PenPenWrites

When it comes to where and when we help our children financially, pater familias and I have taken a Marxist tack: To each according to their needs. It’s never overt. An offer of a helping hand here, a fiscal boost there. We’ve never totaled up who’s gotten what or whether the "books" are even. But a recent A to a Q in the Ethicist [NYTimes, 11/11, 2nd question] got me thinking about whether we should.

The writer of the Q earned a comfortable living; his sister, off doing good works in Central America, did not. The parents helped her out financially. Shouldn’t there be a reckoning, he asked, so that the aid she had already received be subtracted from her share of the final bequest? "The allocation of money in a will," Randy Cohen warned,"can seem symbolic of the deeper feelings parents have for their children." Some families are able to "discuss these matters openly," but that isn’t necessarily you, me or even possibly The Ethicist himself. Most of us, he suggested, prefer to avoid the discord and discomfort such discussions spew. (His final word on the subject: we parents should live it up and spend it all before we go!]

Well, maybe not. But I’m girding myself up to at least let the kids know what our "allow and bequeath" philosophy is–to the extent we have one.

So a friend asked, When does the shlepping stop? [See below]

It’s a broader question, of course: When do we stop doing all those little things for our kids that they ought to–could?–take care of themselves? It’s partly an instinct to make life easier for them–as they struggle to find a footing in the adult world. In her book, "Your Kids Are Grown," Francine Toder, psychologist at California State University when she wrote the book a dozen years ago, doesn’t answer the question so much as give it some perspective. "Each stage of life and decade between twenty and fifty," she writes, "is significant and provides unique challenges and events. The way a parent demonstrates support to a twenty-five-year-old daughter will be markedly different from the caring shown to a forty-five-year-old son."

A Vermont friend’s daughter has been to college in New York, to a first job in Boston, to a stint in Africa in the Peace Corp, to a university in Michigan to get her master’s degree, to an internship in Ecuador. Now she’s back home, 30 years old, and job hunting–here and abroad. For each move, my friends pack up the car, attach a trailer and move all the daughter’s stuff to the next place or to storage in their basement.  The daughter’s career has been wonderful and exciting–for the daughter as well as my friends. They’ve gone to visit her in Africa and Ecuador, in Boston and Ann Arbor. But they are getting tired of carrying beds and a well-worn couch up flights of stairs and in and out of a trailer.

When, my friend asks, does the shlepping stop?

I started to make a list of tools to use to find the road to a healthy relationship with my grown children–Notes to Self. The first iteration ran to things like, keep your mouth shut, walk on eggshells, wait to be asked for advice. And then it struck me, those were rules for keeping the peace and not much more. They reminded me of a Dorothy Parker poem, The Lady’s Reward.

Parker starts off with some genteel advice to a woman who, presumably, hopes to land her man:

Lady, lady, never start
Conversation toward your heart;
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.

Dorothy goes along in that vein for several verses  until she unleashes her killer ending:

“And if that makes you happy, kid,
You’ll be the first it ever did.”

(see full text here [http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/4970/)

Dorothy tapped into the vulnerability of one of the partners in a relationship, and it seems to me that a similar vulnerability lies at the core of the maturing relationship between us, the seasoned (and aging) parents, and our adult children who are in their prime and making their independent way in the world. So how do we have a lively intercourse with our children without intruding on their space?

I started rethinking what to put in Notes to Self [see left hand column], a list that will grow with time, experience and new insights. I’m not there yet, but here, with a bit of borrowing from Dorothy Parker, is where I hope I’m not.

Moms, Pops–always give
Your advice on how to live.
Be sure to ask if who they’re dating
Is the one that they’ll be mating.
Let them know how much the parent knows
About the cut of hair and clothes.
And you should surely question why
They want that bigger piece of pie.
Always, always be intent
On whether they can pay their rent.
Be sure to pierce through bluster-bluff
To suggest that they’re not good enough.
If their behavior doesn’t fit the bill
Threaten to cut them out of your will.
And any giftie that you bring
Should always come with a little string.
It will always be a service
To bring up that which makes them nervous.
And if this brings closeness to your kid,
You’ll be the first it ever did.