Too Tight? Or Just Right?
Their children have grown up. But parents of this generation don't want to let go - and neither do their kids.
Jan Bickford shares a unique bond with her daughter Aisha.
MOM IS SLEEPING OVER IN THE DORM TONIGHT. SHE'S ON an air mattress on the floor in her sophomore son's room at Yale. It's not parents' weekend or even her son's birthday. Just a quick fall visit to check in, dine out, and catch up. At around 11 o'clock, college boy heads out to a party, and amid the chaos and din of dorm life, Mom tucks herself in to bed. It goes without saying that the mom is a boomer. College administrators don't keep statistics on this sort of behavior, but ask around and you'll find boomer dads and moms (who were born between 1946 and 1964) camping out on their kids' sofas and futons, in their apartments and dorms, with some regularity. It's fine with the kids, the staff, and with roommates.
This is a far cry from when boomers were in college themselves, when parents dropped their kids off and picked them up four years later when they graduated. But then there really wasn't a parents' weekend (or family weekend, as it's called at some schools now) back then. Why would you want your parents visiting anyway? They were, after all, your parents.
Boomers have put lots of energy into parenting - they invented kid-centricity and quality time - so why cut the cord now? Why cut the cord ever? Gen Y kids call and text their parents constantly and want them around. (Witness the family sleepover.) They share their parents' values and have reached adulthood without dropping off the family radar screen. Millions of today's 77 million boomers have kids in their mid- to late 20s, and the word on the street, on campuses, and in the workplace is that they're more than helicopter parents; these boomers are hovering, albeit lovingly, over their kids not only during the college years but well afterward.
Liz Rosen, 35, lives about a mile from her parents in Waltham (mom's a boomer, her dad was born a year before the boom) and says they couldn't be closer. "We all drop in on each other, have each other's keys," she says. "We listen to the same music, everything from Pearl Jam to Sarah McLachlan to Ray LaMontagne. My mother and my sister are my best friends in the world. . . . I tell them everything."
Tom and Tamara Erickson of Carlisle, both 54, have been married for 30 years and have two kids, David, 23, and Kate, 19. "We go to the movies together, we vacation together, Tom and David love to snowboard together," Tamara says. "I was sitting on the chairlift once when the woman next to me looked down and said, 'Look at those two teenage guys snowboarding,' and I said, 'Actually, those two teenagers are mine, except one is my husband!' " Translation: Boomer parents are hip and cool, like Sally Field on ABC's Brothers & Sisters. Why wouldn't kids want them around?
There are common sense explanations - societal and generational - for all this family closeness. Boomers rebelled against authority when they were young and vowed never to be authoritarian parents. They'd spend time with their kids, learn to snowboard and play soccer with them, go to concerts and get tattoos together, be like friend-moms and friend-dads. They'd connect and be on call and share unlimited Family Minutes (paid for by mom and dad). This new breed of parents - forever young, that's why they like the label baby boomer - is embracing the next phase of parenting like the last: with a passion.
Jan Bickford, 54, of Hingham talks daily with her 22-year-old daughter Aisha. When she visits Aisha and stays at her apartment in New York, they sleep in the same bed. Jan has been a single parent since Aisha was born, and the two share a unique bond. More than a third of boomers don't have a spouse present, and while that makes for challenging family relationships, it also brings kids closer to the parent they spend the most time with.
Is there a downside to all this open and free family love? "I think being so involved with our kids causes us to worry more about them because we know so much about their lives," says Carol Lewis, 62, who recently moved to New York from Boston, in part to be closer to her 23-year-old son. "I share everything with him and he shares everything with me. Sometimes you go, 'Gee, I wish I didn't know that about my child.' " There's also a danger of crossing the line from supporting to smothering, or of living vicariously through one's children and relying on them for far too much emotional nourishment.
Still, the pluses outweigh the minuses. "I don't believe we're rearing a generation of kids that are helpless or overly dependent," says Tamara Erickson, a business consultant and author. "I simply think they like their parents." And the kids will continue to stay close to their parents, she adds. "At a figurative level, I don't think they'll ever leave." More than 80 percent of boomers are still working, and it's predicted they'll continue working for some time to come, given the state of the economy and their nest eggs. When Erickson talks with other boomers about the future, here's what she advises them: "Pick a type of work that takes into account that your kids are likely going to be near you. 'Do I want the summers off so I can be with grandkids during the summer? How do I want to think about my life in terms of having these close relationships with my kids?'"
Not that boomers don't have lives of their own. Tom Erickson, once a passionate golfer, gave up the sport 12 years ago when his kids were young in order to spend more time with them. Now his children are grown, and Erickson is picking up where he left off. He retired from his job as a research chemist five years ago, began a second career as a science teacher at the Middlesex School in Concord, and is back on the golf course. "There is a life after kids," Erickson says. At least, until there are grandchildren.
Cambridge writer Marianne Jacobbi is a frequent contributor to the Globe Magazine. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.
