Topic: adult children
In this podcast episode, the last episode in the Proactive Planning series, Kristin McHugh, Lead Advisor with Brighton Jones, and Lisa Mayfield, our principal and founder, answer more audience questions.
Their discussion in this episode focuses on working with an Aging Life Care manager, Sandwich caregiving, and long-distance caregiving. …
Deciding how to divide assets among one’s children is often challenging. The challenges only multiply in a step- or blended family situation. Today, about one-quarter of all marriages include stepchildren. Among remarried couples, almost two-thirds involve children from a previous relationship.
Blended families can look like any other family, but the dynamics are very different, emotionally and legally. …
Do you feel defensive when your kids visit? Notice them exchanging knowing glances when you don’t recall a date or name?
Perhaps you feel reluctant to approach them when you do have concerns, because they overreact. So you keep your distance. That isn’t good, either.
It’s a fine line between feeling that your adult children love you and want to protect you, and feeling smothered or even invalidated by them in terms of your competence and self-sufficiency.
Noted geriatrician and author Atul Gawande, MD, observes that while adult children worry most about safety, older adults worry about autonomy and independence. Put another way: Adult children think in terms of “caring for.” Older adults prefer to be “cared about.”
…
When an adult child asks for money, it’s hard to say no. You want to respond to a need. But perhaps your child perceives that you don’t need all you have, or that they’re simply requesting some of their inheritance, just a bit early.
Before you answer, ask for time to think it over. You want to make a decision based on wisdom, not emotion. You also need time to discuss this with your spouse, if you have one. …
Are you enjoying a love you never thought you’d feel again? It’s hard to be happy, though, if your children rain on your romance. Are they being selfish? Not necessarily. An in-depth study of “adult stepfamilies” revealed how disruptive it is when a parent gets involved with a new partner later in life. …
If your adult child has cut off contact, you are not alone. An estimated 11% of parents are estranged from their adult kids. That’s 1:8. But you wouldn’t know it to hear others talk.
There is such a stigma around the issue that estranged parents rarely talk about it with others. Instead, they tend to cover things over.
That means carrying around feelings of shame, guilt, and deep sadness, often in isolation. Sound familiar? …