Howard McWilliams

For parents of college seniors, spring brings “the best of times, the worst of times,” and depending on your viewpoint, those categories can overlap. On one hand, the close of the college years can fall into the “worst” category if you are sad to see that chapter end, or it can be a “best” if you’re thankful for the last tuition bills (or maybe both!). Adult children moving home can be a “best” if you enjoy their company or a “worst” if they come home clueless about a career.

No matter how you regard these events, college graduation required parents to make a change in mindset. After more than two decades of micromanaging our children’s lives, it’s time to let them take charge, espcially as they start their professional lives. That’s a shifting of gears that many parents find difficult to make, reports NPR in “Parents Hover in the Workplace.”

As adult children plunge into the job market, parents are not far behind, often working as their unpaid agents. A Michigan State University survey of more than 700 employers found that nearly a third of parents submitted résumés on their children’s behalf and one-quarter of parents called the potential employers to urge them to hire their offspring.

Margaret Fiester of the Society for Human Resource Management told NPR :

When it comes to parents acting as lobbyists, she’s heard it all — from parents calling to negotiate better salaries or vacation time for their kids to complaining when their child isn’t hired. “Surely you’ve overlooked these wonderful qualities that my child has,” Fiester says parents often tell her.

Not all companies look aghast at this interference. The car rental company Enterprise considers parents “influencers” and includes them in the process by sending recruiting materials and other information.

Where does a parent draw a line, especially in a tough economy? Of course there are myriad ways parents can help without being overbearing from proofreading a resume to buying an interview outfit. Certainly parents are “influencers,” helping an adult child make a decision on whether to take a certain job, especially if it’s not a career builder but simply a source of income. Parents also can provide names of contacts for adult children to follow up on with a phone call or email. But calling HR after an offer is made to ask for more vacation time? Most adult children would rather give up their cell phones for a week than have a parent meddle that way.

The NPR piece made us feel compassion for the HR professionals who must deal with these potential employees and their parents. The new hires alone are demanding enough as evidenced by a guest post on a blog for women HR professionals. The guest blogger wrote that there are two ways to regard the new candidate pool:

Either a) you have a bunch of delusional, texting, Facebooking employees who have unrealistic expectations that they will be CEO in 2 years and feel they are entitled to getting everything they want, or b) you have an emerging number of employees full or energy and enthusiasm who want to find new ways to break into the corporate world and make a difference.

Obviously the writer believes that most “millenials” fall into category “B” and went on to suggest several ways to make “onboarding,” aka the hiring process, a fun experience. One suggestion:

Things are being “game-ified” left and right in market today. People are even given “badges” for normal human sustaining activity like eating (ala FourSquare). If there is any way to spice up the on-boarding process with games, activities or some sort of tracking rewards, the level of engagement from millennials increases exponentially.

Our commiserations to the HR staff of companies everywhere; apparently the spring hiring season brings them too the best and worst of times.

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.

Media coverage of “emerging adults” often focuses on over-indulgent parents and slacker children, generating caustic comments laced with Horatio Alger tales from the 1960s and 70s: “I graduated from college and got a job, moved out on my own and never asked my parents for help. Today’s kids and parents are soft and lazy!”

But what’s the reality?   Is it  harder in the 21^st century to launch into adulthood?  Are parents helping or hindering 20-somethings  by letting them move back home and giving financial support?  Academics, many affiliated with the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, are digging for answers based on hard data.

A recent research report comes from Dr. Teresa Toguchi Swartz, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota.  In a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Dr. Swartz found that support from parents can actually help adult children stay on track for their goals, not turn them in sleep-by-day, party-by-night animals.

The study, based on a survey of  more than 700 young adults aged 24 to 32, found that parental support in terms of housing and financial assistance is targeted to help adult children embark on  real life.   Dr. Swartz divided the kinds of support parents offer into two categories: scaffolding and safety nets.  We spoke on the phone last week with Dr. Swartz, who is doing ongoing research about emerging adults.

Q. What’s the difference between scaffolding and safety nets?

With the safety net, adult children have hit a major bump in the road that could seriously derail them. The parents provide help under some crisis situation like divorce, serious illness, sudden loss of a job  and being victim of serious crime. The parents don’t want that event to put the child on the wrong track so they offer the help to keep them heading in the right direction.

Scaffolding is a situation where parents help  children reach a particular goal by giving them a launching pad.  Perhaps the child is enrolled in school and needs help with tuition; perhaps the child is saving for a down payment for a house and wants to live at home for awhile to maximize saving money. These were the most common situations where parents were giving help. We didn’t find a lot of slacker kids living in the basement. For the most part they needed temporary help, not unconditional mooching.

Q. Do parents believe it’s harder for this generation of young adults to launch?

A. Some of the parents I interviewed talked about how different it is today from when they were young adults.  One mom told me that when she went off to college she was given a pink Samsonite and expected to be on her own from there on out. Recently when her own daughter came back from six years in the Air Force including tours in Iraq, she came home to live because although she could afford her tuition, at age 25 she needed help with housing costs. It really is a different experience for this generation.

Q. You call the transition to adulthood a “collaborative process.” What do you mean?

A. Previous generations could expect to graduate from high school and find a job. The adolescent-to-adult period was a quick, rapid juncture.  Now its really extended with back- and-forth, moving in and out of school and finding a job that pays a living wage.

Adult children’s needs change over time so parents step in when help is necessary. Then they step back, not micro managing their child’s life, but serving as a sounding board.  Then at yet another stage parents aren’t needed to help make decisions but  rather  just listen to their children as they would do with anyone they care about.

Q. In your ongoing research have you found a cultural shift in parents’ expectations for their children?

A. A lot of upper and middle-class parents want kids to follow their dreams and have a fulfilling life and career. They don’t want them to flounder at the beginning of their careers. They don’t mind if they make $10 an hour to start; they just want to help make sure that it’s not for the rest of their lives.

Parents also find there are more road blocks to upward mobility in jobs these days in terms of needed credentials and jobs with definite career trajectories. They realize that young people may need to change careers several times over their lives and need an armory of different skills so they can keep up in this unstable and ever-changing job market.

Q. You found that young men tend to move back home for longer periods than young women.  Why is that?

A. There are still gender differences.  We found that for young women there are not as many as cushy feathers at home.  They are expected to contribute to the household chores more than young men.  Also young women are more monitored so far as their social activities so they are often more motivated to get their own places faster than young men.

Q. Your study found that while  almost half of the young adults received money or housing help during their 20s by the time they reach their early 30s only about only 10 to 15 percent received financial or housing.  What changed?

A. It was less a matter of age and more of the children eventually taking on  adult roles as incomes got higher.  The biggest indicator of independence though was when young adults either married or moved in with a partner. Both parents and children interpreted that step as an indication that it was time for the young person to fully take care of themselves.

It’s a familiar scenario: a name starts popping up in talks and texts with your adult son or daughter.  A romance is brewing!  One day you meet the beloved person and while you are happy for your child something is not quite right.  Times passes and the uneasy feelings remain.  It’s not that you don’t like the boyfriend or girlfriend. Rather there seems to be a mismatch: in personality, emotional attachment, life experience, careers, expectations, behavior, or any number of different traits.

What do you do?  You can wait it out and hope that your son or daughter discovers  the incompatibility.  What if your daughter comes home with Brides magazine or your son starts asking about diamonds? What do you say then?  Suppose your 25-year-old daughter is madly in love with a creative type who can’t find a job. That 25-year-old related her sad tale in a “An Oral History of Breaking Up,” a New York Times article about why young people divorce.  Her marriage lasted a year.  Perhaps her mom should have suggested her daughter check out one of the many websites on questions to ask before committing to  marriage.   

In search of advice we turned, again, to the very wise and witty Dr. Ruth Nemzoff, author of “Don’t Bite Your Tongue.” She has  encountered many such situations in her work and writes about them in her book. We chatted on the phone last week.

Q. If parents believe that their adult child is considering a match not made in heaven, should they say anything?

A. Yes, if it’s before marriage and you feel it’s a bad match then you have an obligation to say something.  Once married though you have an obligation to love this person your child chooses and to not say anything else.  First you need to examine exactly why do you not like this person.  Is the reason because no one is good enough for your child?

Q. How do you approach the topic with your adult child?

A. You don’t want to start head on.  You want to talk about an observation such as, “I notice when Jeff  is around you’re very quiet” or “I notice you no longer go out with friends.” You need be very specific in how you phrase that observation.

Q. Suppose it’s not so much your child changing but rather a negative trait you see in the boyfriend or girlfriend?

A. Another way is to try to find an example of the same trait in a book or a movie. Get the book, read it and then mention to your daughter that you just read a book about a man, for example,  who was a “taker,” someone never gives back, just takes and takes what he needs in a relationship. You’ll plant the idea if that’s the situation.  Or watch a movie together and make an observation about a character.  I call that simulcasting: watching a movie  with your child and getting a message across through your comments on the characters in the movie.

Q. Suppose you suspect that your child shares your concerns but hasn’t voiced them.

A. Start a conversation with your child, saying that you notice she is spending a lot of time with so-and-so. Ask what she likes about him.  Then mention your concerns and ask if she noticed that too. Keep in mind the child may storm out of the room. These conversations don’t always go smoothly but it’s not end of the world, and not the first time or the last time that’ll happen.

Q. When is the best time to have this conversation?

A. The timing is when you begin to feel relationship is getting serious but even then be careful not to cast aspersions.  That person may become your daughter-in-law and be choosing your nursing home someday!   Also keep in mind you never know about people. There are relationships that friends and relatives predicted would fail that are now celebrating anniversaries.

A text message from my daughter, who is spending a semester abroad: “Paris is GREAT but the hostel is so grungy.”

The next text: “Okay, grungy was an understatement.”

On her first solo travels on the cheap, my daughter is getting out of her comfort zone, ­in this case the Marriott.  And that’s a good thing.

Many baby boomer kids, like my daughter,  were raised in a permanent comfort zone.  Our first instinct as parents is to keep them securely nestled inside for as long as we can afford it.  Yet, as noted in last week’s interview with a tough-love author, learning to deal with adversity is critical for our children to navigate the road to adulthood.

In chatting with some friends at the gym and at the hair dresser (for some reason we tend to be more talkative dripping sweat or hair coloring) we agreed that a “hands-off” approach  is necessary…but  hard!  Perhaps it’s the knowledge that adversity is a lifelong companion that makes us yearn to smooth out the rough edges when we can. And, frankly, it’s often easier to hand over a solution than to hear the whining.

But sometimes we do manage to do the right thing and let the kids figure it out for themselves.

One mother told us told about her commuter-college son who’s on a three-month internship working at a resort.  He called to complain that to get to the internship from his housing he must take a bus that gets him there either an hour early or ten minutes late. At home, he had a car at his disposal so he had never relied on public transportation.

“I told him then he’d have to be an hour early, not the answer he wanted to hear,” said the mom.  So much for the old comfort zone.   The mom admitted it was emotionally difficult to see him struggling to live on his own for the first time.  Indeed she had decided to back off and not call him for a few days.  “But it’s hard,” she said. “My impulse is to step in and solve the problem for him.”

So the hostel is grungy or the bus gets to work an hour early, relatively  minor inconveniences in the scheme of all that can happen in life.  Still “deal with it!” is not what our kids are used to hearing.

But, in a subtle way, that was exactly the message a friend at the gym gave to her oldest son, working his first job, paying rent on an apartment in the city, and struggling to make ends meet.  The mom admitted it would easy to send him $50 or so a month to help close the gap.  But she said that would also be sending him  the message that she didn’t have confidence in his ability to figure out a solution.

And indeed he did: no more lunches out.  “I closed my budget gap,” he told her proudly.  “I bought a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and now I bring my lunch!”

Mon Dieu, just how bad was that Parisian hostel.  I suppressed my knee-jerk need-to-know and the instant impulse to whip out my Amex card. Sometimes stepping back and not jumping in to problem-solve is the best way to help.

A comedy writer and a therapist go on vacation (this is not a set-up for a joke) and spend hours talking about their grown kids.  So many issues! When they return home they decide to collaborate on a book about bringing up “baby”  to be independent.  Their definition of independence: “being creative, taking initiative, being open and flexible, having choices, showing respect and solving problems.”

Working with the theory that while “little kids have little problems, big kids have even bigger problems,” Gail Parent, an Emmy-award winning writer, and Susan Ende, a psychotherapist, have co-authored a witty, practical guide, “How to Raise Your Adult Children.”

For the book, they solicited questions from a network of personal and professional contacts. Questions are categorized: money, college, living home, work, dating, family rituals, marriage, in-laws, grandchildren, divorce, and aging and illness. The result is a cookbook of issues that can be browsed for the problem du jour.   Having trouble getting your kid to look for a job? Check out “work.”  Don’t like the way the grandkids are being raised? Thumb through the “grandchildren” section and find recipes for solutions.

Answers are doled out with a dose  of tongue-in-cheek humor by Ms. Parent and tough-love analysis by Ms. Ende, sometimes agreeing, sometimes at odds.  For example, “Mac” writes that his wife is pestering him to call in some favors and find a job for their  20-something slacker son. Ms. Parent recommends giving the kid a short deadline to find a job—any job—and moving out.  Then, she suggests, Mac should use his connections to help his son find a better job.  Ms. Ende counters that Dad should not help the kid get a better job, asking should he “be guaranteed a better job just for being responsible?”  Ms. Parents’ response: Yes! She believes in bribery as a way to get results with children.  Both have their points!

We chatted on the phone earlier this month with Ms. Ende in sunny southern California where they do not have mounds of snow as we do in New York.

Q. Many experts blame the economy for “boomerang” kids.  Adult children move home after college because they can’t get jobs and/or they don’t make enough money to live alone.  But you think there are other reasons for this trend.

A. Yes, this trend has been going on for quite awhile and the economy only made it worse. But the recession covered up another issue: Parents are having a hard time letting kids go.  Many are helicopter parents so involved that they never let children problem-solve their own lives. Now when the kids have a problem they call their parents to solve it. They were brought up this way so it’s natural that they never learned to solve own problems.

Q. You also believe that baby boomer parents “use” their adult children to avoid dealing with aging.

A. We have a generation of parents who don’t know how to face getting older. One of the ways they cope is to keep the kids needing them so they avoid dealing with aging. Our whole culture doesn’t deal with aging and death very well.  By focusing on adult kids it’s a way to avoid dealing with aging issues like health and retirement.

Q. Often parents think they are helping their adult children by offering support and money but you don’t agree.

A. Many parents believe that the more they do for their adult children the more they are showing love.  That’s not so. The more dependent an adult child is then the more anxious and unconsciously resentful they become. The message to give to kids is that “you can master your world and be successful.”

Q. Sometimes even when the children want to become more independent the parents still hold the reins tight.  Why is that?

A. Many parents want to keep the power structure.  A young man recently told me about a heated discussion he and his friends had with some parents about whether the parents should always pay when they go out to a restaurant. The grown children said they felt infantilized if they weren’t “allowed” to pay when they offered.  The parents said, “We don’t care. We want to pay.” Parents need to let the children be men and women and pay.

Q. You write that parents struggle with  feelings of loss as their children grow older.

A. Some parents feel the whole growing-up process is dealing with one loss after another: It’s a loss when a child goes from baby to toddler; when they turn 16 and start driving; when they  leave your house  to go to college;  when they marry it’s a loss of that old relationship. We need to recognize those feelings of  loss and deal with them otherwise we end up the interfering mother-in-law and the frustrated mother.

Q. So how do you suggest parents deal with that feeling of loss?

A. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and  acceptance.  A parent may have to go through those series of feelings and consciously accept the loss and plan a life that isn’t about children unless you want to cripple them and never let them leave.

Q. While Gail Parent writes humorous answers to questions, you are very straightforward and pull no punches.

A. Yes, not everyone likes to hear the tough answers.  I try to be sensible and give reasons for my advice.   Our role as parents from the beginning is to prepare children to get along in the big world without us:  how to manage money, how to make good choices in terms of friends, how to find a doctor, plumber, an accountant.  We need to treat children with respect and realize that they are not extensions of us.

In-laws.  Just saying the word invokes jokes. Beyond nasty humor, in-laws issues have generated a cottage industry.  Books with telling titles such as “Toxic In-Laws” and “What Do You Want from Me?” Movies including the hilarious  “Meet the Parents” and “The Birdcage.” Websites ranging from  How to Meet the In-Laws to  I Hate my In-laws.  Even academic studies: “Implications Of Mother-In-Laws’ Perceived Styles Of Relating.” (Yes,  that’s academic-speak!)

While those intergenerational in-law connections get attention, there’s another relationship that’s widely ignored yet is critical to family harmony: the relationship with your adult child’s in-laws.  We don’t even have a name for that connection in English. What do you call your daughter- or son-in-law’s parents? Those people?   Seriously, co-laws? In Yiddish, the word is “machatunim” and in Spanish “consuegros,” but  there’s no English translation.

Whatever the name, when your children get engaged they bring a raft of new people into the family. They may live in the same town or halfway around the world.  The first extended interaction is usually the wedding: Who pays for what? How many guests? What kind of ceremony and reception? The chill or the warmth of the big day often sets the tone and determines whether the machatunim become an intimate part of the extended family or casual acquaintances or simply names on the holiday card list.

Friend or foe, the machatunim can have a ripple–sometimes tidal wave–effect on your relationship with your child’s spouse as well as grandchildren.  So how to get off to a good start?  Mothering21 called on an expert  who knows the topic well,  Dr. Ruth Nemzoff, author of “Don’t Bite Your Tongue.”    The mother of four adult children and a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center, Dr. Nemzoff often speaks on intergenerational family relations.  We chatted with her on the phone earlier this month.

Q. Why do you think we don’t have a word in English for “co-in-laws”?

A. It’s emblematic of the relationship. In America it’s unclear exactly what the relationship is because it varies so much.  Maybe you meet for the first time at the wedding and the next time is at the grandkid’s high school graduation. Then there are those people who expect to have relationship and become friends and you go on vacation together. It reflects our multi-cultural society.

Q. Parents often have preconceived notions before they even meet the other side. How do you handle that first meeting?

A. Start with the assumption that these parents raised someone your kid loves so they must have some good qualities. Try to figure out what they are and focus on those good qualities. Also, there are a million ways to live a life. Why people have chosen the lives they do is often very interesting.  Be curious—in a positive way—about their background.  Share your background too. Use all the social skills you use in other parts of your life.

Q. You’re working on a new book about in-laws because the relationship is so complicated.  What have you found are some of the key sticking points?

A. Many times there’s the expectation that this new family will do things the same way as our family.  Forget it! No two families do things in the exact same way.  There’s also often a dark side to the relationship that may be caused by money. One spouse comes from a wealthy family who takes them on trips to Aruba with all expenses paid and the most the other family can afford is a walk in the park.  Competition can develop over grandchildren: They live close and we are far away. They can give big gifts and we can’t afford to do that.

Q. How do you suggest parents handle those tensions?

A. There’s a saying used by runners: Run your own race; the same in these situations.   A walk in the park can be equally as wonderful as trip to Aruba, particularly for grandchildren.  What matters the most to them is attention. Doing a coloring book together is what’s important, not that you’re doing it in Aruba.

Q. Adapting to this new extended family often means changes in decades-long way of doing things—holiday traditions, celebrating birthdays, when and where we vacation. How do you handle that?

A. One hard thing for parents is sharing.  We told our kids to share as they were growing up. Now it’s our turn to share and that means sharing the holidays and other events.  People are endlessly creative. Develop new traditions.  You can have Thanksgiving on a Saturday or trim the tree on a weeknight.  Just don’t leave an empty space at the holiday table and feel sorry for yourself. You can mourn the change but then move on.  It’s like “The king is dead long. Long live the king.”

Q. On a positive note, how can parents be  good in-laws?

A. Before imposing on them, try asking the young couple, “What would be useful to you?” You might think trip to Aruba is wonderful and they’re thinking, “I have one week of vacation and I don’t want to waste it on the in-laws.”   Maybe they rather have the money to buy a couch.

Appreciate whatever is given by them in terms of time and togetherness and don’t keep asking for more.  Realize that the kids have jobs and their own friends and that are doing best they can. Just be appreciative.

Do you act as a switchboard operator connecting your adult children?

 You Can Choose Your Friends but Not Your Relatives We listen to our friends lament about their difficult-to-get along-with relatives. But we never want to admit that our adult children might complain to their friends about their brothers and sisters. Through those years of hands-on parenting, we envision adult children who are siblings and best friends.  Reality often rips apart that fantasy.     

Last week we shared the story of a California novelist whose two young adult sons are split by social and political ideology. The two boys who shared everything from sports to school now barely speak.    They are not alone. A Psychology Today article noted:     

one-third of [siblings] describe their relationship as rivalrous or distant. They don’t get along with their sibling or have little in common, spend limited time together, and use words like “competitive,” “humiliating,” and “hurtful” to depict their childhoods…They push each other’s buttons without knowing why or how and recast themselves in childhood roles that never worked in the first place.     

 Mothering21 sought a better understanding of  the role parents play in sibling conflict and, more important, how we can avoid—often unwittingly—setting up the situation for conflict to occur.  This week we chatted with Dr. Karen Gail Lewis, a psychotherapist with practices in Cincinnati and Washington D.C.,  who co-edited “Siblings in Therapy: Life Span and Clinical Issues.”  She also organizes weekend retreats for adult siblings who want to mend broken relations.      

  What’s on your list of  the “10 Causes of Sibling Conflict?”    

1. Parental favoritism is a problem when the special attention goes only to one child. 
2. Children recreate parents’ conflicts
3. Parents recreate their own sibling issues with their children
4. One parent is “switchboard operator” for the siblings
5. Parents assign behavioral roles for each child
6. Dysfunctional parents cause siblings to turn anger onto each other
7. Dysfunctional parents cause sibling to isolate themselves.
8. Younger sibling feels abandoned as older moves away
9. Cultural preference in looks, abilities, personality
10. Mental illness and neurological condition

Something for everyone!  Let’s look at the “switchboard operator.”       

 The hub of a family’s communication is usually the mother because she knows what’s happening with each child. This is not necessarily bad if siblings don’t mind reminders for birthdays and other little notes and asides. But that role can become intrusive.       

 Apparently there are many ways for moms to be intrusive.     

 It’s pure intrusion if she’s trying to tell one sibling how to feel about another or if she’s interfering with their own choice of what to share and how to be with each other. It’s also intrusive if she steps into fights between siblings.  What happens then is that the children turn to her and don’t learn how to resolve things themselves. That only increases antagonism between them. Remember “Mom he hit me!” and how sometimes it was better if you just let them work it out themselves?  That also applies to adult children.       

Why is it so hard for some moms to step away  the switchboard?      

Women typically feel a sense of responsibility for relationships and are ready to jump in to fix anything that’s problematic.  But if mom’s in the middle then the siblings can’t learn how to manage being angry with each other and then making-up. Instead the fighting escalates and they turn to her to resolve the issue because she has trained them to do that by her behavior.   

Number three on your list concerns parents is when  parents model–or remodel–their own good or bad sibling realtionships  with their children.     

 The sibling relationship is so powerful it flows through the generations. Parents’ expectations for their children are based on their own history. If they had a good relationship, they expect to recreate that; if they had a conflictual one, they fear that will happen to their children.        

 And that continues over the decades?       

Often when children leave home get along much better with their siblings until they come back for a family event like Thanksgiving.  Then they slip back into roles the parents had ascribed for them–even if the role no longer fits.     

 With family gatherings at the holidays coming up, what can parents do to avoid those conflicts?     

 Most moms can write the script for the family event ahead of time, and know where it’s going to go off track. It’s like watching scenes from a bad movie.  A mom needs to think ahead of time, “Here’s what I am not going to do.” Take time to think it through and rewrite the script and your role. Don’t get drawn into old fights. Try not to question or criticize. Don’t ask your son for why he’s not wearing a shirt and tie or your daughter why she moved so far away.  Whatever the cause conflict: Don’t do it!    

Siblings have generated enough drama through the centuries to provide countless plot lines from the Biblical Cain and Abel to TV shows like  “Brothers & Sisters.” The sibling relationship waxes and wanes with the seasons of our lives, from the growing up years, to single and starting careers, to married with children, to caring for elderly parents, to aging ourselves. It’s usually the longest relationship of our lives, yet often the most contentious. We all know siblings, perhaps  in our own families, who have cut off contact for months or years and even decades, and others who remain in touch but at a safe distance.

While many people  justify their own alienation from siblings, it’s agonizing to watch that happen with your adult children.  Broken is the bond built over all those years of living under the same roof and sharing daily routines and family traditions from pizza nights, to birthday bashes, to holidays, to vacations.  All that emotional glue dissolves over some contentious issue.  What is a parent to do? Serve as a mediator, take sides, issue ultimatums, walk away?

Novelist Jessica Barksdale Inclan confronted that question in a blog post in late October. She wrote about her two sons: Alex, 26, an anarchist, and Nicolas 23, a military history major.  The two brothers, who had  attended  the same liberal arts college, had a falling out over ideological differences.  Alex took Nicolas’ decision to become a police officer as a unacceptable challenge to his ideology.   In writing about the split, Ms. Iclan noted,

Siblings know each other in ways no one else can, and to see my boys approach an end to this connection is more than I can bear.

Her  post generated more than 350 comments and a half a million hits.  Obviously she had struck a nerve.  Many of the commentors shared how distraught they were over their own strained and severed relationships with their siblings.

Last week, we chatted with Ms. Inclan from her home in Oakland,  CA.  Family relationships are among the emotional issues she has parsed in the 12 novels she has published since 2001.   But it’s one thing to write fiction and another to put your family out there on the firing line.  We talked about her reaction to the blog going viral and her thoughts on sibling relationships.

 Were you surprised that the blog generated so much response?

It’s clear to me that this adult child/sibling relationship is really a source of great pain for so many.  I mean, I knew–but I didn’t know. So many people responded to me, some in long emails, with the point that either “I’m lucky my sister is my best friend or I’m miserable that haven’t spoken to my brother in 25 years.”

Why do you think sibling relationships carry so much emotional weight?

It’s amazing when it works and when it doesn’t it breaks your heart. Siblings can give what you crave the most: family and love.  

Your own relationship with a younger sister was troubled and it was only after she started her own family that she resumed contact.

I didn’t speak to my sister for years.  I am really still not sure the exact cause for our split, and now that we are talking, I’ve decided not to care anymore.  But at the time, my heart was broken, and now, watching my sons go through a hard time, I feel the same way.

 Your sons grew up very close.  What precipitated the split?

Alex was getting more and more entrenched in his political views and Nicolas was coming out of his brother’s shadow and becoming his own person. It came to a head last holiday season when they made the long drive home together with fighting that lasted through the holidays.

 Now they have reached a truce of sorts.  How that did happen?

We kept urging them to remember how important their relationship is.  No one let it drop; we never gave up. It’s taken almost a year but they’ve realized if they want this relationship it involves not talking about the issues that divide them.

 You struggled yourself with how to react as a mother  to  Alex’s social and political philosophy. 

Alex truly is an anarchist. He won’t drive or get a license and it took me a good year to learn that I have to step away.  I realized that I need to come up with my boundaries. It’s wonderful for our adult children to know that we have their backs and that we will help them in times in trouble.  But we don’t have to pick up every piece of broken glass.  It’s about my growth more than his. My challenge is to realize he’s grown up so I need to back away and let him lead his own life. And me mine! 

 What was Nicolas’ reaction to the blog?

He has encouraged me to keep writing about the sibling relationship, the one that is hurting him and hurting so many other people in the world.  He wants the mystery solved of why it causes so much pain and how to move beyond that.

May looms a long way off, but as a college prof I can attest that the undergraduates are already getting restless about their job prospects, and the grad students finishing in December are positively crazed.

What’s the role parents should play in a job search for their adult children? Some baby boomers strategize a full-scale assault on the work world for their children. Others yawn, “Been there, done that.  You’re on your own.”  Looking for a middle ground we chatted last week with two career experts–a millennial and a baby boomer—and asked how parents can be helpful but not overbearing.

Gen Y career guru Ryan Healy is the co-founder of   the Brazen Careerist,  a social network for young job seekers and professionals.  Mr. Healy wrote a piece a few years ago that caught our attention: “In Praise Of Helicopter Parents.”  He noted that parents could provide some help:

Obviously, at some point we millennials need to grow up and become adults, but a little guidance and occasional intervening in the first post-college job search will teach a twentysomething how to properly handle the next search, on his or her own.

So we asked him to expand on that idea:

What do parents need to know about the workplace and how it’s changed since they searched for their first job?

No one stays with the same company for their whole careers anymore so young adults have to view themselves as free agents. They can’t rely on a company to take care of them,  and that means thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs. 

What’s an example of entrepreneurial skills that parents can encourage?

Being involved in different clubs and organizations while in college gives them the experience of a leadership role, usually a shoestring budget, and also being able to interact with people. Also encouraging them to attend networking events and meeting people and then following up to establish their own networks.

Networking events are a good idea but many young adults would rather text than talk.

Urge them to muster up the courage to call someone and ask to meet for coffee or  just to talk. It’s okay if they’re nervous.  Most people like to give advice and like to talk about themselves and what they did to become successful.   

What’s the best career help parents can give adult children?

Find out what your kid is interested in and what makes them happy and then encourage them not to settle for anything less.  Use your connections to make introductions and then leave it to the kid to take it from there.

Career expert Sally Haver is a senior vice president  at  The Ayers Group/Career Partners International in N.Y.  She coaches both generations in their careers.

 How can parents help in the search for that entry-level job?

The best thing is find out how exactly the young adult would like parents to help them.  Let your children know you have connections but let them decide what they want you to do. Parents need to do ego suppression! Kids are spreading wings and often want to be autonomous and not depend on parents.

 Suppose you believe they are floundering and need advice but won’t come to you?

 No parent is a prophet in her own land. They might not listen to you but might very well listen to a friend or colleague giving the same advice.  So enlist their help.

 Sometimes adult children do want us to call on our associates.  What’s the best approach?

Be honest and diplomatic.   Tell your contact about your child, college and work experience and then ask, “Would you be comfortable at this time having a conversation with her, getting her resume and seeing about entry level job at your shop?” Remember some people have very full plates and really can’t take the time so you have to pick who you ask carefully, and be aware of their personal and/or job situation.

Let’s flip the situation and say you are asked to help and you can’t for any number of reasons.

Get in touch with your ability to say no or at least to be honest and say “I can’t do it right now” but perhaps in the future and give a time frame. Perhaps suggest another company to try and give suggestions for contacts.

 Some of us have children still in college who will be looking to use our connections down the road.

 So now you need to do favors for people now so you feel comfortable asking them in a few years!