The return of an adult child to the empty nest can test the patience of everyone involved. What starts out as a temporary arrangement ("a place to stay until I get my own place") very often turns into a long-term arrangement. Even when parents and adult children are on good terms, the return of adult to his or her parent’s home can become claustrophobic. For the adult children who once had a home of his or her own relearning and living the "house rules" can be very demanding. Very often children get along much better with the parents at a distance, and adult children who return to a nest they thought they had left forever can find old issues resurfacing. The situation percolates and soon recriminations bubble to the top.

Moreover, grandparents, who imagined themselves on the cusp of the golden years of retirement, have found themselves pressed into duty as surrogate parents when, for example, an adult daughter finds herself unexpectedly returning to the workforce in the aftermath of a divorce and now in need of a baby-sitter. Many grandmothers have found themselves in the role of second mother’s to their grown children’s children. While this routine may brings joys, it also can disrupt the routines of older parents who imagined their days of child care behind them.

In intact families, grandparents get the best of two worlds: the joys of the children without the responsibilities for their upbringing. In families fractured by divorce, grandchildren can become weapons in proxy battled against alienated spouses. When a marriages crashes on the rocks, the once-favored daughter-in-law or son-in-law may drift away, or worse, become an enemy if the family takes sides.

The return of the adult child who needs a place to live and grandparents as surrogate parents can force postponement of long-term plans, for example, the sale of the house or travel. At times, postdivorce financial hardship means that mother and dad find themselves with unexpected financial burdens.

By the same token, the relocation of a custodial parent very often means one set of grandparents no longer have easy access to their grandchildren. And sometimes these relocations escalate to battles where grandparents fight for visitation rights with their own grandchildren. These battles poison the well from which a family, intact or broken, must drink.

See also Visitation, Grandparents’.

Your Suggestion

1. Grandparents and Divorce
   Divorce effects many people in the family, and often the grandparents of both spouses experience pain, grief, and new responsibilities. Many find themselves being recruited into new roles just as they are about to retire. For many, retirement plans are postponed and new duties are added-both financial and emotionally.
   Contributed on 12/27/2007 by: Michele Seligman LCSW,BCD Ridgewood, NJ [Total Contributions: 6]

   Category: Grandparents Rights   (Applicable in All States)
2. Inviting Your Child To Live With You After they Divorce
   Often adult children return to live temporarily (and sometimes this becomes a very long-term arrangement) back to their parents home. This can mean the older generation must postpone a planned sale of their house, and if there are young children to be cared for, they may be required to postpone traveling plans.
   Contributed on 12/27/2007 by: Michele Seligman LCSW,BCD Ridgewood, NJ [Total Contributions: 6]

   Category: Grandparents Rights   (Applicable in All States)
3. Grandparents Helping to take Care of the Children
   Depending upon custody arrangements and financial issues, woman who have been homemakers may need to return to work, men who work full time will need help with the children after school or during work or business commitments. In amicable divorces parents can work with both sets of grandparents to work out these arrangements, but it becomes more difficult when hostility and anger are escalated.
   Contributed on 12/27/2007 by: Michele Seligman LCSW,BCD Ridgewood, NJ [Total Contributions: 6]

   Category: Grandparents Rights   (Applicable in All States)
4. Moving Back in With Your Parents After Divorce
   Children returning to their parent’s home as adults may find some of the old childhood issues between themselves and their parents surfacing. The favored daughter-in-law or son-in law may be seen as the enemy. Children may be used as weapons against their beloved grandparents, or as tools to get what is wanted.
   Contributed on 12/27/2007 by: Michele Seligman LCSW,BCD Ridgewood, NJ [Total Contributions: 6]

   Category: Grandparents Rights   (Applicable in All States)

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