Parents, speak up - at right time
When Ruth Nemzoff's first child married in 1998, the Newton resident said, she received similar advice from nearly everyone she came in contact with: "Keep your mouth shut and your pocketbook open." But those words, she said, seemed crazy.
"How could I develop a new relationship with my daughter if I was to keep my mouth shut?" said Nemzoff, 67. Silence, she felt, would also mean a loss of wisdom and experience that could be shared.
As a resident scholar at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center, Nemzoff became intrigued with the relationships between parent s and their adult children. She found that across socioeconomic lines, parents would tell her, "I bite my tongue, but I have so much to say."
This shared response guided her research and the title of her book: "Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships With Your Adult Children," released this month by Macmillan Publishing. She will be discussing the book during an author's talk at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Newton Free Library's main branch, 330 Homer St.
Nemzoff, who also teaches at another Waltham institution, Bentley College, knew she was onto something big when she put out a call to the Association for Research on Mothering at York University in Toronto and began collecting stories of parents and their adult children. When she presented her findings at Brandeis, "people would not leave the lectures," said Nemzoff. "They wanted to continue discussions."
She was approached by Rosalind Chait Barnett, a senior scientist and director of the Community, Families & Work Program at the Women's Studies Research Center, to turn her research into a book.
"This very important yet underdeveloped topic needed the attention that Ruth has now given it," said Barnett. "She's very warm, patient, an excellent listener, and has a terrific sense of humor." Barnett said that when giving lectures, Nemzoff elicits stories from the audience and reframes them to help parents be self-reflective.
"She defuses the narrative so it's more constructive. Yes, something has happened," Barnett said, but Nemzoff helps parents look to the future, "which is a different and very positive approach."
Nemzoff and her husband, Dr. Harris Berman, vice dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, have four adult children, ages 40, 38, 30 and 24. She also has six grandchildren, ranging from 18 months to 8 years old, who have given her an abundant supply of situations and interactions to reflect on, she said. And when she wants to voice her concerns, or offer up an opinion, Nemzoff said, she most certainly does.
"I might not talk about it at that moment, as everything in life is timing," she noted. "But sure, I discuss my feelings."
Nemzoff said that she believes one of the most important factors in maintaining a healthy relationship with adult children is forgiving both yourself and your child for not being perfect. "And the definition of perfect changes daily," said Nemzoff. "One day it could mean being compassionate, and another day it could mean being high achieving with conflicting desires, so there is no perfection."
It's also helpful, she said, to assume that motives are good, not bad, as when an adult child does not come home for the holidays, for example. "It may be because they're busy at work and trying to support their family," said Nemzoff. While a parent might be furious and hurt that their child is not coming home, they should try to shift their thinking to "Isn't this fabulous that my child takes his or her job seriously," said Nemzoff.
In the chapter titled "Refilling the Nest," Nemzoff touches on the importance of communication when adult children move back home between jobs or schooling.
"Tell them what you expect, and invite your returning child to do the same," said Nemzoff. "Agreeing together about the rules of the house before your adult child returns may be key to preventing every out-of-place coffee cup, shoe, or T-shirt from becoming a cue to reenact past dramas."
Nemzoff encourages parents to invite communication and acknowledge that they as parents can be wrong. "If you give advice, remind adult children that they don't need to follow it," said Nemzoff. "They can and sho uld talk to others."
Nemzoff grew up in Brookline and majored in American studies at Barnard College. She taught fifth grade in Sharon for a year, then went back to school and earned a master's degree in counseling from Columbia University and a doctorate in education from Harvard. After teaching for another year, she and her husband moved to Maine while he did his medical internship and Nemzoff was a caseworker for the Welfare to Work program.
The couple then joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in India, where Berman worked as a physician and Nemzoff taught in a government school for girls in New Delhi. She said she admired the openness of the culture discussing things like birth control, and the way mothers nursed their babies in public without shame.
When they returned to the United States, Berman did his residency in New Hampshire and Nemzoff was a caseworker for the state Department of Employment Security. The couple remained in New Hampshire for 15 years, during which Nemzoff served as state representative for three terms, from 1975 through 1980. In the middle of her last term she was appointed deputy commissioner of the state Department of Health and Welfare.
Nemzoff recalls an afternoon when the Legislature was in session and needed her vote for the budget. She had given birth just four days before, and asked her colleagues to telephone 10 minutes before they were ready to vote and she'd drive down. They called, but then the debate went on and on and on.
"I did what I saw in India," said Nemzoff. "I threw a wrap around my body and nursed the baby." As she was nursing, a man came over to lobby for her support on the legislation. After a few minutes he asked how her baby was doing.
"I said, 'Oh fine, she's nursing,' and he became bright red, as he hadn't noticed." At the time, public nursing was very avant-garde, she noted.
As an adjunct assistant professor at Bentley, where she teaches gender studies, Nemzoff said, she continues to study the latest thinking.
"The parent generation is no longer just the expert," said Nemzoff. "As our children grow we continue to learn more from them and respect their expertise, whether it's professional or personal."
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