapists Susan Newman and Michele Weiner-Davis point
out in this bit of blog from Psychology Today. Hopefully, paterfamilias and I never transmitted the sad ones, only the glad ones,
to our kids. Evidently, they felt guilt-free enough to move about the
country.

Here are some highlights from the Psychology Today blog:

Some words of caution from Susan Newman:

"In our digital age, the real risk is that parents remain in charge
directing a student's every move no matter where in the country he or
she attends college. E-mail, instant messaging, and cell phones allow
immediate contact -truly a double edged sword. For college-age
children, the journey toward independence is being short-circuited when
parents continue to micromanage their college lives. "

"When parents run interference for every single
snag in their child's life, mom and dad maintain control of their
college student. Constant involvement is a very hard habit to break."

Finally, here's a surprising observation about the empty nest and the blue feeling parents feel when their kids move out and on.

"Men are 'less prepared for the emotional component of the transition.'
For women empty nest is not such
a terrible thing, but rather they view it as an opportunity to move on.
Men express regret for the things
they didn't do and opportunities they didn't take to be with their
children."

Some observations on empty nest emotions from from Michele Weiner-Davis:

"A certain
stage in one's life is over. The kids have flown the coop. And while
it's true that when young adults leave home, it opens up many new
horizons for parents, it's also true that endings often bring a sense
of loss. Feelings of loss are not unhealthy, they are a sign of love,
connection and caring. What is unhealthy is the mistaken but common
notion that feelings cause people to act in certain ways. In other
words, if I'm sad about my child leaving home, I will behave in ways
that will signal these feelings and "lay a guilt trip" on my child. "

"I have no difficulty
experiencing diametrically opposed feelings at one time–sadness and
pride–and feel no compunction whatsoever to act on my feelings of
grief other than to normalize it when others share this emotion and
encourage them to find ways to fill the void. In other words, it's
possible to feel sadness and not behave in ways that are self-centered
or that would thwart our children's growth.

"When a young person asked me
what she should do because she felt guilty leaving her single mother
behind, I simply responded: It's not your job. It is lovely that you care about her feelings.
But she is an adult and she must find ways to make her life fulfilling
without you. All parents need to do this, even single ones. I know you
love her, and you should keep in touch with her. But she should
reassure you that she is fine(even if she is lonely), because it is
YOUR job to spread your wings right now and fly. Let her know you love
her but keep flying."