We all treasure the opportunity to spend extended time with our adult children, and that often means cramming an outing into their busy schedules or providing a feathered nest into which they can occasionally escape.

And sometimes, although it will cost you, the bonding makes it worth the expense.

Last month I wanted to plan something special with my college-age daughter for her final winter break before she graduates in May. I suggested a relaxing weekend at a Florida beach; she one-upped me with a four-day trip to Universal’s Harry Potter World, as she is a big fan of the books.

To be honest, a crowded Orlando theme park is not my vision of fun in the sun which usually involves a chaise lounge, a magazine and a Mai Tai. Most of my friends shook their heads. “You haven’t read a single ‘Harry Potter,’” one of them said. “And you hate roller coasters!”

But my daughter kept forwarding me links to the website. “Hopefully I’ll have a job next January and not be able to take off,” she said earnestly. “The next time I may have a chance to go is when I’ll be taking my own kids.”

What the heck. I signed on, (luckily snaring off-season rates) because, to me, isn’t that part of what parenting adult children is all about: meeting them on their terms; giving up control, letting them make decisions? Not easy for many of us after all those years firmly at the helm of Mission Control. Why not seize an opportunity to become a fellow traveler–even one who ends up footing the entire bill?

First it was time for some role reversal, as my daughter became the teacher and I her (clueless) student in a crash course in “Harry Potter 101.” There was no way I was going plow through all those hefty books before our pilgrimage, so four nights in a row, she insisted we watched the DVDs. As we sat together on the family-room couch, she provided a running commentary on the key plot-twists, occasionally yelling at me to stay awake.

After we got to the park, her expert tutorials made it possible to delight in every amazing detail–from the screaming plants in the Hogsmeade’s shop window to Hagrid’s Hut. Together we bonded over the fantasy of Ollivanders’ Wand Shop and recovered from the scary, motion-sickness-inducing “Forbidden Journey” ride in the Hogwarts castle. After that, she graciously agreed to pass on the adult roller-coaster and asked only that we go on the kiddie one. (“You can open your eyes and stop screaming,” she reassured me when the ride ended.)

Because we stayed at an on-site hotel that gave us early entrance and skip-the-line passes, we were always done Potter-ing by 1 p.m., just as the crowds began to swell. That’s when we headed poolside to relax, read and sip tropical rum cocktails, decompressing before we both launched into another busy spring semester.

In the wave of a wizard’s wand it was over, and we went from Potter World to real world: the bone-chilling cold of Boston, where we moved her back into a dorm one last time. Surprisingly I didn’t tear up as I’d feared (and had, while writing the last tuition check).  Maybe it was the afterglow of bonding over Butterbeer (not beer at all, more like cream soda). Maybe it was realizing, once again, that when children grow up, they don’t necessarily have to grow away. We can keep improvising new ways to experience the crazy, unscripted roller coaster of life together, every magical chance we get.

Earlier this month in “A Teachable Moment,” we referenced “Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood,” a new book that examines the “chaotic terrain” traveled by young people during their school and early career years.

We decided to take a closer look the book and found a blunt, bleak assessment of the difficulties faced by adult children. Christian Smith, a University of Notre Dame sociologist, enumerates five major problems: confused moral reasoning, routine intoxication, materialistic life goals, regrettable sexual experiences, and disengagement from civic and political life.

The book devotes a chapter to each of these problems; the most troubling is “Morality Adrift.” Many of the young people interviewed seem to have no moral compass for making decisions. About 60 percent of the interviewees said that, “Moral rights and wrongs are essentially matters of individual opinion.” These young adults will not pass judgment either on other people’s moral decisions as “They are entitled to their own personal opinions.”

Other chapters were succinctly summarized by a review in The Economist:

And so to consumerism. Shopping is personally fulfilling; buying things supports the economy (true enough); if you can afford it, you deserve it. Might it be just a tiny bit gross to own ten cars while others in your city are working double shifts to buy shoes for their children? Apparently not. The good life consists of having a decent job, a decent standard of living and a nice family, not of fighting for justice or saving whales.

As for the prevalence of drink and sex, peer pressure, advertising and the media play their part, but so too does sheer boredom. Many of the young women, in particular, look back with some regret on very early sexual experiences, and on later ones with virtual strangers. And as for politics, what emerges is a strong feeling of disempowerment and distrust. Relatively few young people think they know or can do much about what is going on, and most of those who do follow current events and vote seem to take things no further.

Smith’s conclusions are based on a 10-year-long study that surveyed a broad national cross-section of 3,000 teens, followed by 230 in-depth interviews. Starting in 2002, Smith, assisted by graduate students, interviewed teens, aged 13 to 17, for a first book, “Souls in Transition.” The findings in this new book are based on follow-up interviews with the same group, now aged 18 to 23.

The problems detailed, Smith says, are not of the young adults’ own making. Rather they reflect the American culture they grew up in, shaped by consumerism, educational failures, hyper-individualism, moral relativism, and drug and alcohol abuse. A common misconception, especially by aging parents, Smith writes, is that their children are enjoying “the best years of their lives.” He writes:

“The actual reality for many, however, is instead one of personal struggle, confusion, anxiety, hurt, frustration and grief. Some emerging adults sail through these years unscathed. But many suffer wounds in body and soul, in their relationships, and in their chances for leading good lives.”

Young adults have many challenges ahead of them that require informed, morally-based decisions. Yet they live in a world digitally connected 24/7 to other emerging adults, a situation Smith likens to “putting a bunch of novice tennis players together on the court and expecting them to emerge later with advanced skills and experience.”

To help them along their path, emerging adults need “older and wiser” role models such as relatives, neighbors, family friends, mentors at work and school. Parents, too, need to be aware of the ongoing roles they play in their adult children’s lives. Smith writes:

“Individual families and parents can make a huge difference in intentionally choosing to live certain ways, teaching their children that there isn’t a quick and easy fix…One thing we’ve learned from our study is that parents are a hugely important factor. So there’s a real opportunity for parents and families to engage these issues, to think about them seriously and to be intentional about how they want to live them rather than just going along with the larger flow.”

As our children were growing up, we all stumbled upon spontaneous “teachable moments,” and those opportunities don’t stop because our children are now adults.  In their personal and professional lives, they encounter situations that calibrate on the doing-the-right-thing scale from legally correct to being a good person.  Often they make those decisions on their own; sometimes they ask our opinion.

The Penn State scandal brings a teachable moment for both our children and us as parents. According to press reports, in 2002 graduate assistant Mike McQueary witnessed a former coach raping a young boy in the Penn State locker room. His father was the first person he talked to before reporting the assault to head coach Joe Paterno.

What did father advise son? We have no way of knowing, and the facts as reported in the media remain to be proven in a court of law. What we are reminded of, however, is the ongoing advisory role parents play with adult children, especially in times of trouble.

We can only imagine the conversation between McQueary father and son. But surely both realized that by reporting the assault it could impact the younger man’s life, and who knows what would have happened if he had gone directly to the police.  Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who lead the investigation as the state Attorney General,   said yesterday that Mike McQueary  ”did not in my opinion meet a moral obligation” in reporting the abuse.

How do young adults make tough decisions? Apparently, moral relativism is a common approach, according to a recent book, “Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood.” The author, a University of Notre Dame sociologist, surveyed young adults about right-and-wrong decision making. He found that many believe that moral choices are up to the individual.

A New York Times article about the young adults interviewed for the book noted:

When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong. But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner. “I don’t really deal with right and wrong that often,” is how one interviewee put it.

The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. “It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?”

The teachable moment for us parents that Penn State drives home is the ongoing role we play to help our children make moral decisions.  Most likely, our children will never be confronted with such a horrific situation. Instead they face a thousand cuts of ethical quandaries. We can use this moment to send the message that we’ll always try to help them make the right decision, even if it’s the one they don’t want to hear.

When adult children can’t find work or when the jobs they do land leave them unfulfilled, who is to blame? The parents, of course, or at least according to two Gen Y authors and commenters in two recent articles.

“Are Twentysomethings Expecting Too Much?” in The Washingtonian:

If  twentysomethings are expecting anything, it’s only because those expectations were set up for us since birth. We were told from the moment we started pre-school that if we study hard, if we persevere, and if we gain knowledge, we will be rewarded with a choice of profession, a fulfilling life, and an appropriate financial means to raise a family. This promise is proving to be false, and it’s not our fault.

“The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright” in New York:

Our generation is the product of two long-term social experiments conducted by our parents. The first sought to create little hyperachievers encouraged to explore our interests and talents, so long as that could be spun for maximum effect on a college application…In the second experiment, which was a reaction to their own distant moms and dads, our parents tried to see how much self-confidence they could pack into us… and accordingly we were awarded clip-art Certificates of Participation just for showing up.

The Washingtonian magazine

The common denominator in these pieces is that parents supposedly promised their children the impossible dream: Follow your passion and work you love will follow. Even without a recession and record unemployment, how many people can realistically expect to achieve that goal? But we were so wrong to encourage our children to aim high and hope that they will eventually find a variation on a theme: work that satisfies them intellectually, socially, emotionally or economically, or some combination thereof? Perhaps what got lost in the translation is that fulfillment from work or even the satisfaction from a job well done does not often happen right out the gate in a first job, and sometimes it takes some hefty dues paying.

The Beltway millennials dissected by 29-year-old Hannah Seligson in The Washingtonian are dismayed by their unfulfilling  jobs. Part of the reason for their disappointment is that they have delayed marriage and family for climbing the career ladder only to find they’re stuck at the bottom. Frustrated, these young adults plot their next moves out of stuck-in-the-stone-age government jobs and 60-hour-week corporate law positions. Yet, they are surprisingly confident that they will snare dream jobs, reflecting an attitude shared by their generation, according to a recent Pew survey.

Up I-95, New York writer Noreen Malone, 27, found a somewhat different sampling of young adults, jobless or underemployed. Those who landed good positions consider themselves “lucky,” and are holding on for dear life. Unlike the Washingtonian sampling, these NYC millennials are not strategizing the next big promotion. One friend tells Ms. Malone. “Well, maybe I don’t have to be in charge. Maybe I’ll be okay with just keeping afloat rather than making a splash.” Lowered expectations appears to be the way these millenials take charge of their destiny. They can’t be disappointed not to be a master—or mistress–of the universe if that wasn’t the goal in the first place. Ms. Malone calls it “managed decline”:

That’s what we’re doing when we decide that we can be okay with having more unpredictable careers and more modest lifestyles, if that’s what’s in store: Even as we hold out hope that something will reverse the trajectory, we are managing our decline, we are making do.

Baby boomer parents can only watch from near and far as adult children claw their way up the career ladder or accept a step beneath their potential. What do we tell them if they ask for our advice, or whine with frustration or cry with disappointment? A thoughtful reply was offered by one of the Washingtonian article commenters:

Fulfillment doesn’t appear full-fledged on your doorstep; it develops as you go…. Fantasies aren’t real. Pick what matters and give your best to it…. As John Lennon said, life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans. It’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s how you respond to it.

And regardless of your path, not everything is fulfilling. Learn to whistle while you work and the work you do will matter less than the fact that you’re doing it well. Life is far more about attitude than it is about whether or not you get off on it.

Words to pass along to our children.

While we all know that parenting never ends, many of us anticipated the amount of energy we expended to level off.  Yet the reality is a see-saw: as physical demands lessen—laundry, cooking, supervising schoolwork—there’s a corresponding increase in the emotional toll— careers, romances, general happiness.

And money? Financial advisors tell us that the two “biggest raises” we will ever receive are when we finish paying for college and the mortgage.  That might have been true before the recession boomeranged kids home and resulted in even independent children needing financial help, but no longer.

This seemingly endless parenting was lamented by journalist Wendy Dennis in “Parenting Challenges Lie Beyond Adolescence.” With refreshing bluntness, Ms. Dennis admits that she is not happy about the ongoing neediness from adult children; she has other plans:

Mothers are supposed to long to be needed, and indeed, many do. While it’s impolitic to say so in the current climate, what with the Ministry of Motherhood issuing Taliban-esque decrees on attachment parenting, many mothers have other priorities–especially in the third act of their lives.

As a long-time proponent of detachment parenting, I’d flunk out as a young mother today…Not only do kids need to separate. At a certain point, you want them to bugger off.

While not all parents react as strongly as Ms. Dennis, many do get used to the quiet of the empty nest and feel their lives are rudely disrupted when children come back.  So what to do?  Ms Dennis suggests taking a lesson from the kids:

Our only defense is to retreat to our rooms, crank up the music, and hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. At least we know the strategy works.

That might for awhile.  But we know the children are out there and as much as we blast the music, we can still “hear” them, especially if one is in pain. It turns out that “You’re only as happy as your least happy child” is unfortunately all too true, according to a new study.  Even if other children are successful and settled that one unhappy child can cause depression and increased worry for parents. Why do our children continue to extract an emotional toll?  Karen Fingerman, a University of Texas at Austin professor who lead the study, suggested:

“It could be the case that parents empathize with their children’s distress, they are embarrassed that their relationships with these grown children suffer, or that grown children who have problems may place excessive demands on the parents.”

So we can hang up the “Do Not Disturb” sign but most likely we will still feel  the pain of our adult child.   Of course there are ways to lessen the emotional burden. For suggestions watch Kris Jenner, mother of the difficult Kardashian siblings: spend money, get a facelift.

As usual, there are no one-size-fits-all answers to emotionally needy adult children.   However some of those suggestions for little kids with little problems might also prove useful for parenting big kids with big problems: Don’t give into tantrums, limit the length of a discussion,  take a timeout, count to three and see if they stop whining, vent to a friend, and  most important, make time for yourself, you’ve earned it. Also remember hugs still soothe, no matter the age of the child!

Many young adults today  need a double dose of “true grit”  to deal with the lack of opportunities wrought by the recession.  That fallout is painfully evidenced by their laments in an Atlantic piece, “Profiles in Unemployment: What It’s Like to be Jobless in Your 20s.”

The 20-somethings who write letters to The Atlantic are likely among the nation’s best and brightest.  Many of them are bitter and angry, feeling betrayed that they did “everything right” only to find there was no pot of gold waiting after college graduation.  One young woman, an outstanding athlete and graduate of a top tier school, writes that her morning jog is the best part of the day.

When I finish, I will face a day without structure; a day marked by unanswered emails and phone calls and desperate Internet scouring.  I have never known this desperation.  I foolishly did not think I ever would.  I believed that I was uniquely gifted, and uniquely focused.

The Atlantic received so many letters from Gen Y that it published a second round.  These letter writers reflect the same feelings of betrayal. They were told by their parents to work hard, get good grades; they did that only to hit a dead end in terms of employment.  Even those who do find jobs are deflated by the mindless, bottom-rung work.  “Miss 4.0 Honors,”   as one writer describes herself, found a job after two years of searching but is deeply disappointed:

I feel as if I am wasting my life, sitting here at this desk, doing trivial work and browsing news articles all day. When people tell me that I’m lucky for having a job I want to cry. How can this mundane existence actually be envied…my optimism about the work world has been severely damaged.  I did not work this hard in order to obtain this outcome.

Does this young woman need grit or a reality check or both?  Where did she get the notion that her first job would be intellectually challenging and fun?  Those beginner slots often entail mindless drudgery.

What can we as parents do to encourage our children who are in the same position or still  looking for work?  Our role now is not to solve the problems but to provide the support—emotional, maybe some economic—to help them tough it out, perhaps learning some true grit in the process.

That seems to be the case with a  20-something, quoted in The Atlantic piece, who writes that the difficult journey though unemployment resulted in some positive lessons:

…something unexpected happened:  I began to appreciate anew the people and fortune and honesty around and within me.

The experience of unemployment made me a better person. But if it had been an informed choice, if I could have seen in high definition the desolate canyons and wastelands before me, I’m not sure that I would do it over again…. For better or worse, with a little prognostication, the sky fell on my head, and I had to crawl my way out….I started a new job this month, and we are feeling each other out.  I am grateful for it and the chance to resume a measure of order.

This past weekend we completed a ritual for the 12^th—and last—time: the college move-in. Like many parents, we have the process down to a routine:   Hit Bed, Bath and Beyond for the essentials that disappeared since the move out last spring. Buy $300 worth of “toiletries” at CVS. ($10 shampoo is apparently a necessity)   Start a stockpile of stuff in the middle of the living room floor. Pull out clothes from drawers and closets and dump them on the bed to sort through.  Cram everything into plastic boxes, suitcases and black garbage bags.  Pack up the car so Dad can’t see out the back window. Drive to campus (student snoozes in the back seat) and drag the stuff up five flights in 95-degree heat.

Of course, there are variations. Daughters need to go clothes shopping; sons discover at the last minute that they misplaced necessary items. (One of my sons “lost” a chest of drawers between freshmen and sophomore year.) Sometimes kids move off campus to what you consider a slum and they consider a great deal.  You keep your mouth shut and buy a new mattress so at least they’ll be no bed bugs coming home in the spring.  Some parents opt out of the move-in completely by giving the child a car to keep at school.

My daughter goes to a school with a unique tradition:  Seniors move back on campus after a required junior year off campus.  The attraction: Senior-only, apartment-style housing just yards from the football stadium, the parties, and, oh yes, their classes. So, we prepared for the usual routine.

For weeks I was nervously anticipated move-in day.  Twelve years of college was ending with this academic year.  My husband and I enjoyed the experience almost as much as our three children did.   We went to football and lacrosse games, plays and concerts, parents’ weekends, and just for visits where we took roommates out to dinner and explored the surrounding areas.  The closing of that chapter of our lives is bittersweet.  Yes, it’s nice to not be paying tuition anymore after the final payment in December.  But as long as I had a child in college I felt like a (young) hands-on parent.  Graduation changes that. Graduation means your children are supposed to be fully independent and making their own way in the world, navigating with minimal help from mom and dad.  Of course, as this blog has detailed many times, that independence does not come so easily to emerging adults in a recession.

Many college seniors are not wildly anticipating graduation either.  All summer long my daughter cringed as people repeated, “Oh, your last year!”   In a store in late August, we met a friend who had graduated in 2010.  She told my daughter, “You’re so lucky.  I wish I was still in college.” When we took my daughter and four friends to dinner Saturday night, they all echoed the same sentiment: “Let’s not talk about graduation.”

That’s not a lot a parent can say to that.  I simply reminded my daughter that she has nine months to enjoy the experience, and repeated one of my favorite sayings, “Value the passing time.”

As we left campus the morning after the move-in, I had anticipated I would be distraught. But the tears held back as I watched my daughter head off to a football game with her friends; I knew that this is where she was supposed to be, savoring this fleeting time in her life. (And I was heading home to a neat house and control of the remote!)

When I got home there in the mail was an announcement from my daughter’s school about “Commencement 2012″  with the reminder to book a hotel room as soon as possible.  So much for valuing the passing time!

As I hustle down the streets of New York City, I’ll often notice passersby dressed for wrong season.  Sometimes a little old lady with a fur-collared coat…in May or a stylish dude with a blazer and scarf… in January.

Parenting spans “seasons” too and some of us are still dressed for the wrong one. While we have spent our children’s entire lives adjusting to their different maturity levels many of us get to a point—college age most commonly—where we stop recalibrating our roles.  That’s when problems can arise, says psychotherapist and author Catherine Hickem, who has spent decades working with parents and adult children.

Dr. Hickem is the founder of “Intentional Moms,” a group that “helps women to think differently about their role as a parent and their relationships with family.”  The mother of two 20-something children, she is also the author of “Regret Free Parenting: Raise Good Kids and Know You’re Doing It Right.”

Dr. Hickem offers a provocative perspective on parenting:  She believes that we need to face the reality that we are not the center of our adult children’s lives. Then we should  grieve that realization and move on to form a positive, supportive relationship. We spoke to Dr. Hickem in her home in Delray Beach, Florida,  as she prepared to take a vacation with her daughter to celebrate her graduate degree.

Q. One great difficulty for parents of adult children is realizing that we need to readjust our relationship. Why is that?

A. We are not moving with our adult children as they’re moving through life.  We’re still parenting at the stage where we are comfortable because we don’t want to change. If you don’t change and keep trying to parent them like they are 17 instead of 25 that’s where you get into trouble. When we fail to adapt to their stage of life that’s when the wall begins to build instead of the bridge.

Q. That realization that you have to step away and honor their decisions and choices—even the ones you disagree with– is difficult for many parents.  How do you handle that?

A. We have to recognize the sadness we feel because that season of parenting is over and give ourselves permission to grieve. We put so much of ourselves into these kids and then, as they grow, they need us differently. They will never love us as much as we love them.  Yet we still want to have that place of importance and it’s not the same because they’ve moved on.  They still need us but perhaps not in the way we want.

Q. Why is it important to go through that period of mourning?

A. Because if we don’t grieve, we punish them.  We almost get bitter because we are hurt and take it so personally.  Yet it’s not about us, it’s about them and letting them find their way in life.  It’s about them loving us but not being the center of their lives.  We need to accept that place with gratitude instead of with disappointment.

Q. Some parents believe that because they “sacrificed” so much for their children that now, as adults, they  “owe” them.  You say that’s an unfair expectation.  Why?

A. There is an expectation that our kids will love us as much as we love them and invest in us as we much as we invested in them.  It’s not true. You share their history but they do not share yours. It’s not their job to know you the way you know them.  It was our job to pay attention and to know them. Their job was to grow up and be a good person and be healthy.  The way that they can “pay us back” as parents is to pay it forward with their own children.

Q. You also believe that parents, especially when there’s a difficult relationship with adult children, need to stop letting their children pass judgment on how they were raised.

A.  You need take back your happiness and stop putting it in the hands of your children and letting them determine if you’re a good mother. My definition of being a regret-free parent isn’t based upon how my children turned out. It’s knowing that I’ve been diligent at trying to be a really good parent, and crossed the all the “T”s and dotted the“I”s . What the children do with that is out of my hands.

Q. That’s the polar opposite of that popular saying “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.”

A As parents if you take responsibility for their failures, then are you also going to take ownership for their successes?  Of course not!  However they’ve succeeded, they earned it themselves. That also means they have to take responsibility for the mistakes. It’s a matter of re-framing the way we look at being parents.

Congratulations, mothers of daughters: we’ve  raised a generation of alpha girls. When “Pomp and Circumstance” plays at commencements this month, more than half the new graduates will be women: 57 percent of the bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of master’s degrees.  As the new doctors and lawyers and Ph.D.s join the procession, half of them will be women, too.

Ask educators and they will tell you that these numbers are not a surprise: girls are typically better students, raise their hands more often, get their homework in on time (and much neater) and study harder.  Evidence: 72 percent of high school valedictorians are female.

And in the workplace, under-30 unmarried women are currently out-earning males in major cities, as well as smaller communities, across the U.S.

While the “you-go-girl!” success is heartening after centuries of lagging behind, what about young men?   What happens to them in this new social order?  Some provocative  answers are provided in “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys,” a new book by social critic Kay Hymowitz.  She generated great controversy earlier this year when she wrote “Where Have The Good Men Gone?” for the Wall Street Journal,  drawing more than 1,100 comments, among the most in the paper’s history.

The book, heavily researched and written in a friendly tone, makes the argument that compared to their alpha sisters, “men can come across as aging frat boys, maladroit geeks or unwashed slackers.“  Not all young men, Ms. Hymowiz says, but many.  Even those with good careers tend to hang out in a “a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence.”

Ms. Hymowitz began her research when she noticed a cultural storm stoked by a convergence of social and economic conditions.  Women were making unprecedented gains in education and careers.  The phenomenon of the  “emerging adult” (Ms. Hymowitz calls them  “preadults”) was taking shape.  On the economic front, the workplace was being driven by knowledge-based businesses, where higher-education degrees and communication skills are rewarded, both areas in which young women excel.  Many young women are as career-driven as Mad Men now that the “Mrs.” degree is no longer necessary for economic security.  So where did that leave the men? Ms. Hymowitz wondered, only to discover that many were  watching “movies with such overgrown actors as Steve Carrell, Luke and Owen Wilson, Jim Carey, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Seth Rogan.”  The success of women—and all those less-than-mature role models—leave many young men struggling to define their role in this new social order.

She writes:

Today’s pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn’t say. He has to compete in a fierce job market, but he can’t act too bossy or self-confident. He should be sensitive but not paternalistic, smart but not cocky. To deepen his predicament, because he is single, his advisers and confidants are generally undomesticated guys just like him.

Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they have to do.

We recently chatted with Ms. Hymowitz, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.  The mother of a son and two daughters, aged 23 to 33, she wisely decided not to go into details about her own children.  We discussed what the man-child means to young women, and their plans for marriage and a family. We also wondered about the role parents play.

Q. With all the focus on careers, you note that among young adults “what you do” is almost synonymous with “who you are,” and starting a family is seldom part of the picture. Have parents fostered this attitude?

A. Baby boomer parents have mislead our kids a little with so much emphasis on achievement and independence and autonomy. What really most brings the most happiness beyond career is a fulfilling and happy home life.  When you look at the things that can go wrong in life, certainly career mistakes can be daunting but nothing can make you more unhappy than a miserable marriage and divorce. We as parents have not focused enough on this. Kids see a lot of marital wreckage around them, and mistrust marriage.

Q. Many of us have raised our daughters to aim for career success.  Should we revise our message?

A. Young women are extremely strategic in thinking about the education and the training they need for their careers. I wish they were equally smart about their love life. Their twenties are not just a time for career building and having adventures but also the time to think about what they want in a spouse and to take it seriously. Tell them don’t waste your time with child men or guys too self-involved. Get rid of them!

Q. For many baby boomers, talking about marriage and children seems more 1950s than 21^st century.

A. We have to give women permission to say “I want to get married and have children” without any embarrassment or irony. Our generation of parents was so freaked out by the old-fashioned script that we didn’t want our girls to follow it so we banished all discussion of marriage and children.

Q. Why is it that women think about marriage before most men do?

A. Women excel at getting things done and the biological clock focuses their minds on the future.  But a guy, without that pressure, can say “I’ll wait until 35 to 40” and that changes their personal script and keeps them in pre-adulthood longer.

Q. So despite the social and economic changes, biology still heavily influences women’s lives?

A. Biology writes a major part of the female script; you mature, meaning today you hit 30 or 35, and you reproduce—or not. For men, biology in this sense is more lax, more ill defined. It leaves doors open for men that are closed for women.

I recently invited a young editor from a top fashion magazine to share with students  some lessons learned as she climbed the career ladder.   (I didn’t ask her permission to quote her so I won’t use her name.) While her advice was noteworthy so was the reaction of the 20-something students.

This editor holds an enviable, glamorous position.  How did she get it?  Yes, she’s talented but more important, she told the students,  was that she followed several basic rules:

• Take any assignment you’re given and do it with a positive attitude: “Sometimes I just want junior staffers to say ‘yes’ and not have a discussion when they’re given an assignment.”
• Be the first to arrive and last to leave: “It’s always good to have the boss say,  ‘Don’t stay too late’ as she’s leaving.”
• If you are leaving before your boss ALWAYS ask  your boss or internship supervisor first if there’s anything they need or anything else you can do. And do NOT have your coat and bag in hand when you ask this.

These common sense tips were a reality check for a few (not all) of the students.  Most students nodded as the editor spoke but a few wore cold-water-on-the-face expressions. Their  reaction echoed what I’ve heard from others  who think that all those years of SAT studies, top high school and college grades,  and prestigious internships somehow give them a dispensation  from starting at the bottom when they begin their careers.

Some 20-somethings believe they shouldn’t have to do mundane, mindless tasks.  Others are suprised by the business mindset of business, thinking it’s okay to text and take care of personal “stuff” while working. (A sign in my grocery store: “Cashiers are not allowed to text while working).

Many 20-somethings don’t seem to realize that a can-do attitude will impress bosses. While this advice may seem like a no-brainer to baby boomers apparently it’s not to some of our adult children.  The editor’s tips are worth passing along as the “kids” start internships and the new grads look for jobs.  If you’re looking for additional advice,  she also suggested a book, “Women for Hire” , which she praised for providing strategies and scripts for situations she encountered getting her job and promotions.

Career strategy books are always  good  gifts for new graduates, coming this month to a commencement near you. What exactly are the job prospects for the class of 2011?  Manpower, a HR firm, surveyed 18,000 employers across the U.S. and found that hiring will increase overall about eight percent.    The bad news: The worst area for finding a job this spring: the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metropolitan area. Only 11 percent of surveyed New York metro area employers plan to hire between April and June, while 13 percent expect to reduce their staff levels.  New grads might consider heading south for better job prospects as most optimistic forecast  for hiring this spring is Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky.

From the new grad’s perspective, the best jobs (besides the positions they get hired for)  are those with opportunities to move up the ladder.  Another survey, reported by Forbes, asked 8,000 students where they plan to look for jobs, how they like to be motivated and what it will take to retain them. While half checked salary in terms of importance, 55 percent valued  career advancement opportunities the most.

Graduation signals the big move back home for new grads as most are unable to afford living on their own. There’s plenty of advice on the topic and  mlive.com offered these suggestions:

• Have them pay rent or do some types of maintenance around the house such as yard work, grocery shopping and cooking dinners.
• Make sure they are making a job of looking for a job…everyday. There are job openings, maybe just not exactly what the adult child has as a goal job. Encourage them to take a less meaningful job because it could transition to something better.
• While they are looking for a job, they should take classes at a community college or elsewhere to improve their skills.
• If they still haven’t found anything in a reasonable time, have them volunteer.