The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast Ep 099: How to Handle My Adult Child Moving Back Home

 

 

Transcript:

Ben Smith:

Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. My name is Ben Smith, and I'm one of the co-hosts here on the show. Listeners, I hope you're all doing well today. If you want to be a part of the show, you can email us at bensmith@guidancepointrs.com, or find us on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn just search Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. And you can find our pages there. You can directly message us or just see some of our content that's out there.

At this time, I'd like to welcome the Steve Irwin to my Crocodile Dundee, Curtis Worcester. How are you doing today, Curtis?

Curtis Worcester:

I'm doing well, Ben. I'm doing well. How are you?

Ben Smith:

I'm great. I'm great. And I threw a little Australian thing in there because one thing that Australia's known for is the boomerang.

Curtis Worcester:

All right.

Ben Smith:

So we're going to talk a little bit about the theme of boomerangs today. But of course, in the past few years, we've witnessed significant shifts in economic landscapes, career trajectories, personal life choices, and it's led to a rise in a number of young adults that have returned to their parental homes. Thus, the boomerang.

These individuals often come back for a variety of reasons, and it might be due to economic pressures like student loan debt, which we know is really hurting people, job loss, which I know during COVID was a big strain and the high cost of living, which right now is happening, especially with inflation. And for others, it's really been a strategic move during career transitions or even a personal decision influenced by life events such as divorce or health issues.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah.

Ben Smith:

But it's a growing trend, right? It's presenting unique challenges and opportunities for families. And for parents, it can mean adjusting to a new household dynamic and refining boundaries and roles. For the returning adult children, it often involves balancing independence with respect for family rules and routines.

The interplay of these dynamics can be complex, requiring open communication, mutual understanding, and a bit of patience. So to help us navigate these waters, we're thrilled to have a very special guest who's a renowned expert in life transition. She spent years studying and working with families to address the challenges of multi-generational living and can also share insights on why this trend's on the rise, how it impacts both parents and adult children, and what strategies can be employed to make this living arrangement work effectively for everyone evolved.

So today, we're going to cover some practical tips for setting boundaries, maintaining privacy and fostering healthy relationships. Also, going to discuss the emotional aspects of this transition and how to ensure that it becomes a period of growth and support rather than tension and conflict.

So whether are a parent preparing to welcome your adult child back home, or an adult child about to move back in with your parents, this episode is going to be packed with valuable advice and real life examples to help you navigate this journey with grace and success. So with that, I'd like to dive in this important conversation.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right Ben. And before we jump in too far, obviously, you teased it there a little bit. We have a fantastic guest today. Our guest is a dedicated and compassionate life transition coach renowned for her expertise in guiding individuals through significant life changes, with clarity and confidence. She has many years of expertise in coaching and personal development, and she has helped countless clients navigate the complexities of career transitions, retirement planning, and personal growth journeys. Her approach is deeply empathetic and client-centered drawing on a rich background in psychology and human behavior.

She holds a BA from the University of California Berkeley. She's a certified crisis counselor. She holds a certification from the coach training academy as well. She brings both academic rigor and practical wisdom to her practice with her. So having experienced her own life transitions, she understands the emotional and psychological challenges that come with major life changes.

Her personal journey fuels her passion for helping others find their path and thrive during times of uncertainty. Her coaching philosophy is rooted deeply in the belief that every transition, no matter how challenging, offers an opportunity for growth, self-discovery and renewed purpose.

She utilizes a blend of proven coaching techniques, mindfulness practices, and strategic planning to empower her clients. She helps them identify their strengths, clarify their goals, and develop actionable plans to achieve their desired outcomes. Beyond the one-on-one coaching, she is also a sought-after speaker and workshop facilitator sharing her insights on life transitions with diverse audiences. She has written articles and blogs covering a range of topics from managing career changes to finding meaning in retirement, all aimed at providing practical tools and inspiration for those at a crossroad in their lives.

So with that, please join me in welcoming our next guest to our show today, Ellen Rothstein. Ellen, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you?

Ellen Rothstein:

I am delighted to be here to share this time with you both. I thank you for that wonderful intro, and I'm very excited to talk about this topic as it is near and dear to my own heart.

Ben Smith:

Well, Ellen, appreciate that. And, of course, with all of our shows, what we want to do is we always want to kind of get to know you a little bit better, is just hear a little bit about your story and share your expertise. I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and especially where are you from originally and how did your upbringing lead you to a career as a life transition coach?

Ellen Rothstein:

That's a lot of questions.

Ben Smith:

I know. I know. Stop.

Ellen Rothstein:

Well, the medium short version of that is I grew up in Los Angeles, and I moved to Berkeley to go to UC Berkeley. I attended Berkeley, and I graduated with a degree in art, practice art. And for many years, I was a practicing artist. And then eventually, it became difficult to know if I was going to sell a painting in two weeks, two months or two years.

And so then I had to get quote, "a real job."And reluctantly, I did that. And eventually, I ended up in advertising and digital media. And I did that for a long time doing art a little bit on the side for myself, no longer for exhibitions, galleries or selling just for the sheer enjoyment of the process of making art. That, I will never stop doing. But from a practical point of view, I did have to work. And so I did that for many years.

And finally in 2019, the company I was working for, a digital media company, went through a downsizing. And I got laid off, not for the first time, even the first time with that company, but for the turned out to be the last time. It's very difficult, I discovered, as a woman in San Francisco, an older woman in San Francisco to get rehired in a young tech town.

And it was a tough time. I was doing work I didn't really love anyway. But then when it was so hard to get rehired, then it was kind of like, "Okay. You have to really think about this." Now, going back a few years earlier, I had started with working with a life coach specifically about my career because I wasn't satisfied, and I wasn't thrilled with who I was when I showed up at work. I was very happy with myself at home. But the work persona, I really didn't feel like it was really me being my best self.

So she had said, "You actually might be a good coach." And I thought, "Well, I need a full-time job with benefits. I can't do that." But I did take some classes to dip my toe in the water, and I thought, "Yeah. She's onto something here." But I ignored it until I was laid off. And then when I discovered I couldn't get rehired, I sat myself down, and I said, "Okay. You got to really think about this."

What was it in your jobs, all of your career jobs that you liked? And what didn't you like, and what worked and where were your strengths? And oftentimes, our strengths are the same as what we like. And in my case, it was working with the people. I love being the liaison between leadership management, sales, creative engineers. Engineers, who would've thought I'd like working with engineers, with my art background? But I love getting people together and facilitating everybody working together to a solution.

And so I thought, "Okay. There's something here." That's the part I love. And that actually is tied into coaching. And so then the pandemic hit, lockdown hit. And I thought, "Wow, this is perfect timing to get certification as a life coach." So I did that. And the program that I attended, which was ICF accredited, and they really stressed developing a specific expertise, don't try to be a life coach for everybody for everything.

So I focused at that time primarily on working with people facing retirement because I had a lot of friends and colleagues at that time that were doing just that. But after I worked with them for a while, people would come to me and say, "I'm struggling with my career transition," or I don't quite know how to deal with this situation with my family or something that was not retirement related.

And I realized, "Retirement is just one type of transition." We all face all kinds throughout our lives, get career changes, relationship changes, moving empty nest, new baby. There are all types of transitions. So that also opened up a broader base of people I could work with. I can work with young men in their 30s. I can work with older women in their 60s. The demographic was no longer limited. And that also helped me explore different types of topics from my articles and blogs. And so I think that might be the answer to your questions.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Curtis Worcester:

That's fantastic. And I want to ask, it's a little bit of a background. Maybe, I should have asked it in the middle of the answer, but that's okay. Can we just talk about maybe the difference between or how you see coaching as different than maybe practicing therapy?

Ellen Rothstein:

Sure. That's a common question, and that is an important one. And they go hand in hand. They're not exclusive. In my view, therapy focuses more on how you got to this place, the why, your background. You're struggling with some issues. How did you get there? What can we do to understand root causes?

Coaching wants to understand where you are right now and how we can move you forward. So there is definitely some overlap. It is important to understand what may be limiting that client, especially our own limiting self beliefs that come from our past. But I'm not a therapist. I'm not trying to help you understand all of that from a therapeutic standpoint. I'm trying to understand what's preventing you from moving forward today.

Curtis Worcester:

I like that. I like that. Thank you for that. And I have another question for you here, a little rapid fire session here before we really dive in. This one's a little lighter than I think what we're going to be asking you. But naturally the name of our show, we're talking about retirement in the state of Maine. We'd like to ask all of our guests, do you have any connections to the state of Maine yourself?

Ellen Rothstein:

No, I have two.

Curtis Worcester:

Okay.

Ellen Rothstein:

Kim is my mentor, retired to Maine. He was living in Berkeley. He's part of the SCORE program, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with. It's international. And he retired with his wife to Maine where she had family. So I know him. The other real connection that's much larger is my first cousin and her family live in Maine.

Curtis Worcester:

Okay.

Ellen Rothstein:

And I'm very close to them, and I have visited, although not recently.

Curtis Worcester:

Oh, excellent.

Ben Smith:

Well Ellen, I know, obviously, we appreciate the flavor there you're giving us of your life and kind of the expertise there. And obviously, we have a lot of questions we want to ask about boomerang children and that dynamic that happens there.

So obviously, as we've been working with our clients and as they're approaching retirement, they're saying this to us is that, "Hey, I had my adult child move home, and here's something in my life that just, maybe, it's a wrinkle that I didn't expect,, or I'm trying to figure out how to create a homeostasis there where we both have some happiness around it."

So obviously, the phenomenon where, of course, you're seeing in the news is this concept of quote, unquote "boomerang children." So love to just... Obviously, from a definitional perspective of here's as you're coaching, and how are you defining what a boomerang child is? And then the second part of that is how prevalent really is it today?

Ellen Rothstein:

I would define it as adult children who move back home after having left home. And that left home could be directly after college. They could move back home. I would consider that boomeranging or what I think it was more commonly used for is children that move away usually to go to college and are away for a while, years or a few years or multiple years, and then move back home with their parents.

As for how common it is, I agree with your earlier statements that it is a lot more common than it used to be. When I was growing up and going to college, you'd never do that. And I didn't know anybody that did. But economics are a huge driver. Cost of living in particular, aging parents, a lot of baby boomers had children later. And there are aging factors, but more commonly, I think the boomeranging happens because of what that adult child is going through. They need financial help usually, or there is some other circumstance.

I don't have statistics to support what I'm saying or to give you any idea how prevalent it is. But I do believe it's a lot more prevalent than it used to be. Anecdotally, I've had lots of friends who've had this happen to. But most importantly it's happened to me, and that's why I am so excited to talk about it.

Ben Smith:

So Ellen, I want to ask then a little bonus question that then is because I think you're bringing up how obviously baby boomer adults having children later, and there's aging issues there. Do you feel like just kind of going backwards and it feels like when I say 50 years ago that that's actually not that very long in the grand scheme of things, but say it really isn't. But, obviously, from the history of society here, but just think about even post-World War II generation, kids moving, adult children moving back in with parents. How would that have been received just thinking about that as a kind of a societal shift?

Ellen Rothstein:

There was stigma for doing that. It was a failure. If you move back home, at least in my day when I went away to college, if you move back home, there was something wrong and disappointing. It was a point of being proud. I moved out. I started my life. I now have my grown-up life. That stigma is no longer there because the reality particularly of economics have forced that stigma to go away or at least be minimized.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. Interesting. I like that.

Ellen Rothstein:

Probably benefits.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. No. I'm glad you both brought that little bonus question up. So I want to focus again on the retiree aspect here with kind of our show. And so when retirees welcome their adult children back into their home after they've moved out, and this may be a long-winded answer, what are some of the potential conflicts that may arise or some of the common ones that you see?

Ellen Rothstein:

How much time do you have?

Ben Smith:

It's a podcast for a reason, Ellen.

Ellen Rothstein:

Okay. [inaudible 00:15:52]. I think one of the biggest challenges is that before they moved out, you had a parent-child dynamic. You had the parents. You had the children. And that was the way it was. By the time the children moved back in, they're adults. And the parents have had time to reconnect with the fact that they are people, not just parents.

So really, you've got two adults or if it's a couple, you've got the parents and you've got the child. you've got all adults here. It's a different playing field. A Different dynamic and respect needs to come into play and, above all, communication. And that may seem like the obvious answer, communication, or the obvious topic. But you'd be surprised how many forms there need to be and just how challenging that can be.

I think when the adult-child moves back home, you need to have some really open conversations about expectations. You can't, from a parental point of view, expect that your child is going to live under your roof the way they did before they went off and started their own grown-up life.

And what do you expect from them when they are there in terms of freedom, contribution, responsibilities and roommate issues like dishes in the sink? And what does the adult-child expect from the parents? How much involvement are they comfortable having with their parents about their current life, and what are their expectations? And even though it seems like a kind of seamless, "Oh yeah, I'll move back in with my parents," or sure you can move back home.

In that time that you've lived away, you have developed some different abilities and different expectations. And conversely, even insofar as the home, when my son moved out, I turned his room into an office. Then when he wanted to move back home, it was like, "Uh-oh, there goes my office/guest room. What do I do about that?"

Ben Smith:

Yeah.

Ellen Rothstein:

There's so many things to talk about and work on that It's navigating some of the big expectations. But then there are the daily expectations.

Ben Smith:

Sure.

Ellen Rothstein:

And I believe that you need to do whatever you're going to do, say, for your adult child. You need to do it from a place of love and not resentment. Perfect example is my son cooks, and he's pretty good about cleaning up. But I don't want to clean up his pots and pans nor should I. And he does do them not quite as quickly as I would like, and he loves to soak things, which I don't really think needs to be soaked, but he has a very demanding work schedule.

When I realized he's not going to be home until midnight and I see that saute pan, I'm like, "Just wash it. Just wash the saute pan." I feel sorry for not being home. If he's been home and that saute pan's been on the stove for a couple days, then it's resentment. Then, it's like you really need to wash your own saute pan. So there's circumstance. There's context. I don't want to be resentful. I don't want to hate that saute pan. I really want to do it because I'm helping him out because he's working till midnight.

Ben Smith:

Sure.

Curtis Worcester:

No, I like that. And I really appreciate you bringing up even at the beginning of your answer, communication. I know that's something we're going to dive into in a couple questions. I want to... Staying here for just a second longer. So focusing from the retiree perspective in this scenario, can you just talk about maybe some of the lifestyle changes that the retiree may experience or what to expect, and how these changes kind of another layer could end up affecting maybe overall well-being and their own personal retirement plans that they had for themselves?

Ellen Rothstein:

Well, there's two obvious things that come to mind. One is financial, and one is vision. The financial part, retirees, unless you have a lot of money, and some do, you may be cognizant of your limitations.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Ellen Rothstein:

What does that mean? Does that mean you're charging rent? Does that mean you're buying all the food? What are you paying for, and what is your child going to pay for? I think upfront conversations are really important. We chose not to charge rent, but our friends charge rent. And then when their son lost his job, they stopped charging rent. So there have to be conversations about that.

My son contributes to our household in all kinds of ways, some of which have financial benefit, and some don't. But in our case, it works out just fine. But I don't know that it does in a lot of households because my child is very generous emotionally and with his time and his expertise. So I see his contribution to dealing with these type of issues, any automotive issues, any computer issues, all these other things, as ways of contributing to the household, although they're not specifically financial. But if I had to hire somebody, then it would be.

In terms of buying food, he buys his own food. But I'm happy if he's home, and I make dinner. I'm happy to feed him tonight. We may go out if he's home. I'll bring him and pay for him happily. But other times, he'll buy food and bring it home for all of us. He cooks for us occasionally.

So as I say in our case, it's very seamless, but I don't think that's a given. That has to be discussed. That has to be worked at in advance. What are your financial expectations? That's one thing.

The other part is vision. One source of tension can be that adult child has ideas about what their parents should be doing. It's hard not to. You care about your parents. You see what they're doing in their life. You see that the mistakes you think they're making, and we've had some bumpy conversations because your adult child may think you should be doing things differently than you are.

So then you have to find a way to, A, not be defensive because that's a tough one. We're not used to being in that role. We're used to having the child be defensive. But you can be defensive if your adult child is saying, "Why don't you and dad do this, or why don't you do that, or why are you doing something?"

It's also important to put up boundaries. I can say, "Look, I understand what you're saying. I hear what you're saying, but I don't want to do that. It doesn't apply to me, and you don't need to worry about this. We will figure it out. You don't need to think about this." But setting those kind of boundaries in a new way, it is a new way. It's a kind of role reversal, and that is something that is unanticipated, I would imagine, when your adult child moves back because you didn't really think they were going to know more or have more ideas than you do.

And frankly, my son is way better at a lot of things than we are way. So I do defer to his opinion. However, his vision of what he thinks we should do doesn't align with mine. And it's maybe too personal of an explanation, but the point being, there can be some uncomfortable moments when the roles reverse.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. Ellen, and I think you raised a really good point, and I have a family member as well that is moved in with her parents. And kind of similar type thing is you see it almost like that they become the parent themselves, the child does. And they're kind of scolding, and you're going to eat again, are you kidding me? It's only Wednesday. You usually go out on Friday. What's this about?

So you can see that as something that could happen, but I want to make a point that it's really that here you go where you've separated, as you said, where the child and the parent dynamic has now completely changed. Now, we have adults. And as adults that we are entitled to a privacy, that we all should have that. But now, you smoosh that relationship back together, which is morphed into a hybrid of we're adults, but we also have little parental-child relationship into it as well.

And I could see where that privacy becomes a big issue for you both. I know you were chatting about that. So you talked about just this upfront, the vision part and the financial part, but can you talk about when maybe that gets off to a bad start, as you said, like the saute pan that's in there, and it's soaking. And we're getting annoyed with each other. And it's starting off on a bad note, but what strategies have you given your clients or even that you've used yourselves that can help ensure that both parties really have their space and boundaries, especially if we get off to a little bit of a rocky start?

Ellen Rothstein:

Well, first of all, I believe in reading the room. In other words, make sure everybody's in a good mood. Everybody's receptive. Don't try to have these conversations in the heat of the moment. When you see that saute pan on the stove, don't blow up then. Wait until the next day when everybody's calmer, and then think about. Step back, and think about, "How is what I'm about to say going to be heard?"

If my delivery is super emotional, perhaps, they're not going to hear the content. So think about that. Think about a solution-oriented way to talk about this rather than a blame way. What can we do to make this not happen again? What can we do to make this better?

So I would encourage the people in the circumstance you're talking about where they've gotten off to a bad start to take a step back and say, "Okay. Take some responsibility for the way they feel, and be accountable if they've done something like lead the saute pan, or me." I don't know, but that's not a good example.

But anyway, be accountable for whatever you've done to contribute to the situation, and then take a step back and think about how can we mitigate this so that we don't have to go through this again? What went wrong? Let's do a debrief of this particular situation. What can we learn from it? How can we change this pattern? We don't want it to be a repeat pattern. How can we identify what went awry. And how can we be more tolerant and respectful of each other through this type of situation?

Curtis Worcester:

So you teased it a little bit ago. And now, I'm going to come back to it. And that's communication. So oftentimes, tensions can arise from a lack of communication no matter what we're talking about specifically in this scenario, I think, especially when it comes to privacy. So how can we effectively communicate a need for privacy, whether it's the adult to the adult children or the parent to the adult children or the adult children to the parent? And how can we communicate that in a way that minimizes tensions and avoids potential conflicts?

Ellen Rothstein:

I think respect is really important. And I don't use that word lightly.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah.

Ellen Rothstein:

An obvious example of privacy is financial privacy. I don't know how much my son makes. I don't know how much he owes on his training program. I don't ask. He can choose to tell me. But likewise, I don't tell him specifics of my finance.

Now, I'm going to take a little quick side trip here and say, "I do believe it's important for parents to tell children, adult children, where the information is if something happens to the parents because eventually they're going to die." You don't want that kid to be stuck.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah.

Ellen Rothstein:

So you do need to give them the tools or tell them where that information is and not be afraid to talk about things. That said, I don't share specific numbers. In my case, I created an important info document.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Ellen Rothstein:

He knows where to find it, but I'm not giving him the specifics. He can go dig that up when I die. But I have respect for his privacy about his financial situation. If he wanted to tell me what he owes on his credit card, fine, but I'm never going to ask.

That's respecting his financial privacy. If he wants to ask me, then I would have to deal with it depending on what the question was, and I may or may not choose to answer it. Other types of privacy, like social privacy, you can be vague. Say, "Oh, are you going out with friends? Great. Have a good time."

If you open the space up, so if they want to share information, you're available. But you have to be available in a non-judgmental way. And that is sometimes not easy. Fortunately, in my case, I'm not judgmental, I don't care. And because I do trust my son, he's not going to make bad decisions in social areas. But you have to allow for the fact that you may not agree with them in their social choices.

You may not agree with how they spend their time. But it's not up to you anymore. It's just not. So that privacy, that space for privacy has to be allowed. And again, you may privately be judgmental. But if you share that with your adult child, you just shut down the communication.

Conversely, in that role reversal, if you're getting questions like you had mentioned about, "Oh, what? Are you going out again on Friday? You just went out on Wednesday." That's the kind of thing where I would shut that down. And I would say, "Look, I can make decisions about when I'm going to go out. You don't need to worry about this. Okay." It's not your problem. So there has to be some way to talk about it instead of just sucking it up and the tension builds.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. No. That makes perfect sense. And so now, we're going to keep going with this little role play for a second. So I'm going to tap in Coach Ellen here for a second. So what if I'm coming to you and saying, "Look, I have these frustrations, right? There's tensions building. Nobody's communicating. Absolutely nothing." How would you help me coach me through that? And I guess the goal would be to essentially develop communication, but where do we start with that?

Ellen Rothstein:

One obvious path is get a family therapist, and work it out in the neutral space with a professional.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah.

Ellen Rothstein:

If it's a situation where, say, that adult child is trying to get their career on track and make enough money to move out, then maybe they work with a life coach that can help or career coach. So sometimes, doing it yourself isn't enough. You can't break those barriers down. Sometimes, you need professional help.

But if it's not at that point, then I would just stress the need for a calm, neutral conversation. Maybe, not in the home. Maybe, you all take a walk in the park or you go somewhere that isn't loaded, and that doesn't have distractions. And you schedule it, and make sure everybody shows up and puts their phones away and have everybody be present and say, "Look, the reason we're doing this is because we are all not happy about the way things feel right now, and let's make this work better."

Ben Smith:

So Ellen, we've talked a little bit about privacy and communication and things along those lines. And I want keep pushing this, and I want to push this into a conversation about boundaries, is in setting rules and norms. I think if there's things that we both agree on, then I think we're probably going to have better outcomes because we talked about, "Well, these are safe places, and these are maybe not," as you said about finances.

If we want to talk about it, great. But we're not going to share that with each other because I could see where as we now are adults and we want to maintain our independence, we want to maintain our personal space. And especially if I'm retiring, and to your point about vision, and it could be that, "Hey, I have a vision for my retirement." It really probably didn't include my adult children here.

And that's kind of think about the beaches and the vacations and all those things. So I want to talk a bit bit about, all right, what are some effective ways that retirees can set clear boundaries with their boomerang children to preserve that autonomy because I think that's a really big deal about preserving autonomy that this is my life, this is what I want to do.

If I'm allowing you to share our space together, I want you here, but I want to be able to do my own things and not have judgment or get into heated conversations or something along those lines. So how are some effective ways that retirees can kind of work on that in terms of boundary setting?

Ellen Rothstein:

Well, first of all, I believe in boundaries beyond this conversation. I believe boundaries are really key. One example, although it's not as applicable to this conversation, is grandparents babysitting grandchildren. There have to be really clear understanding. And grandparents need to set the boundaries for themselves if they don't want to get sucked into being on-call or permanent babysitters.

So that's an extreme example perhaps. But with adult children living in your space, say, after you've retired, it does always come back to communication.

Ben Smith:

Yeah.

Ellen Rothstein:

It wouldn't hurt to sit down and say, "Look, when you were a kid and you lived here, your father and I work full time. We were at our jobs, and we were home on the weekends or whatever, and we had disposable income that maybe we don't have now." Tell them. Just simply tell them. What do you think your time should be spent doing now?

Say, "Look back in the day, I work full time. Now, I go to my book club on Tuesdays, and I work out at the gym three times a week, and I go meet my friends for lunch. And roughly, this is what my life is like now. So understand that it's changed. Understand I'm in and out of the house all day long. You may be working from your room on Zoom with work colleagues. If there's noise issues, we need to work on that. We need it to be mutual. If I'm hosting my book club on Tuesdays, and it's a full room of laughing women, you're not going to want to be Zooming at that time. So how can we make this work?

How can you schedule your regularly Zoom, your conferences or whatever at a time that's not going to interfere, so you're not telling me and my friends to shut up? Here's what to expect. Your dad and I are going to travel. We're going to be gone for these two weeks or these two days or whatever, and you're not invited. That sounds horrible, but we have these plans."

And maybe there are times when that adult child does accompany the parents. I'm not saying that would never happen. But we've made these plans. We had this life when you were living with us. It's different now. Here's how it's different. Here's how it's the same. Here's how we can integrate into each other's life in a hopefully more seamless way.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. No. That makes a lot of sense, Ellen. And I want to keep going here, and it seems my questions are all... We're doing the role play thing here as I keep going through these questions. But so let's say we have a boomerang child that moves back home. Naturally, as we've been discussing now for the length of this episode, it can be quite different than maybe the first time they lived at home. And maybe, they were teenagers the last time they were here in high school whenever, especially around house rules.

For instance, maybe now, we're young adults, and we're going out late and staying out with our friends. I don't have a curfew. I'm an adult. You can't tell me what to do anymore. So how do the parents kind of navigate and adjust these house rules to fit this new dynamic now that their adult children are living in the home?

Ellen Rothstein:

That's a great question, and one that I've had to figure out myself. Back in the day, I have two sons. The one I've been talking about is my younger son. My older son and I developed what we call the Post-it note policy. When he was in high school and he was going to be out, when he got home, he would put a blank Post-it note on the inside of my bedroom door. So when I'd go to bed, when he did not have a strict curfew, that was our agreement. I just needed to be able to know how to reach him because this was back in the day. There weren't a lot of cell phones, it wasn't like.

So I would get up in the middle of the night, and I would just feel on the door. Is there a Post-it? There's a Post-it. He's home. That worked for my younger son also. I just knew that I trusted them. They weren't, in my case, going to do anything really stupid, thankfully. But I did allow them more freedom than some parents did. Like I said, I didn't put on a curfew because I felt a curfew was just a rule to be broken.

So the Post-it note policy worked. When my younger son moved back home, I couldn't really expect that. He had been out living his own life. It's not fair for me to expect that again. If he can do this, if he can live by himself on his own, he's a grown-up, and I have to just suck it up and deal with the fact that I'm always going to be his mother, and I'm always going to worry. And that's just the way it is.

And our current situation is I leave the kitchen light on. And when I get up in the middle of the night, I can see looking out my bedroom door that the lights off.

Curtis Worcester:

Okay. Yeah. Right.

Ellen Rothstein:

He doesn't have to do anything. But I have that little built-in mechanism as a mom to alleviate my worries. But everybody handles it differently. My husband completely uninvolved in it getting home. He didn't have any concerns about it or worries. So that was my particular worry. So I've navigated that by these different methods that I feel like are age-appropriate.

Ben Smith:

So I'm going to maybe parse this out as a theme for a quick second because we talk about boomerang children as a theme, but let's go the other way of, all right, here I am. I have my kids, but I'm aging, and I'm needing some support in my house.

I'm needing help to, whether it be grocery shopping or things that help me maintain independence to live in my home as long as possible, before I go into a retirement community or assisted living or anything along those lines is I'm going to need some help at some point in my retirement as I age. And just thinking about, okay, so there are obviously sometimes children move back in with the parents not because of themselves, but because they want to help their parents age more independently in their home, is a theme that's happening as well.

I know that's not what the crux of the conversation that we're having here today. But I want to just ask this question about, all right, so boomerang children, they're living there. They came back to live in our homes for their own reasons. But here I am aging, and maybe they've been here with us a while. And now, I need help myself.

How do we go about having that conversation about, "Hey, I need your help now, right? We're living together. You came back here to get on your feet and all that." But how do we start that conversation about needing that boomerang child's help on caring for us as we age, because I could see where there's a concern of is this going to be an opportunity for my boomerang child to go, "Oh, I'm good. I'm going to move out now. I'm back on my feet. I'm all set now," or this is an opportunity to maybe step up and for them to kind of help you in return.

Ellen Rothstein:

Simply ask, "What are you comfortable doing? Here's what I need. What of that can you do? And if you can't do it, we'll figure out another solution. But I'm not going to assume that you are going to step in and do these five things. I know I have to be respectful of your time. End even if it's hours that you're not at work, I know that you've got other projects and social life and all that. So how realistic is it for you to do these five things or two things or whatever it may be?"

Just ask them. And that child needs to be honest with themselves and with you. And if they can do it, great. If they can't or if they do it for a while and it doesn't work out, then you have to revisit the conversation.

Curtis Worcester:

That makes a ton of sense. And I want to perhaps zoom out a touch with my next question. So this whole time we've been discussing the dynamic between the retiree or the adult parents and the adult children. I want to think about maybe other family members.

So whether it's other siblings for the adult children, how might the return of one adult child affect the relationship with the others if they don't all come back to live at home? Maybe some have moved out. Some are at home. What can be done again?

I'm trying to think of myself. So I'm the youngest of three, and I know both of my brothers, if I did this, they'd immediately say that it's honestly probably some of that stigma of you're being babied. You're being coddled. So how can you manage that? Any type of sibling rivalry or any resentment that may be starting to build because maybe one of them is at home and the others are on their own.

Ellen Rothstein:

Well, honestly, I don't know that you really can. I think to some degree that's always going to be there. Sibling, let's say the older sibling who's out in the world and doesn't move back home, is going to be judgmental.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Ellen Rothstein:

Even though I said earlier, stigma is minimized, it's still there to some degree within families because you're going to look like, "Oh, you couldn't cut it." I can cut it. What's wrong with you? There's a certain degree of that. There's also going to be some perhaps depending on the situation, some, "Oh, what's it really like with mom and dad? How old are they? How are coping?"

Curtis Worcester:

Sure. Yeah.

Ellen Rothstein:

And you have the insider's view, which then could be useful with your sibling or siblings to assess the situation that the parents are in. If the parents are in denial that they need help, for example, and things are not getting done, then that younger... or not necessarily younger. Sorry. The sibling that's boomeranged home, they want to call upon the siblings that are not at home and say, "Look, we need to deal with this." So it's a combination, and it's really kind of case dependent.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure. No, I appreciate you bringing up that piece about the kind of insider info because I hadn't gone there in my head. And that's a good interesting angle on it of you have that direct view of what is going on with the aging parents. And so I appreciate you bringing that up.

Ben Smith:

And I can see too, Ellen, as you stage the communication here of you've set boundaries and you're trying to create that healthy relationship. If it's not a bickering roommate where it's like, "Hey, we're all picking each other all the time," and we are kind of creating resentment that it's coming from a good place because you have a good relationship back and forth and not a, "Hey, we'll just pick on each other all the time, and we're just going to talk bad about each other to other people."

If it's a good fostered honest relationship, I think, that makes a lot of sense. But you mentioned something to us, Ellen, on our pre-interview, was talking about your relationship with your son and that you've really approached it with humor has been the best way to talk to your son.

That's been a really big ingredient to that successful relationship that you have. So I want to ask that question, is how can retirees incorporate humor into their daily interactions with their boomerang children to strengthen their bond, and then also maybe diffuse potential tensions that are happening as well because again, I think having a lighthearted manner, I think, is really important in life.

But I can see especially where things can be set off with a word or a tone or something along those lines, that humor is a really important thing. So I'd love to hear your take on that.

Ellen Rothstein:

It's a great question. It's hard to give you an answer, but I have three thoughts on it that come to mind immediately. One is, know your child. Know what their sense of humor is. And frankly, by the time they're an adult, that's moved back home, you do.

So be aware of that. Seize on any moment you can to share that humor, completely separate from what you're talking about. But try to share some humor with them in life in a, hopefully, daily, but certainly not every day.

The other thing is self-deprecation is a form of humor. It can be used in a form of humor. And I think it helps that adult child see you as a person and not just a parent. I wish I could think of a perfect example, but when I mess something up, or in my case, I'll say there's it's summer, and there's corn on the cob. And I'm going to use it in dinner. I put it in the freezer to get it cool after I've steamed it. Nine times out of 10, I forget about it. And so then it becomes a point of humor. It's like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I forgot the corn again."

And then, I get the eye roll like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you've forgot the corn again." So things like that, that show that I am human, I can screw up, I make mistakes. Help make me a more real person and may help the adult child approach me with a little more understanding and also picking up on those humorous moments. It's pretty funny that I cannot believe I forgot the corn again. Finding that type of humor and capitalizing on it. And then there was a third. What was my third point? Well, it's really simply a matter of delivery, tone [inaudible 00:44:53], how you talk about something, how you point out that saute pan can be hostile or it can be humorous or neutral.

It can't be too forced. You can't make this kind of ridiculous joke about it. But if there's a way to say it with humor, oh my God, the saute pan is on the stove again. What's in it this time? I'm not doing great imitation. But using humor in the way you're communicating about something that could otherwise be tense can help. You can get through that moment and maybe that next time the saute pan won't last three days. Maybe, it'll only be two days. But you might make some progress with the saute pan more with humor than you would with commands or demands.

Ben Smith:

Sure. And I'll add, Ellen, because I think regardless of whether you live with your parents or not, or your adult child lives with you or not, I think that's a really key ingredient to humor. Humor is part of that relationship too. And I'll just share a quick little anecdote of that, mom and dad retired and they're kind of a little bit lost in terms of their network and trying to find connections. And I really encouraged them to be on Facebook.

I was like, "Geez, I think you're going to get a lot out of Facebook, and they're really resistant to it." And they said, "No, wait." So I eventually got him on, and my dad was a former history teacher. Side anecdote is Curtis actually had him as a teacher as well.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure did.

Ben Smith:

Yep. So he started going, "Well, I'm really into history." So he's in his town. He created a page about the history of the town. Well, so he could get into just researching it, and that would be a really good vocation to give back to the town that he loves.

So we're all encouraging it, it's really great. But again, from the technology side, he struggles. This is not his forte. But he and my mom will both have the same account. Well, he will post something, but she will be underneath the account, and then react to it. I love it, which, of course, to the outside world just looks like he's loving his own posts.

So I then just have to share with him, "Hey, you're really doing great with technology. This is amazing, but you got to realize how that looks, and it looks like you just love yourself." so we kind of laugh about it.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah.

Ben Smith:

And they're really good. They take it and just like, I didn't know that. That is really funny now that you put it that way, but not doing it in a way that's mean spirit or trying to point out, "Well, don't you know any better than that?" So I think that's a really important thing to just go, "Hey, I'm here to help. I'm not trying to make you look bad. I just want you to know that, hey, the technology is used to be this way. You're kind of using it a little bit differently than maybe it's intended."

It does look a little bit weird when you kind of look at it this way, and that's been really great. So we could both laugh at it like, "Oh yeah, I can't believe I just did that." Geez, that does look a little silly now that you point that out. So I think that's just a really key ingredient. And I just obviously sharing it from my own perspective with my own parents, even though I don't live with them, that we laugh about it, and they do the same to me. It's like, "Ben, can you believe you did that?" Yeah, I know. I messed that up too. So yeah, we have that, and I think that's really important.

Ellen Rothstein:

That's a perfect example. It really is. That's exactly how you could approach something with humor and have it go well versus trying to make them feel stupid.

Curtis Worcester:

Well, Ellen, I have one final question for you. Before I ask you, I do want to just say thank you. I know Ben will probably echo this in just a minute. But it's been such a great conversation from our perspective. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise with us.

The last question again relates to kind of the show name. So we're The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. So I have to ask you a question about retirement success, and that is how do you see yourself finding your own retirement success?

Ellen Rothstein:

Oh, wow. That's like asking the cobbler how they're going to cobble their own house. It's funny because if I could separate, at least in my case, the finances from the fulfillment, I've got the fulfillment down part. I've got that part down fine. The finances, I'm personally being a little bit ostrich-like about, because nobody knows how long you need to make your money last.

Curtis Worcester:

Correct

Ellen Rothstein:

That crystal ball, if you die tomorrow, no problem. And you've got money to pass on to your kids. If you die in 25 years, maybe a problem.

Curtis Worcester:

Right.

Ellen Rothstein:

So it's hard to answer the financial part unless you have a lot of money or unless you find a way to minimize your living expenses, greatly from what you are currently experiencing and spending. From the fulfillment part, as I mentioned, if I just can keep doing what I'm doing, I'm happy. This is great. I love it. I feel incredibly satisfied. I just need to do what I need to do to make it last.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. Understood. Yeah. Well, Ellen, obviously you have a great passion for people and coaching. And obviously that comes through, and we appreciate you sharing that with us today because it's been real enlightening to have this conversation about because relationships, and I think it's the flavor of life, and I think obviously the relationship we have with our children is probably one of the most important ones that we have in our lifetimes as well.

So securing that in good and bad and in different situations like, "Hey, we're kind of pushing ourselves together again." And how do we get through it is I think a very important thing to explore and work through. And I think you did that wonderfully with us today. But, Ellen, I know we'd love to maybe check in with you sometime down the road, and maybe have another part two of this conversation. But thank you so much for coming our show today. We really appreciate it.

Ellen Rothstein:

Well, thank you. You both asked excellent questions, and I was happy to explore these topics, and I hope that our listeners or viewers are getting something from it either for now or later that they can share with their family and friends as well. And I would be delighted to come back because this has really been fun.

Curtis Worcester:

Awesome. Thanks much, Ellen.

Ellen Rothstein:

So thank you for having me.

Ben Smith:

Appreciate it. Thank you so much. So again, of course, I had to throw in the boomerang with the Australian outback.

Curtis Worcester:

That's good. I didn't know where you were going with it at first, but I got it. I got it quickly.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. Steve Irwin, yep, yep, yep. So we're at episode 99, right?

Curtis Worcester:

We're there. We're almost there.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. So we've done 99 different podcasts and different topics covering the gamut of things for retirement, retirement success. So we're almost at that nice little three-digit milestone. So almost there.

But I know obviously talking about boomerang children today, we're going to, of course, in our show notes, put together Ellen's contact info. So say you are in that situation and you're like, "Hey, I have an adult child living with me," and we're not on the best of roads. And I might need a little help.

We will put Ellen's contact information around there on the show notes. And you can contact her, ask questions, get in, contact her through her email or website that'll be there. But again, hopefully, that you all found this episode interesting and helpful.

If you are, or maybe in that situation in the future, you can always go to our blog at blog.guidancepointllc.com/99 for episode 99 And you can kind of find all the information there. We really appreciate you tuning in and being on this journey with us. Again, love to hear from you any feedback. We'd love to kind of connect with you. If you want to drop us a line, please do. But we hope you enjoyed today's episode, and we'll catch you next time.