According to the U.S. census, 55 percent of men and 48 percent of women ages 18 to 24 are now living with their parents, and although many guides will tell you how to handle your child once he or she graduates from diapers, none tells you how to proceed once he graduates from high school and college. Between the new patterns emerging in the lives of young adults, boomer parents find that big children today have even bigger problems that just a few years ago.
Should you lend your son money? Do you pay for his medical insurance when he can't? Do you dare to comment on how your child is conducting his job search, still "temporarily" living at home three years after graduating from college, or raising his or her children? What happens when your gay son and his partner adopt a baby and his partner leaves him? What if your daughter is on her way to becoming obese? Do you pay for your forty-year old daughter's wedding?
There are millions of questions boomer parents have when dealing with their adult children. Until now, there have been few answers. But a new book, "How to to raise your adult children" (Hudson Street Press, August 2010), is a comprehensive guide for you worried moms and dads. The professional women authors are two "been there, done that" moms who give advice with an edge on a variety of emotionally and/or financially perilous situations. Topics include: money, college years, family rituals, holidays, weddings and divorce, grandparenting, in-laws and more.
Here is a typical question the authors answer in the book:
"We have a small vacation cottage on a lake. We let our son temporarily move into it while he was deciding what he wanted to do with his life. My wife and I figured he would be there for a few months, but it's been three years. We don't know how to get him out. By the way, our son did decide what he wanted to be--a poet. Are we just stuck with the situation?"
Gail Parent: How to Raise Your Adult Children: Because Big Kids Have Even Bigger Problems