Tag Archives: adult children

A Jewish Mother’s Advice to Occupy Wall Street

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First of all, all of you in Zuccotti Park or Chicago or wherever–what you’re doing is kind of amazing. As a veteran of the anti-Vietnam War movement, I look at your protests and think how much the world has changed. I also wish we baby boomers could have provided you with a better world. We certainly tried. But we let the fat cats get away with too much. We let the Republicans get a way with a massive cheat in 2000 and 2004, and when Obama came in 2008, things were a little far gone for a good and quick fix. But a lot of what’s going on with the economy and the job picture, we couldn’t have predicted that. I don’t buy into conspiracy theories. Yes, there are a lot of bad guys. Some good guys let us down. (I’m talking to you Bill Clinton.) So now you, our kids, are using your energy to say, “stop, no more.” At least that’s what I think you’ve been saying. You guys aren’t exactly clear. It’s that “human mic” thing, which I’ll talk about later. Also, you’re not all kids as some studies have shown. (http://nyti.ms/vE8NwV) People my age have been down there every day, sleeping over, showing support. And thus my first bit of advice.

  • Call Your Mother. She Worries. I’m not kidding. And you can substitute any family or friends for “mother” there. Even if people in your life don’t agree with what you are doing, they do want to know you are safe. So far in New York City, Occupy Wall Street people have been pretty safe. But you never know. The protestors in Oakland weren’t expecting a former marine to suffer a brain injury.

 

  • Think of How What You’re Doing Looks to Others. The chant “The Whole World’s Watching” worked really well at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 when Mayor Daley’s police went after the protestors with billy clubs. Indeed, it was the Democratic Convention, and the whole world was watching.  #OWS has a different kind of coverage–live-streaming, tweets–along with the mainstream media which has been very much on the story despite some complaints. This was The New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir’s tweet about her annoyance with this after Nate Silver’s story on the press coverage on October 7, 2011:A lot of what you’re doing in Zuccotti Park looks a little dumb unless you’re there and caught up with it, like the drumming circle.

 

  • So Don’t Make Drumming a Priority. Yeah, it’s cool and spiritual, but it looks really silly. And you are bothering people who live and work in the neighborhood. Take a minute to think how important it is to our economy and the eventual easing of unemployment to allow people to get a good night’s sleep and go to their jobs. The more jobs we lose now, the worse it will be. Meeting with the community board and getting porto potties, that was a good thing that showed strength of character.

 

  • Not So Much What Happened at the DOE Meeting. Since few OWS people went to the small meetings after the large one was broken up, those there looked more interested in disruption than construction. Believe me. I am a long time veteran of dealing with the DOE. I had two kids who went all the way through in public school, and things have gotten worse. But doing “human mic” checks instead of listening and designating a speaker from your group–you–we–lost an opportunity to put stuff out to the DOE.

 

  • One Thing About the Human Mic. Remember the game telephone. That’s what can happen. So be careful.

 

  • Don’t Antagonize the Police. @OccupyWallStNYC made a good point yesterday in the tweet:Document, don’t fight, unless you’re ready to be arrested and maybe beat up a little. Tear gas is painful (I’ve been tear-gassed).

 

  • But Count Your Blessings. This is not Tahir. You are not fighting in Syria. Thank your lucky stars for that. In Egypt protestors get horribly tortured (as the US has tortured and still may those they suspect of being terrorists). They die. We do live in democracy with a free press (even Fox is a free press, sort of). You can say a lot of things in the USA that people can’t say elsewhere without being in fear of their lives. Which reminds me:

 

  • Occupy a Voting Booth. Democracy is really slow, and that can be frustrating. But voting generally has an impact. (Look what has happened since people voted all those right wingers and Tea Party supporters into office last year.)

 

  • Back to the Police. Every since 9/11 Americans have had lots of nice things to say about police. They are generally brave people. But people willing to put their lives on the line often have a toughness that with a slight shove moves over to bullying. Most of the police don’t see themselves as part of the 99%. They see themselves as guys who can legally walk around with clubs and guns–and use them. Did you notice the turnout in the Bronx of off-duty police supporting the police indicted of ticket-fixing schemes? If a guy has a night stick, try not to come into contact with it.

 

  • And Don’t Be Naive. This from an article in today’s Times (http://nyti.ms/vE8NwV):  Sonny Singh, 31, a Sikh musician from Brooklyn who joined Occupy Wall Street early on, recounted the scene in Zuccotti Park the day the general assembly drafted its “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” — the closest thing to a political manifesto the protesters have put out thus far.Mr. Singh said that he and a few other “brown” people at the assembly were appalled by what was going to become the first paragraph of the declaration: “As one people, formerly divided by the color of our skin,” the document began, “we acknowledge the reality: that there is only one race, the human race.”

    “That was obviously not written by a person of color,” Mr. Singh said, calling the statement naïve. “Race is a reality in the lives of people of color, you can’t put out a statement like that without alienating them.”

You don’t want to sound stupid.

  • And If It Gets Too Cold . . . Go Home. Yes, the protestors who are staying there all the time are admirable in their determination. But New York City gets cold in the winter. Soldiers manage to stay camped out in tents during frigid weather, but not everyone is supposed to be a soldier. At this point the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed the way Americans think about protest. It’s not clear that anything can be changed by these protests–except our way of thinking about things. So if you have to leave, you haven’t lost. In many ways you’re winning every day.

I’d love to hear from everyone what they think, those in favor of the demonstrations, those against. Use the comment box as a forum. And in the meanwhile, stay safe.

You Can Call Us Old, But We Are Not Selfish

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The first mention of the article came to me by way of Twilert–my morning hashtag delivery service–via some young guy named Charz Kelso. (Coming attraction: I’ll talk about Twilert on my next post about Baby Boomers and Twitter.) True, we can all use 30-year-old pictures of ourselves as Twitter avatars (translation: pictures), so maybe Charz Kelso isn’t a Gen Yer angry at his parents. But this was his tweet:First off, I don’t get the idea of someone mad about not getting his inheritance. A woman I know once complained bitterly while her parents’ estate was being settled that she wanted her money. “Her money,” I thought. “It’s your parents’ money. They worked for it. They had the right to do with it whatever they want.” So I object to that kind of spoiled kid attitude, whether the person is six or sixty-six. An inheritance, should one be so lucky, is a gift, not something you are owed.

Anyway, next I clicked on the link in his tweet, which brought me to Time.com’s “Moneyland”: http://ti.me/oiPZF0. This article cited a study by U.S. Trust (a retirement investment company) that concluded that “a surprisingly low 49% of millionaire boomer parents said that leaving money to their kids was a priority.” They also referred to the Baby Boomer reputation for selfishness–something I hadn’t heard before and would much dispute. (The so-called “me” generation was around before Boomers had come of age.) I tried to check out the study itself, but the U.S. Trust page didn’t have a link. So I went to the original article in the L.A. Times. (http://lat.ms/oUvor4) The only information I got there was that U.S. Trust surveyed some millionaire boomers. But how many they surveyed, how they picked their sample, and so on I couldn’t ascertain. So I called a friend who manages money for millionaires. He was circumspect, of course. That’s his professional stance. But mostly he was “huh?” His logic? The multi-multi millionaires have more than they can possibly spend in their lifetimes, and their plans often include trusts for children and grandchildren.

The L.A. Times article also quotes Ken Dychtwald, a former economics guru who somehow manages to still be a quotable person, even though the recession flushed his “age-wave” theory down the tubes:

“Many boomers already are giving the equivalent of an inheritance, except they’re doling out the cash while they’re still alive, said Ken Dychtwald, chief executive of research firm Age Wave. They’re supporting elderly parents, adult children or other family members who are suffering professional or financial woes. ‘How can you say no when a child asks ask for a down payment for a house or money to remodel their house to have a bedroom for a second child?’ Dychtwald said. ‘A lot of boomers are finding that family members are taking cash advances on those inheritances right now.’”

In other words, come inheritance time, what with all we’ve spent sending out kids to college, helping them buy homes, getting our parents the best medical care, well, there just might not be that much money left. Let’s forget about the multi-millionaires. There aren’t that many of them anyway, and really, whether the Hiltons are putting away money for Paris or the Kardashians for their famous kids, I don’t give a hoot.

Let’s talk instead about the upper middle class or regular old middle class baby boomers whose 401ks and other retirement investments kind of shrunk during the recession. We aren’t nearly as rich as we thought we were. We also can expect to live well into our 80′s. It might be really hard if we want or need to retire to live just off principal so that there will be a chunk of money available (when we die) to our heirs. The continued resistance, indeed vilification, of a sensible medical system where people could get good care for relatively little money–the kind of system in place in Canada, Israel and many Western countries–makes more plausible the possibility that we shall have to finance our own care should we get hit with an illness in our older years.

I might have ignored this tweet, except that Creating Results (http://creatingresults.com), a PR company that focuses on BabyBoomers and seniors and that usually tweets important information about this enormous cohort of our population, picked up the same quote as Charz Kelso, and tweeted this:

To which I replied, “no way, silly study,” or somesuch. They came back with this (and by the way, I’m @wordwhacker on Twitter, for those of you who don’t know):

And that’s the point. For most of us, decisions about inheritance might be moot. We are not selfish. Far from it. So many of us are right now helping out unemployed recent college/professional school graduates. How could we possibly do otherwise? They’re our kids. Or we might be paying medical bills for the elderly and infirm. But how could we do otherwise? They’re our parents. Personally, I am grateful for how comfortable my husband and I are. And if we somehow amass a nice chunk of cash before we die, I’ll be really happy for my kids to have it. I’m glad I’m not so rich that I’m too busy spending everything I’ve got so that there will be nothing left for my children and (I hope) grandchildren when I leave this earth.

One more thing: Charz Kelso’s tweet reminded me of other ones that come through on my #babyboomer Twilert feed or comments I read online–young people all lathered up into a fury by right wing Republicans and Tea Party-ers because they say we’re taking their money when we get Social Security and Medicare Baby Boomers. I’m not going to argue that there aren’t problems with the way Social Security is set up now because there does seem to be a tipping point a couple decades from now when the system could go broke. Nonetheless, it’s not “their” money we’re getting. It’s money that has been taken from our paychecks every day of our working lives. It belongs to us. It is not a gift. It has been an investment.

Some things to consider:

  • Clue your kids in about your finances. No, not when they’re in their teens, but if they’re adults, they should know where your money is invested and how you foresee financing the rest of your lives.
  • Talk to them about what they’ll inherit. Look, we’re getting on to 60, and people die. Adult kids should have some idea how to access your assets. At some point, you should also have the “Suzie gets grandma’s china” discussion. Find out what is important to them and write it down. Your lawyer can keep a copy.
  • Speaking of lawyers, have a will and a living will. Even if you don’t have that much money, it’s important that you leave clear instructions about what you want to happen when you die. Do you want your kids to sell your house and split the proceeds, or are you hoping one of them buys out the others? Be clear. Also, make it known what you want to happen to you–do you want “heroic measures,” i.e. feeding tubes, if you’re in a coma an not expected to revive? Do you want to be buried or cremated?

Finally, a shout out to Charz Kelso (who seems maybe to live in Singapore): That was a really well done tweet. For those of you interested in what makes a good tweet, note that he has all the elements: A new and interesting idea; a hashtag (#inheritance) under which this tweet will be filed and seen; a link to an article; wit.

As always, you can leave your comments here on the blog. You can find me on Facebook at facebook.com/Linda.Bernstein or facebook.com/LindaBernsteinPhD. On Twitter I’m @wordwhacker. Do you think Baby Boomers are selfish? Let me know.

 

Not Quite In-Laws

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I love Yiddish and wish I had actually paid attention when my father tried to teach me to read it. The language is vivid, flexible, and has kinds of words not found in many languages, such as a distinct term to denote the familial relationship between a man and his mother-in-law. I don’t know that one. In fact, when it comes to in-laws, I’m reduced to one word: machatonim—the meshpuchah (family) into which your child marries.

Technically, I needn’t be thinking about this yet. Neither my son nor my daughter is engaged. It’s not something I’m waiting for with baited breath, either. I really like the current boyfriend and girlfriend and if engagements occur, I’ll be happy. Meanwhile, though . . . well, it will happen when it happens.

(One thing that might be delaying the engagement thing: right now, my kids and their significant others are unemployed lawyers, but that’s another column. In the meantime, check out this from The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/oM4yVi about the law school racket, how the schools churn out more and more lawyers in the face of fewer and fewer jobs while the presidents and faculties get rich)

But during the past two-and-a-half years, as both became romantically attached, they developed strong relationships with other families. At first, I did not like this. I still sometimes feel a little piqued or put upon when my son or daughter chooses to spend time with the boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s family when I really want them to be home with us. I admit to the itsy bitsy part of me that wishes they were still little and totally dependent on us for everything, when we were their world. (Well, I got that over with. By the time I finished typing that sentence, I went back to loving that they’re independent and interesting young adults.)

Of course, I kind of knew this would happen. But I also sort figured my daughter would marry her brother’s first friend (son of good friends of ours—didn’t happen). I also wanted my children to have much better relationships with their in-laws than I had with mine. My in-law problem had much to do with geography—they lived in Florida and came to New York City three times from the day I married their son until they died. My husband and I, later with the kids,  went to Florida for at least a week a year, but we never grew close.

My parents and my in-laws were a bad match, too. Not that they actively disliked each other. They just had nothing in common. Maybe they’d call each other on holidays, but that was it.

So, I am pleasantly surprised that my children picked partners with really nice families with good values. In the realm of coincidences possible in this life, my daughter fell in love with a young man from the small town nearest to our country house. So we started seeing his parents socially every now and then—movies, informal dinners. Now it’s more often. Yesterday afternoon I found myself in town in the hardware store, frustrated that I couldn’t find a crock just right for making cucumber half sour pickles like the ones my grandmother made. It occurred to me that I was a 1 minute drive from Dave’s folks. So I picked up my iPhone and spent the next two hours sitting on the front porch of a Victorian era farmhouse. Nice. My son’s girlfriend’s mom and I have been exchanging emails as the kids study for the bar exam. Her dad is on Facebook, and sometimes I see him there. Nice. My son’s girlfriend’s family go to the shore for a vacation each year; my son is joining them. Nice. My daughter’s boyfriend’s family goes to a lake in Maine, and she’ll be part of that group. Nice.

There’s no name for this expansion of family pre-marriage. We have new friends, not necessarily besties, but people we like. Our kids have other adults with whom they interact, about whom they care. I suppose there would have been a word in Yiddish, should the language have evolved in that direction. (The only people who actively and daily use language, aside from some cultural enthusiasts, are certain sects of Orthodox Jews who do not, I imagine, have these kinds of relationships since their kids get married. Early.) Me, the word person—I’m willing to just enjoy the feeling.

Here is a t-shirt I hope I’ll be wearing one day:

  • Follow your kids’ lead. My kids weren’t the type to “bring home” just anyone. When they were ready, we were happy to meet the person. I’ve always tried not to pressure or nag, though, I must say, I haven’t always succeeded. So I say, “follow your kids’ lead” in the spirit of “take this good advice I’ve heard from others,” not, “oh, follow my example.”
  • Try not to mention ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends. We’ve been pretty good about that, though sometimes it’s hard not to mention them especially when they play a role in a funny story. My rule here is that you get to tell the story, but you don’t emphasize the ex.
  • Don’t call a current boyfriend or girlfriend by an ex’s name. I mention this because I’ve done it. My son dated a girl named Megan in high school, and I sometimes call the dog Megan. I don’t get it.
  • Be there for your kid, even when the significant other is in the right. A corollary to this is that even after a break-up, don’t overly malign the ex because they might get back together. A former boss whose kids were a bit older than my gave me this advice: her daughter unengaged and re-engaged about three times before that relationship finally bit the dust.

As always, I invite your comments and would love to hear your almost-in-law stories.