Parenting in America has become more complex, requiring more time, money, and mental energy, not just when children are young, but also as adults.
The general idea is that this must be harmful to the children, and that parents with snowplows remove obstacles and adult children miss the snowplow and still rely on the snowplow. That's what happens.
But two new Pew Research Center surveys of young people ages 18 to 34 and parents of children that age paint a more nuanced picture. In fact, most parents were found to be deeply involved in their adult children's lives, emailing them several times a week and offering advice and financial support. But in many ways, their relationship seems healthy and fulfilling.
Nine out of ten parents rate their young adult relationships with their children as good or excellent, as do eight out of ten young adults. Eight out of 10 girlfriend parents say they feel proud and hopeful about how their child's life is going, rather than anxious or disappointed.
“These parents, who are Genăƒ»Mr. Fingerman says: He studies adult and family relationships at the University of Texas at Austin.
For adult children, she said, “you'll get advice from a 50-year-old man with a lot of life experience who is incredibly invested in you and your success.”
Nor do these close relationships seem to prevent young people from reaching certain milestones of independence. Compared to their parents who were young adults in the early 1990s, they are much more likely to have attended college or have a college degree, Pew found. They are slightly more likely to have full-time jobs and have higher inflation-adjusted incomes. (However, they are much less likely to get married or have children.)
New data shows that young people are, in fact, more dependent on their parents and are less likely to text their parents for life advice, when older generations may have been solving their problems on their own. It suggests that there is. However, the impact does not seem to be completely negative.
Professor Fingerman and his colleagues found that close relationships between parents and their adult children protect them from unhealthy behaviors, and that young people who receive more support from their parents are better able to cope with change and are more satisfied with their lives. I found it to be expensive. She said the finding was “hard to believe at first” because of the assumption that parents were too involved.
Eli Lebowitz, director of the Anxiety Disorders Program at the Yale Child Study Center, said both could be true, adding, “They do rely heavily on their parents and receive a lot of positive support from them.'' I am receiving it,” he said.
In previous research, parents often expressed ambivalence about remaining involved in their adult children's lives. But Pew's research suggests that has changed, perhaps a sign they are coming to terms with it, Professor Fingerman said.
Seven in 10 parents say they are satisfied with their adult children's level of involvement in their lives. Only 7 percent say they are too involved, and a quarter want more involvement. Young people say the same thing.
When the baby boomer generation was growing up, there was a belief, rooted in the American ideal of self-sufficiency, that children should become independent after the age of 18. But social scientists say that's an anomaly in some ways. Before that, and even now, it was common for members of different generations to become more interdependent.
In the 1970s, parental involvement in the lives of young people began to increase. The transition to adulthood became longer and less clear. Once the children turned 18, they could no longer necessarily leave home for college, marriage, or employment. Parenting gradually became more intensive as people started having fewer children and investing more in their education.
In recent years, that has also meant providing more emotional support to children, research has shown: “Parents who grew up with the mindset that they actually talk about this kind of thing… “They may be the first generation of adults to have the disease,” Professor Lebowitz said.
The survey found that 6 in 10 young people said they still relied on their parents for emotional support, and a quarter of young people said they relied on their parents as well. This includes 44% of daughters who said their mothers were dependent on them.
About 7 in 10 parents of young adults say their children ask them for advice, especially about finances, work, health, and (for parents with children) parenting. This is a change from childhood, with half saying they rarely or never ask their parents for advice.
There were differences between men and women. Young people were slightly more likely to say they had a good relationship with their mothers than with their fathers. Young women communicated with their parents more often than young men.
Cultural and policy factors influence parents' involvement in their adult children's lives. In the United States, parents and children often depend on each other for child care and elder care. In many immigrant families, it is common for multiple generations to live together and support each other. And technology has made it easier to stay in touch on a regular basis.
Mark McConville, a clinical psychologist in Cleveland, said there's a greater understanding that children have different needs and less stigma about helping them. Consider a bright teenager with ADHD, he said. A generation ago, his potential might have been cut short. Now his parents have identified the problem and found a program to support him, making it much more likely that he will attend college.
He said a small number of young people have a hard time starting an independent life (the subject of his book Failed to Launch: When Your 20s Don't Grow Up…And What to Do About It). But overall, she said, “a newfound prioritization of relationships with children and meeting their needs” will help children succeed.
Economic factors have also changed. Young people are more likely to have student debt than their parents were, with 43% of those in their late 20s having student debt, compared to 28% when their parents were that age, Pew found. It has been found that even if people buy a house, they will buy it later.
Partly as a result, parents financially support their children for longer periods of time. One-third of young people told Pew that they are not financially independent from their parents. They are slightly more likely to live with their parents than previous generations.
But for many families, support in the form of money or housing can also be beneficial for parents. Three-quarters of young people living at home had financial assistance. Last year, a third of young people provided financial assistance to their parents, especially in low-income households.
And the majority of parents in such situations with adult children living at home say it has had a positive impact on their relationships.
“I think we need to recognize that there is a two-way relationship going on,” Professor Fingerman said. “They're not all living spoiled lives in basements. They're kids who have good relationships with their parents.”
