Category Archives: Raising Children

Realistic New Year’s Resolutions – from the Wisest (and Oldest) Americans

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Are you tired of New Year’s resolutions lists by now? I am pretty much satiated with blogs and media telling me how to lose weight, start exercising, get rich, etc., in 2018. And I recall reading that only a tiny fraction of New Year’s resolutions are ever acted upon. Is there a better source of wisdom for the new year? I think there is.

I reviewed the data we gathered from more than 1,200 elders in the Legacy Project, who shared their lessons for living for future generations. Based on the surveys and interviews, here are  resolutions in five areas of life that are worth a try. These suggestions from the oldest Americans may serve you better than the typical ones we make (and break) each year.

Work. “Ask yourself: Are you glad to get up in the morning?” When it comes to your job, the elders propose a diagnostic test: How do you feel when you get up on a workday morning? You may be ambivalent about your job and have your ups and downs. But when it comes down to it, how do you feel when you are having that first cup of coffee?

Are you at least in a tolerable mood, looking forward to something about work? If instead you feel dread and foot-dragging, the elders say it may be time for a change. As Albert, 80, put it: “It’s a long day if you don’t like what you’re doing. You better get another job because there’s no harsher penalty than to wake up and go to work at a job you don’t like.”

Marriage. “Let your partner have his or her say.” From marriages lasting 40, 50, 60 or more years, the elders find that deliberately showing your partner that you are listening is a major way to defuse conflict. Natalie, 89, told me: “I learned that when you’re communicating, to really listen to what the other person is saying. When I got married, instead of listening to my husband, I would be thinking what to say in reply, to contradict or to reinforce what I was trying to say. That is not the best thing when you communicate. You’ve really got to listen and let them have their say. When I was in my twenties, I had all the answers. Now that I’m in my eighties, I’m not so sure my answers are always right.”

April, 70, offered a specific technique: “If we were in some sort of struggle over something we would stop and say: ‘Which one of us is this more important to?’ And when we could figure that out, the other one found it so much easier to let go.”

Child-rearing. “Abandon perfection.” The elders we surveyed raised over 3,000 children, and from that experience they had a clear lesson: Resist the temptation to seek perfection, both in your kids and in your parenting. We logically recognize the futility of creating perfect children, but emotionally we often hold ourselves up to a perfect standard. The elders, in contrast, are the first to tell you: No one has perfect children. They admit that each of their kids experienced difficulty, a period of unhappiness, a wrong turn. They suggest we lighten up regarding our children and assume that failure is inevitable at times. Gertrude, 76, said: “We were going to have perfect children, and we were going to be perfect parents. It doesn’t work that way.”

Aging. “Accept it.” Unless you’ve been living in a bomb shelter over the past decade, you’ve seen the barrage of advertising for “anti-aging medicine.” There’s a whole subculture of practitioners promising to defeat the aging process. To this the elders say: Forget about it! Instead, they encourage you to accept the aging process and to adapt activities to your changing physical abilities and circumstances. The very active Clayton, 81, noted: “You kind of grow into it. You realize that if you can’t be running this fast, well, you just go slower, but you keep on running. Do what you’re able to do and accept that there might be some limitations.” And don’t waste a penny on “anti-aging” products.

Regrets. “Go easy on yourself.” I recently was asked to do a post for CNN on the topic of how to avoid having regrets later in life. The elders do in fact have some good suggestions on that topic. But there’s another point they make: The goal of living a regret-free life is unrealistic. Their recommendation: Go easy on yourself regarding the mistakes and bad choices you have made. Alice, 85, pointed out: “What I have learned from the mistakes that I’ve made is that you can’t change what’s happened in the past. You have to accept yourself, warts and all. Once a decision is made, you don’t get anywhere by looking back and second-guessing it. As somebody taught me years ago: “if you’ve bought a pair of shoes, don’t look at the shoes in the next store window!”

And a last resolution: don’t forget to seek advice from elders you know. They have practical tips for living a more fulfilling life. Happy New Year!

Get on the Same Page about Parenting

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From their many years of experience raising children, elders in the Legacy Project recommend that parents be as united as possible about their philosophy for child-rearing. It’s the consistency between the two parents that’s important.

Boyd, 76:

Well, I can’t say we didn’t make any mistakes. But I think it’s just important to be consistent. It’s actually difficult to coordinate consistency with your marriage partner sometimes. So I would try to be as consistent as possible between you. And you can be a restraining influence on one another. When she would get really mad at them I would try to be somewhat of a restraining influence, and she would do the same for me.

Reiko, 82

My parents fought about how they raised us. So we made this pact when we got married, that we wouldn’t do this. That if we didn’t agree, then we would just stop and come back to it another time. And if I was reprimanding the children, he would not interfere; and if he was doing it, I would not interfere. And we stuck to that. And so the kids couldn’t take sides, and that was pretty successful.

Shirleen, 71

If there’s just one generalized advice, I would give, it is for the husband and wife to get on the same page about parenting, so that one is not a permissive parent and the other autocratic. That they’re a united front. They should present a united front and are consistent with the children.

With Children, It’s the Time that Counts

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Many of the elders in the Legacy Project believe that when it comes to child-rearing, there’s one thing your kids want more than anything else: your time. Paul, 80, when asked about the key to successful child-rearing fully endorsed the idea that time spent together is the most important thing. Ultimately, the lesson came from his daughter:

Pay attention to your kids and read to them and be with them and help them grow up and I don’t think you do that from afar. I always read to my daughter when she was growing up and my parents always read to me. It’s a marvelous way to interact with them because they really appreciate it and they’ll tell you years later. That’s one of the things you do.

 Tragically, Paul’s daughter became ill with cancer in her fifties, and after a long battle, died. She let him know how important the time spent together was:

 The other thing I remember, when my daughter was so ill, she said, “You know, the one thing I always appreciated from you and mom was that you attended my events, my high school games, my band performances, all those kinds of things.” You don’t get that when they’re in their teens. When they get to be about 30, they say that was good, that was good for me to have you there. She was in the marching band and we always went to those things. Well I’ll say this, following a marching band and a football team around – I think that’s what you do with your kids, you have to be with them. They’re a project you have to do. Hopefully you teach them some of the principles you believe in.

From Lee Woodruff: “What My Mother-in-Law Taught Me”

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Spending the summer in Scotland, I think often of my mother-in-law, Clare. She was a funny, woodrufffamily2bfeisty, kind, loving woman, who immigrated to the U. S. from Scotland shortly before my wife was born. She became a second mother to me after my own died too young.  In the seven years since she left us, I still miss Clare greatly. I am reminded of daily of her here, when I hear the Scottish accent and  the familiar expressions she used (most frequently, to me, “Don’t be daft, laddie!”), and visit her home town, Glasgow.

So I am delighted to post this guest blog by the wonderful Lee Woodruff, who writes eloquently about family and many other issues (check out Lee’s blog here). She beautifully sums up the wisdom she learned from her mother-in-law – it’s really a tribute to mothers-in-law everywhere.

What I Learned from My Mother-in-Law, by Lee Woodruff

These are some of the things I know to be true about my mother-in law:

  • She believed without a doubt that her four sons were perfect.  And even if they weren’t, she never said otherwise in public.
  • She taught me to set up the coffee maker in the evening so all you had to do was push a button in the morning.
  • The definition of a 1950’s era lady, she wore her Revlon Moonrise Pink lipstick at all times.  Like most of us, she was never fully satisfied with her hairdo.
  • Her signature saying, “It only takes a minute,” applied as equally to doing four loads of laundry or whipping up a steak dinner, as it did to driving from Detroit to New York to visit her grandchildren.
  • It was her personal philosophy to never say a bad word publically about other people.
  • Homemade chocolate chip cookies were her calling card.  They had verifiable magic powers to change the course of an illness, heal a broken heart, brighten up a new home, refresh a friendship, thank people, wish a Merry Christmas or just simply say “hi.”  To know Frannie Woodruff was to have eaten one of her ultra thin and crispy chocolate chips, the secret of which she liberally shared — extra butter and cake flour.
  • She was an early convert to “transition” glasses, which meant her Jackie-O size  lenses were usually a shade of dark purple, even when indoors.  Although her sons teased her, I now realize it was a clever way to have “eyes in the back of her head.”
  • No matter what she ordered at a restaurant (usually Fettuccine Alfredo), when it came, 90% of the time, before she even tasted it, she remarked that she should have ordered what we did.
  • I’ve tried to imagine all the places she went in the pairs of white and black formal gloves that she gave to my daughters for dress-up, including one elegant opera length kid leather pair smelling faintly of smoke.
  • She knew bank tellers, grocery clerks, pharmacists, hairdressers, T.J. Maxx employees and just about everyone else by their first names.
  • Raising four boys in the 70’s who played every sport imaginable, she inexplicably cooked only one package of frozen corn at dinner, causing them to develop a lifelong habit of eating too fast.
  • She knew the names of every one of our neighbors in all of the cities we ever lived and kept up with some of them—adding them to her Christmas card list– long after we’d moved.
  • She worshipped butter, whole milk, and cream sauces.  Her sister Lynnie bought a framed poster of a stick of butter and Frannie coveted it so much that she dragged Lynn to every Homegoods store in the greater Detroit metro area looking for its duplicate.  In the end—they agreed to share it.
  • She could not have told you what NPR stood for and did not listen to it.
  • She danced the Charleston like she had rubber bands for legs and enthusiastically taught my children how.
  • She was an avid reader of mass-market fiction.  We both shared a secret love of Sidney Sheldon.
  • Bob and I moved to nine places in 25 years of marriage (seven were domestic) and she was physically there for all seven.   In each house she would unfailing set up the kitchen (my version of plunging toilets after an intestinal virus) and unpack boxes with me from dawn until long after the kids went to bed.  I always gave up first.
  • She was such an enthusiastic and regular patron of TJ Maxx and Marshalls that on her 70thbirthday, her local store had a nametag made for her.
  • She never spent a second worrying that she needed to fulfill herself, find her passion or broaden her horizons, and she could not have accurately defined the word “feminist.”  She was 100% happy being a wife, mother and the “World’s Best Grandma,” although she never would have worn the T-shirt out of the house.
  • Never once in my presence was she able to work the TV controller, program the VCR or operate the cable box.  She did, however, have a grasp on the volume button.
  • She set a gold standard, real life example of the word “devotion.”  Watching her move through the world, I learned many important things that go into the secret sauce of being a wife, mother and good girlfriend —  not just in the placid times, but when the going gets choppy.
  • She taught me you could drive a car with your left leg up on the console, a coffee cup balanced on the dashboard and the seat belt alarm circumvented by clever buckling.
  • She was the oldest sister of three girls (like me) and two brothers.  Watching her interact with her siblings was my preview for how that bond would further strengthen, long after the kids are grown and flown.
  • The famous story of Frannie — one Pappagallo shoe on the flank of their black lab as she extruded a long stream of black plastic garbage bag out of the dog’s butt (he had escaped and eaten a neighbor’s garbage AND the bag)  — became an iconic metaphor in our house for some event, issue or what-have-you that just won’t end.
  • Her cornflower blue eyes and signature dark “Dawson” brows and lashes were passed on to her lucky, lucky boys. (Why is it always the boys who get this gene?)
  • She was fortunate enough to die exactly the way she would have wanted — in her own home, in her own bed, surrounded by her devoted husband and her beloved boys, and the repeated assurances (not that she needed them) that she was the most loved, most wonderful Mom in the world.  And she was.

Rest in Peace Frances Dawson Woodruff – 1933 — 2013

Follow Lee Woodruff on Twitter: @LeeMWoodruff

Check out Lee’s website: http://leewoodruff.com/

 

 

The Secrets of Communicating with Adult Children

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A note to readers: For more information on this topic, please see my new book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them.

Many of the elders had one piece of advice about getting along with one’s adult children: Don’t interfere in their lives, and wait for them to come to you for advice. But what when they do ask your opinion, what are some good ways to communicate?

Tom, 82, has warm and supportive relationships with his three middle-aged sons. He recognizes that sometimes one is called upon to give advice to adult children; indeed, they ask for it. A problem, of course, is that parents are naturally invested in their children, and it is difficult for them to step outside of their own needs to objectively evaluate the choices their child must make.

Tom’s advice: Take the “I” out of the conversation:

Yeah, the big advice is always be open minded. Forget the business of ‘I’ centered and put the focus on ‘you’ centered. The son that you’re talking to and who has issues that he wants to discuss and forget the ‘I’, or at least put the I in the background so that at least he understands that he’s getting the benefit of your wisdom. You, who can govern how much ‘I’ to project, can inject information or guidance when it’s appropriate, not to dominate the conversation but to augment what the son wants to say. I think it’s a delicate balance of diplomacy among family members. I’ve not always done well.

Grace, 75, found that her enjoyment of her children increased as they grew older and became adults; it was the “pay-off” for more difficult earlier years.

I think by the time my kids were a little bit older and they were able to accept their parents for who they were, as I was with my mother, then it was great. I have enjoyed my children as adults so much, so, so much, and it’s something no one ever said to me. They always would say when the kids were young, “Oh, these are the wonderful years, these are the best years.” They were lovely years, but there is something just as lovely or more lovely when they are adults and you could talk to them as another human being. To know your children as adults is great.

She shares her thoughts with her kids, but accepts that her advice may be turned aside.

Well, there again, I think – don’t be too critical. In fact, don’t be critical at all. Accept them, accept what they’re doing. But I for example just wrote my daughter giving her some financial advice, and said, “I’m giving this to you with love not with criticism,” because she just does such stupid things financially. So – and she will read it, and maybe she’ll do it and maybe she won’t, but I’m perfectly willing to accept it that way.

"Children Who Break Your Heart": A Reader Asks for Your Advice

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Many people who have come to this page are looking for answers to the problem of family estrangement. I’m excited to be able to offer an brand new resource. For my book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, I interviewed hundreds of people in estrangements, including those who have successfully reconciled. The book is filled with compelling stories, concrete advice, and strategies and tips for healing family rifts. I hope you find it helpful!

In an earlier post, one of the Legacy Project elders shared her mixed feelings about having children. Loraine,89 , talked about accepting both the joy and the pain children can bring. She stated: “If you don’t have children now, when you have them you will have these moments.  When you look at them and your heart – it’s like your heart takes all the pain and all the love for them that you have.”

We just received a comment on that post from one of our readers, who would like your advice:

What about when your children are disappointments? I would like to hear how parents handle situations when their most loved children are cause for a broken heart? Comments please!

We asked some experts for their advice, which you can find here.

Please note that the comments thread on this post is now closed.

Accepting Our Mixed Feelings about Children – Loraine’s Lesson

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Loraine Bauer, 89, was married at age 15 and had three children before she was twenty.

I was much too young because it meant that I was not a very good mother.  You know you love them and you do the best you can, but I didn’t know about being a mother.  I never even held a baby until I held my first baby.  And contrary to what most people would think, I was not pregnant when I was married.  She wasn’t born until fourteen months after we had this marriage.  But that was much too young, even though I married a good person.  He was to the best of his ability a kind and loving husband and father but we wound up divorced when the kids were still little.

You know they’re beautiful children, beautiful physically.  They have also grown into beautiful people.  And I guess hell, they must have gotten that from somewhere, wouldn’t you think?  I must have done something right.  One thing is that I would design and make beautiful clothes.  And even for my little son. 

And I remember one day – you probably have events that for no particular reason memories that staywith you. Well, maybe you don’t.  Maybe you’re not old enough, I don’t know, to have all that many memories.  But I remember one Saturday afternoon. 

We lived way away from any grocery stores or anything like that.  My husband would hitch up the mule and buggy and drive two miles to pick up the week’s supply of groceries.  And I remember one day he was taking our little son with him who must have been about two years old.  And I had made him this lovely little white shirt and a little pair of short brown pants with suspenders that buttoned over him.  And he was sitting there on the wagon seat beside his father. 

 If you don’t have children, when you have them you will have these moments.  When you look at them and your heart – it’s like your heart takes all the pain and all the love for them that you have because he looked so beautiful sitting there beside Daddy.

Avoiding (and Healing) Estrangement from a Child

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I sat with Susan, a petite and lively 85 year old and talked about growing up in the rural south, her work and her two marriages. Susan, despite a daunting array of health problems, is a funny, lively person. She likes a drink or two and enjoys her activities with friends in her assisted living community.

But the atmosphere changed in an instant when I asked her, “What advice would you give for having a good relationship with your grown children?” Susan became very still, holding her breath. Then words nearly exploded from her, and she pounded her hands in frustration on the arms of her chair.

I don’t know, I don’t know! I did something wrong, I’ll tell you right now! Because I don’t hear from either one of my kids. I don’t even — I never hear from them. And it hurts like crazy. Why do you think that is? Do you have any idea?

Susan did have a possible explanation for the estrangement from her children:

I think when I married the second time it was such a different life, it was such a different life from what we had lived before. And I was so occupied, and we went all the time, and my life was so busy so I lost track of them, being close to them. They weren’t exactly unhappy about it; we just had nothing in common anymore. And after I married again — I don’t think they really resented my second husband, but they just didn’t have anything in common.I think that’s where it began. But I do wish I’d hear from them more often now, yes I do!

By the time I ended the interview, Susan had recovered and was back to telling me colorful anecdotes about her long life. But I’ve never forgotten the anguish in her voice as she told me: “I did something wrong … And it hurts like crazy.”

Among the saddest people I met in interviews with older Americans for the book “30 Lessons for Living” were those living in this situation. The destruction of the parent-child bond was a persistent source of melancholy, a feeling of incompleteness that weighed down the soul. And the one failed relationship is not necessarily mitigated by having warm, fulfilling ties with other offspring. Almost all of the elders who found themselves with one child who was “lost” to them or with whom there was “bad blood” felt unresolved or incomplete. Such feelings only became more acute as they neared the end of life.

Fortunately, the elders interviewed for the project offered suggestions from their long experience for avoiding family rifts or patching them up before they occur. Here are several of their tips:

See the potential rift early and defuse it.

The elders acknowledge that once the rift sets in, it takes on a life of its own and becomes much more difficult to repair. The time to act is when the first warning signs show themselves. Martha, 74, who had a major blow-up with her son and daughter-in-law, said: “I should never have let things deteriorate the way they did. Looking back, I could see problems brewing and I couldn’t hold back from criticizing my daughter-in-law.” Parents of adult sons and daughters need to ask themselves: Is the battle worth it? The elders told me that usually it’s not.

Act immediately after the rift occurs.

The elders warn that the viewpoints of both parties harden quickly; in a relatively short time it becomes easier not to make the effort to reconcile than to try to do so. The new reality sets in fast; therefore, the time to “make things better” is as soon as possible after the blow-up.

Janice, 72, spoke about her problems with her daughter Gloria: “After our big fight, I should have had a heart-to-heart with Gloria right away. After a week or two, we were both so angry — and I guess hardened — that it was terribly difficult even to start a conversation.”

In contrast, Maria, 82, was very disappointed and angry at her son, because he would not help Maria care for his father during his last illness. But she decided to act as soon as possible. She sat down with him and told him exactly how she felt, allowing a reconciliation to take place. “It’s worth it,” she told me, “not to feel like I might lose what I have that’s good with my son.”

It’s often the parent who needs to compromise.

I am well aware that this sounds unfair; however, in my review of the accounts of intergenerational rifts, it’s usually the parent who pays the higher price if a rift occurs. Older mothers and fathers tend to invest more in the relationship as they get older and therefore stand to lose more by letting it disintegrate. Particularly acute is the separation from grandchildren that can occur as a result of the rift.

Many elders recommended that parents try their best to “forgive the unforgivable.” Some have had the worst happen, stood on the brink of the rift and decided that it still wasn’t worth the end of the relationship with the child.

So here’s a key life lesson from America’s elders: Avoid the rift. Of course, it is possible that a child’s behavior is so damaging or dangerous for a parents’ physical or mental health health that separation is needed. But the elders tell us that rifts usually occur over less extreme matters that seem important at the time but are almost never worth the pain of separation when you reach your later years.