|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Are They Adults, Or Are They Children?
This week we’re venturing into an area I really enjoy discussing with folks who live and/or work in the family transition space.
There are so many topics to think about, as hundreds of my posts here over the last decade will attest.
But in the end, some are so fundamental that we sometimes don’t even really see them, and that’s where I want to go now.
Families I work with all have a generational transition to consider; they may be in the middle of one, currently digesting a recently completed one, or planning the next one.
What they all have in common is that they involve family members from more than one generation.
“Parents” and their “children” are simple ways to describe them in the early stages, but once the younger generation rise into adulthood, continuing to treat them as children becomes an issue.
And still calling them “the children” or “the kids” is something I’m always working to stamp out.
“Offspring”: Correct, But Off-Putting?
I wish I could recall which colleague of mine first mentioned the idea that “adult children” can be considered an oxymoron.
But it has stuck with me, and I share it often in conversation to useful effect, so it’s time to share it here as well.
As a result of trying so hard to not use the terms “children” or “kids”, I end up overusing the word “offspring”, which has its own drawbacks.
For some reason “offspring” calls to mind animal husbandry, which isn’t typically helpful.
As I prepared to write this, my adult daughter was visiting and I noted that the expressions “adult daughter” and “adult son” do not suffer from the same predicament.
So my son will always be my son, and my daughter will always be my daughter, but they have already ceased being my children, because they are now adults.
The Rising Generation > The Next Generation
The words and language we use are important, because there are connotations to just about any word that can either work for us or against us.
Many colleagues have now embraced the expression “rising generation” when speaking about the group formerly known as “next gens”.
It’s a subtle shift, but seems to be well received in most cases.
The problem with “next” is that, like tomorrow, it seems like it never actually arrives, and so the “next gen” bemoan the fact that they continue to have to wait their turn.
Of course “rising” begs its own set of questions too, including the fact that the idea of finally “getting there” remains forever elusive.
Counting the G’s
Working with families and their various generations also frequently brings us to labelling each generation with a number.
“G1” is typically assigned to the generation that created the family wealth, and their offspring are dubbed “G2”, while their grandchildren become “G3” and so on.
See: The Special Sovereignty of G1
Of course those numbers are subject to change over time.
I’m currently working with one family where the sibling group used to be part of a larger G3 with their cousins, but who we’ve now relabelled as G2, since a family liquidity event resulted in their parents and aunts and uncles each going their own way for their next chapter.
Adult-To-Adult Relationships
The biggest concern I have with people calling grown adults “children” is that it literally infantilizes them, even when it’s not being done intentionally.
One of the biggest constant challenges I work on with the families I serve is to get them to treat each other as adults.
The adult-to-adult relationships I strive to encourage are best for everyone, and within families this can be really hard.
And it also happens at both ends of life; continuing to treat those in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s as children on one end, and then having those in the “NowGen” begin to treat their parents in their 70’s and 80’s as having passed their expiry date on the other.
Acknowledge Reality, But Don’t Dwell On It
I fully recognize that families are never run in a completely democratic fashion, and certain people play more central decision-making roles than others.
But when people feel compelled to constantly “flex” their position on others, that does not bode well for long-term collaboration.
Please refrain from calling adults “children”, and stop treating grown-ups that way too.
