“My son wants to buy a flat, but he has left his job and is asking me for money.” “My daughter has an unhealthy relationship, but she doesn't realize it.” “I have retired, but my children need me to take care of my grandchildren”... Sometimes the decisions or ways of life of our children, when they are adults, seem unwise or wrong to us. Sometimes their needs and problems involve us to such an extent that it can be suffocating. What should be the role of senior parents, with adult children? How long should the figure of the father or mother be a lifeline for your child?
“Now there is a change in the conception of ages, and we see a prolongation of the stages with respect to previous generations: at 25 we previously saw ourselves as adults, now youth extends until 30 and beyond. We have increasingly older children, and in other vital circumstances,” María Dolores Ortiz, clinical psychologist, physician at the Infanta Elena University Hospital and collaborator at the Official College of Psychology of Madrid, explains to La Vanguardia. In fact, according to the latest edition of the Emancipation Observatory of the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), the average age of emancipation in our country is the highest in the last 20 years, and stands at 30.3 years.
“This issue is a very important challenge for families: we notice that there are many fathers and mothers who carry out a multitude of family responsibilities and responsibilities, they have older fathers and mothers, they continue to work and they have adult children who live at home. It is a perfect storm and the members of this sandwich generation express that they do not see the light at the end of the tunnel,” says María José Olesti, lawyer and family counselor, general director of The Family Watch, a family foundation and observatory.
“We parents have carried a “helicopter” educational style, permissive, less authoritarian, without preserving the positive things that previous generations instilled in us,” adds Olesti. For Ortiz, in this same sense, our Western and Mediterranean society is very protective and family-oriented, and this is accentuated by the current difficulty of access to the job market and housing. Now, “what we should undoubtedly favor,” the specialist points out, “is that children learn to be independent, and for this we have to relax: that each one builds their own way of life. If we overprotect, a very common tendency, we convey that they do not have skills or abilities, and that they will not be able to resolve their mistakes and failures on their own.” It is applicable advice, he clarifies, as long as life is not involved in it and there is no high risk to the health of the son or daughter.
This is exactly what Elena Prades (56 years old) applies with her two children. The first is 26 years old and he became independent a while ago; the second, 22 years old, is still in the family home. “My children are autonomous, I want them to live their lives, I don't want them at home. I have always told them that the first thing will be their families, their partners, their children and their lives. I will be there for whatever they need me to do, and I will look forward to seeing them, but I am aware that they will do theirs.” Of course, if they need to return to the family home at some point, "they will have the door open, they deserve it, they are very good children." Elena does not believe that her children are overprotected. “I manage it with the example of my mother, to whom I always turned, with whom I always felt protected. “I do what comes from my heart.”
At the Parera Prades house, problems are addressed as a family. “If one of my children has a problem, yes, I feel it as my own. We have always talked about the difficulties at home, whatever type they may be. If they are worried about something, they explain it to me and we discuss it, among the brothers, with their father, in common… We listen to them first, we relativize if it is not serious, and we accompany them.”
For Ortiz, good family coexistence between senior parents and adult children who still live in the family home involves establishing some rules. “One of the most important things is for them to see that parents also have life, our entire existence is not about helping them and being providers: each one has their part, and both choose to be together through emotional ties. “To love is not to depend.” According to Olesti, as for the adults who continue to live at home, “we have failed to strengthen our children and make them resilient and capable of facing life's difficulties. We have created generations that do not commit, do not leave their comfort zone. We must think that staying in the family home does not give children tools to take responsibility and mature.”
But even if they do not share a roof with us, the children's problems continue to challenge and worry us. Isabel Corro is a doctor, lives in Ranelagh, in the province of Buenos Aires (Argentina), and has six children (who are between 39 and 48 years old), of which two have settled in Barcelona. No one lives in the family home anymore. “Having children is always a worry, because it is an experience that comes from the gut, it is physical, from the blood… Worrying about them does not depend on their age, it does not matter if they are already adults,” she says. For this 75-year-old woman, her six grandchildren are a treasure, but “they are not the most important thing,” as they often say. “My grandchildren already have their fathers and mothers. I, for my sons and daughters, would do anything. If I take the bread out of my mouth to give it to him, it would be little.”
Even so, even with a mother-child bond as close as the one she had with her mother and has sought with her descendants, Isabel is clear that the problems of her sons and daughters are theirs, and they must solve them. "They must solve their things, although if they need me and it is necessary, I will take the first plane I can to be by their side." One of her complicated moments was when her daughter was pregnant and giving birth to her twin in Barcelona, thousands of kilometers away from her, in the middle of the pandemic. “But even so, my daughter had with her who she should have, who was her companion, her partner.”
Should parents give opinions about their decisions to their adult children? Where is the line of interference? “If they don't ask our opinion, it will be perceived as an intrusion. If children ask for our opinion, we must always express it respectfully. Our experience may have been good at the time, but perhaps not now,” says Ortiz. He gives the example of professions related to new technologies, which a couple of decades ago did not exist and sounded eccentric. "If they tell us that they want to be 'influencers', it may seem crazy to us, but now there are people who make a living from it."
Elena and Isabel are clear about it. “If I believe that a decision that my children are making or have made is not correct, I say so, presenting my arguments. I tell them what I would do, although always, the decisions are theirs,” says the first. Having six children, it is difficult for everything they decide and do to seem right to Isabel. She is clear that expressing what she thinks is necessary, always with respect and temperance. “My mother taught me that everything is said, and if it is not said, it breaks down and is messy; That's what loyalty consists of. Out of respect and my support, I tell them what I think, even though the decisions are theirs,” she says.
The question of the couples of sons and daughters is one of the thorniest. “If they have a relationship that we don't like, opposing it can have a destructive effect,” says the psychologist. This is what Isabel thought when managing a situation in her family. “One of my daughters has a complex relationship with her partner, her partner for many years. I told her what she thought, and added: “you know that I know, and that I am at your side, ready. "Don't talk anymore," and from this I had a more serene relationship with my mother, she knows that I am alert," she says. Elena experienced something similar with her son and an ex-girlfriend.
Isabel deeply believes in open communication, always with respect. “If it bothers them that I give my opinion or help them, they have to tell me, if not, I don't know! In privacy and in a good way, we must say what we think. It's not that because they are adults I don't get involved, but I have to say it, let them tell me if they don't like how I do it," she points out.
Carmen (fictitious name) lives in a town in the interior of Valencia, she is 63 years old, and has three daughters aged 43, 41 and 36, as well as five grandchildren between 9 and 14 years old. She is now retired early, but the last decade has been non-stop working - about 9 hours a day - and taking care of children, cooking, being around the house and taking care of daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren. She now appreciates the rest that her early retirement and the older age of the children, who are less dependent on her, gives her. “They have been years of a lot of work, but I have done it with pleasure, I have helped solve my daughters' problems, everything I could,” she says.
In Spain, older people have been a factor of stability in times of great difficulty, and this must be valued. “The complicated thing is when this becomes a demand or obligation that tyrannizes. Grandparent-grandchildren relationships are very good for both parties and by establishing certain guidelines they can be very productive, but they should not be imposed, they should not excessively condition the lives of the elderly. Care should arise from affection and solidarity, not from obligation,” comments the psychologist, for whom it is important that care is reciprocal. “We must seek co-responsibility between generations, children must also know how to care for and care for the elderly in the family,” she adds.
For the director of The Family Watch, the older generations, from 60 onwards, have solved the problems and logistics of children at the expense of their own health and leisure time. “They have become caregivers for their grandchildren, complying with schedule requirements and also respecting the red lines imposed by their children in terms of education, what they can do or eat, for example. The time they could dedicate to their hobbies is being filled by taking care of their grandchildren. “An educational system has not been developed where parents (grandparents) establish their limits.” As Olesti concludes, “today the happiness of children takes precedence. We have projected it on our families to be happy, sometimes even at the expense of ourselves.”
