One of my favorite books to read to Meta and Nutmeg when they were little was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It’s about a tree and a boy. The tree gives the boy everything he needs as he grows — branches to swing in, shade to rest in — but when he becomes a man he moves away and forgets about the tree. Over the years he occasionally comes back, beaten down by the burdens of being an adult, and the tree gives “the boy” whatever he needs at the time: wood from its branches to make a house for his family, and later an entire trunk to make a boat so the boy can sail away to escape his despair. I always got all teary by the last page, when the tree is reduced to a stump and the boy is reduced to a craggy, bitter old man. In the end, at last, they give each other what they need. He has a stump to sit on, and the tree has the boy.
Shel Silverstein understood how parents feel about giving to their children. It’s a one-way street, mostly. And it’s forever.
Scientists at Purdue, Penn State, and the University of Michigan have been studying middle-aged parents and their young-adult kids, and it looks like Shel Silverstein was on to something. Three out of four of us, they found, give our adult children some kind of “support,” either financial, emotional, or logistical, on a regular basis. A generation ago, when asked if they had provided practical support to their grown kids in the previous month, only about one-third said yes.
I don’t find this surprising, and in fact I find it kind of cool. We remain in our kids’ lives, something my own mother always wanted but which I resisted when I was a younger woman bristling away from her. I’m glad that my daughters don’t resist my help and my involvement in their lives for the sake of some stubborn notion about what it means to be independent.
The study’s lead researcher also thinks it’s kind of cool. Karen Fingerman, a psychologist at Purdue, told me when we spoke last Tuesday that there’s nothing inherently wrong with being involved in one another’s lives — many young people are “thriving,” she said, when their mothers (and occasionally fathers) are a frequent source of advice, support, and affection. It’s not necessarily a matter of helicopter parents holding on too tight, nor of adult children’s failure to launch. Sometimes middle-aged parents and their young-adult children just stay enmeshed because they kind of like it that way.
Fingerman and her co-authors published their findings last month in the Journal of Marriage and Family. in a paper with the catchy title “Giving to the Good and the Needy.” The title says it all. This is what parents do — we give to our adult children when they need it the most, and we also give to our adult children from whom we derive the greatest naches (look it up).
I’m not enmeshed with my adult daughter the way you are, Momma — though we have at least got through the period where I struck her as Mommie Dearest — but my daughter used to ask me to read that Shel Silverstein book over and over, and I thought that was odd. I loved the book, too, but definitely thought it was a parents-talking-to-parents book. Clearly it had a bigger audience.
Lovely blog. We need you.
So when our children give us naches- does this basically end the one way street? When a child comforts a parent, often takes care of an elderly parent, or involves a parent in their thoughts, plans, worries- this becomes more of a two way proposition. Enmeshed is in my opinion different than invited in or involved. Therein lies the difference.
What an excellent blog altogether! Best half-serious example of continuing parenting I can think of is “The Godfather,” in which Marlon Brando, after being wounded, steps back from direct management of his sons to being a respected and valued advisor. Statistics notwithstanding, and only anecdotally, I don’t know of any parents who have done a good arboreal job (The Silverstein metaphor) who are not loved and consulted and valued by their children. I’m saure there are some such children, but I don’t know them, and I dion’t want to.
I agree that invited, involved, consulted, and valued are all things parents should strive for in our interactions with our adult children. And I agree, Dan, that the best of these kids treasure the wisdom we offer. (I don’t really want to think of myself as il padrino in my own little family arrangement, especially since I, too, offer career advice to my children — but I take your point.) I wonder if this is different from the way we thought about our own parents when WE were in our twenties? I’m pretty sure I never consulted my mother for advice about much of anything — though I’m also pretty sure it was always freely and excessively offered.
I know I’m alone or at least in the minority here. I love Shel Silverstein and “Where the Sidewalk Ends” is a masterpiece that keeps on giving. But, I hated, hated, hated “The Giving Tree.” I loathe the metaphor that our children will take and take and we will give and give until we are depleted and then we’ll die. And, we’ll love every minute? I think not and I hope my grown daughters feel the same way. We blog together and I’m thinking this is a good question for a blog post. BTW, I’m enjoying your blog and will add it to my blogroll. If you want to check our blog, it’s http://raisingamazingdaughters.wordpress.com.