Category: Wires

Why is there so often tension between grandparents and parents when it comes to the grandchildren?

Watching your child turn into a parent — and care for your grandchild — is one of the great joys that life has to offer. And yet, grandparents often give unsolicited opinions on the decisions that parents are making, from bedtime to mealtime to general attitudes about discipline — or pretty much anything else. As a grandparent who’s also a pediatrician of more than 30 years, I understand why it’s tempting to play the parental-experience card (not to mention the medical training card), but the better part of valor is to wait and give advice only when — and if — you’re asked for it.

We’ve had our innings. We got to make each and every one of those decisions when we were bringing up our own children, and, child-rearing being what it is, we made them over and over, day after day, all those bedtimes, all those mealtimes, all those opportunities to teach, to set limits, to celebrate, to discipline.

We reared responsible adults, able to take on the complex tasks of parenting, ready to make good choices. So this is our moment to stand back and respect those choices, weigh in when we’re asked to, and recognize that there are many different ways to navigate the complex waters of parenthood.

Here are a few common mistakes grandparents make and my advice on how to become a respectful and helpful grandparent.

Failing to accept that parenting patterns change with time

There are real changes that happen over time in parenting styles. My own parents decided that they would never spank their children, which was a deliberate break from their own upbringings in the 1930s. Their parents would have seen that as moving in a permissive direction. On the other hand, they also would have thought that my parents were too preoccupied with knowing where the children were at any given moment. Still, I was allowed to walk without an adult to second grade in New York City, keeping an eye on my younger brother, which I wouldn’t have allowed my own children to do.

I couldn’t resist asking my own son, Benjamin Klass, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, who is also the father of my almost 3-year-old grandson, about his perspective. (And you can just imagine the complex dynamics of the pediatrician mother trying to decide how to give advice — or not — to the child psychiatrist son!)

He told me that even though grandparents worry all the time about how their grandchildren are doing, it can seem to parents like they don’t worry enough or realize how much parents may agonize over small issues of diet or behavior. “It’s understandable why there is a push and a pull all the time,” he said.

Thus, some grandparents want to be more casual about food treats, screen time, or even supervision, which creates conflict with parents who take them all much more seriously.

Remember that you are indeed in a different role now and may see things very differently than you did when you were the parent, with all the responsibility resting on you.

Blaming your child’s partner

You don’t want to be in conflict with your child over your grandchild. You don’t want to be in conflict with your child over your child’s partner. As much as possible, respect that parental unit, assume that your child is an integral part of the decision-making process, and remind yourself that if you love being a grandparent, you owe a good deal to the partner who made it possible. And if you do find yourself making a suggestion, treat it as a suggestion that you are in fact making to that parental unit — don’t go behind the other parent’s back.

Assuming it’s the parents’ fault when a grandchild is struggling

Remember how bad it feels to have a child who isn’t happy or isn’t doing well or is in some other way going through a bad patch? This is not the time to say “I told you so” or to point out that things in the home have been too disorganized or too strictly organized. Given the complexities of parenting, it’s rare to be able to attribute a child’s distress to any one factor, and it’s common for parents to beat themselves up over everything, including things they don’t control. If there’s a grandchild with a problem, be part of that child’s support system and part of the parents’ support system; ask them how you can help and listen when they want to talk.

Making it a fight instead of a discussion

You probably saw this coming, but I’m going to give you permission to advocate for regular pediatric care, immunizations and, within reason, to discuss other specific health-related issues. With immunizations, after all, since you’re among the older adults who will be caring for this child, you have a vested interest in knowing that said child is immunized against measles, RSV, influenza, coronavirus, etc.

You don’t want to see your grandchild sick with measles (the most infectious virus in the world) for lots of reasons. But I also tell you, as a pediatrician, these can be very hard conversations — in the home as well as in the pediatric exam room — and you have to try to stay respectful, be clear that you’re speaking out of love and concern, make your case, leave the question open if necessary, and return to it — and don’t let it dominate the relationship.

And you should certainly set a good example by making it clear that you’re getting all the recommended vaccines yourself.

Weighing in too often, especially when you weren’t asked to

You already know that picking your battles is a big part of parenting. Every parent of a toddler learns this, and every parent of an adolescent really learns it. There may turn out to be issues along the way, but choose those topics carefully — and pick your words with even more care.

The goal of this entire enterprise is to help your precious grandchild grow into a responsible adult who can make good choices. You did this once, with your own child, so you know it can be done — and the more you recognize and respect those choices as your child makes them, the more you will be honoring your new role and helping everyone involved understand what goes into making a family.

Perri Klass is a pediatrician and professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University, and author of “The Best Medicine: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future.”

Jobseekers can’t be choosy in today’s stalling U.S. labor market. Even when the job is flagging traffic for 12 hours in the Atlanta sun.

Two years ago, the chief executive officer of AQC Traffic Control fielded around 10 applications a week for long shifts directing motorists to stop or slow down near construction sites, braving both the summer heat and the winter cold. Today, Marcus Rush is seeing up to 80.

“When my office phone rings, my ears perk up because I wonder if it’s a new customer,” Rush said. “Now, every time I hear a phone ring, it’s someone calling in to check on a job application. That never used to happen.”

From substitute teachers to prison guards, staffing agencies and employers are reporting a pickup in applicants for roles often shunned for their low pay, inconsistent hours, or unpleasant conditions. Even the messy work at materials recovery facilities, where people still sort recyclables partly by hand, is fetching more takers.

With fewer businesses hiring, nearly half of employed Americans in a recent Harris Poll conducted for Bloomberg News said it would take them four months or more to find a job of similar quality if they lost their jobs today. That offers employers who have traditionally struggled to fill roles the upper hand, especially for those still reeling from rampant vacancies and a 27% gain in wages since the onset of the pandemic.

“In 2022, it was darn near impossible to find workers,” said Rick Hermanns, CEO at staffing firm HireQuest Inc., which recruits for recycling centers among other industries. Today, “that really isn’t the case.”

The job-hopping days of the COVID-19 era, dubbed the Great Resignation, have given way to the “low hire, low fire” economy. However, a recent rash of layoff announcements suggest companies have lost their fear of firing.

While overall the jobless rate remained fairly low at 4.3% in August — the latest data available as of mid-November — those out of work are lingering in unemployment for longer. Almost 26% of unemployed workers that month had been out of work for more than half a year, one of the highest shares in a decade, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Danielle Norwood is among them. The 53-year-old radio veteran spent the last three years of her career hosting a show in Topeka, Kan., until the station let her go last fall. After a brief stint as an Uber driver and countless unanswered job applications, she’s now working toward getting her substitute teacher certification. She’s leery of the horror stories, having recently read about a sub who got “kicked in the gut,” but the pay’s OK at $140 to $200 a day and she’s excited to make a difference.

“Kids don’t have the boundaries,” Norwood said. “But I think I can handle it. And financially, this is the only way I can see forward.”

In fact, firms that help school districts fill substitute teacher spots report more applicants per role lately. After a sharp drop in available subs during the pandemic, the pool eventually rebounded to around pre-COVID levels, according to a 2024 blog post by education staffing firm Edustaff. However, shortages persisted because many of the remaining subs cut back on accepting assignments and were turned off by low pay and only sporadic work, Edustaff said. Substitute teachers make about $18.50 an hour, according to the latest median wage data from the BLS.

Today, the Kansas City area’s Morgan Hunter staffing firm, which has a substitute teaching unit, has seen “our best year for hiring since COVID,” education program director Angela Hunt said in an email. The weak economy is one of a few reasons for the pickup, she said. Staffing giant Kelly Services Inc., which fills almost 6 million substitute teaching assignments a year, has also seen more applications this year, although they attribute it to professionals wanting to try education after tiring of other fields.

Likewise, firms with jobs that sometimes go begging in stronger job markets are seeing some of the best recruiting in years.

Waste Management Inc. and some of its competitors have reported better employee retention in recent earnings calls, with the Houston-based firm boasting on a call last month that turnover among garbage truck driver and technician roles “is at an all-time company low.” To be sure, recent automation of certain tasks has allowed it to keep some hard-to-fill jobs vacant.

And at materials recovery facilities — which sort homeowners’ blue-box recyclables, often using day laborers — interest from jobseekers is also higher. In HireQuest’s division that includes waste management and recycling facilities, the number of job applications per opening is up as much as 50% from a couple years ago. That’s a result of more applicants overall, as well as a reduction in open positions, a spokesperson said.

“We can fill those roles, where three years ago we would’ve been hard-pressed if a waste company called us and said, ‘We need 30 people,’” HireQuest’s Hermanns said.

In the notoriously high-turnover corrections industry, one large operator, the Georgia Department of Corrections, reports receiving more than a thousand applications in each of the past three months for all roles, including correctional officers. That’s up more than 40% from a year ago. A spokesperson for the agency attributed the interest to more advertising and job fairs.

And the U.S. military, which can be a tough sell because of the risk of danger and separation from family, is hitting its recruiting targets again, said Beth Asch, a senior principal economist who specializes in defense manpower at the think tank RAND. In 2022, the Army missed its goal by 25%, but now it and other branches report reaching their marks ahead of schedule.

“A consistent finding is when the economy gets a little worse, when the unemployment rate rises, you get an increase in enlistments in the military,” Asch said, adding that recent pay raises probably also played a role.

Nowadays, Rush is able to command employees with traffic flagging experience, whereas a couple years ago he hired almost everyone who passed a drug test and a flagging certification. Among them is Ieshia Jones, 36, a 15-year flagging veteran who joined Rush’s firm six weeks ago.

“A lot of people just can’t stand being outside in the cold or heat,” Jones said. “I love it, honestly. It makes me feel like I’m a part of something.”

Rush graduated from Stanford University with an MBA in 2020, purchasing AQC Traffic Control a year later. He’s only able to hire 15% of the workers who apply for flagging jobs these days, and chuckled when told he’s almost as selective as Stanford is in selecting first-year students.

“I never expected we would be in the position we’re in now,” Rush said.