Adult Children

There are many reasons why a mother- and a daughter-in-law are quiet or reserved around each other. At times, people overstep the boundaries others have set up for them. That causes one party to be angry with the other…

Has anyone had the experience of giving birth over 40? Perhaps conflict and turbulence were an accepted part of your marriage or life without a partner and pregnancy? For sure, it was part of mine…

Mothering is filled with both blessings and pain. Not too long ago, one of my children was estranged from me. It was not how I envisioned a relationship with an adult child. At the time, I wasn’t completely sure where she was living and had no reliable way to contact her…

If we haven’t already, we need to make sure we’ve had “the talk” with our children by the time we reach retirement. This does not refer to the infamous sex talk we have with our children during their pre-teen stage, but about our end-of-life…

“How’s everything?” I innocently asked someone whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. She immediately said everything was fine. She added that one child was entering high school and the other starting his senior year in high school so…

The older we get, the more often we find ourselves looking back and musing on the trajectory of our lives. Did we get it right? Or is there, indeed, one right way? There are many dimensions to such questions, but here I want…

At some point, we women of a certain age start to question how much our offspring really know about us and our lives. All too often the answer comes back, “not much.” We live such fast-paced and overscheduled lives…

Estrangement is widespread, complicated, and harms all involved. Perhaps you have chosen to cut off from a family member out of necessity. Your experience may include abuse, poor parenting, parental alienation, divorce, poor communication…

A recent visit to my daughter’s home and the celebration of Mother’s Day struck a nerve in me. I felt sad (as I have at times before) and wished I had been a better mom to my two daughters. Especially now, as I observe my first-born parenting…

Family estrangement for women in their 60s is more common than you think. More than 70 million people in the United States report experiencing estrangement from family members. For some, estrangement is a choice due to self-preservation…