How to Raise Your Adult Children: Because Big Kids Have Even Bigger Problems

I probably wouldn't have bought this book if Gail Parent hadn't been one of the two authors. I am the mother of two adult sons and I think I've done a fairly good job of raising them. But Gail Parent was one of my favorite authors from her fiction published in the 1970's and 1980's. "Sheila Levine" is still readable forty years after it was written and "The Best Laid Plans" is one of my favorite books. So, where has Parent been for the past 30 years or so? Raising two sons, it seems, and hanging out with psychologist friends. (Also writing for TV but not writing more novels.) With this advise book, written with her friend, Susan Ende, she has reentered her old readers' lives just at a time when they are facing the dreaded "adult children syndrome" (my term, not hers). Both Parent and Ende dispense advise in the form of answering letters in tandem from parents asking about how to handle problems with both their children and their parents. We're the "sandwich generation", after all. Parent's answers are more practical or social, while Ende's are more psychological. Both authors tend to hit the mark with their responses to the questions posed, while some of the questions/problems presented seem to beg the response, "Are you kidding me, you must be crazy". I applaud Parent and Ende's restrain in responding to those questions/problems. So, do we members of the "sandwich generation" need Parent and Ende's book? Maybe, sometimes, we 50 and 60 year olds really DON'T know all the answers. Parent and Ende are here to help with their breezy, yet serious advise. It's a good book that I'm glad I bought. Now, Gail, let's get some more fiction, please. What ever happened to Sheila?

Half the people I know spend a big portion of their life dealing with the problems of their adult children. After providing them with a first class education, start up money, a Rolodex full of contacts and recommendations, why do they rush to the rescue every time a kid stumbles a little? Including letting 30-somethings move back home! Guilt I suppose, and a lot of other things covered by this book--after all, the kid didn't ask to be born, he reminds you. The advice is serious and well reasoned. The presentation is easy to take. The book has a light touch and is genuinely funny--kind of a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Do we have an obligation to let our children grow up, with all the risk and occasional trauma that entails? This book has a lot of answers.