>> Welcome to "The Aaron Harber Show."

My special guest in a two-part series is Dr. Laurence Steinberg.

He is author of "You and Your Adult Child."

First of all, I love the book.

One of the things I love about the way you wrote it, and I have lots of questions and many criticisms which I think you'll enjoy, but the way you wrote it it is something that parents can read and adult children and teenagers could read and enjoy this and grandparents can read it and get something out of it.

So I mean was that your intent?

>> So, I have an interesting story to tell.

>> Please.

>> When I wrote the book I was aiming toward parents with adult children.

Coming up with the phrase of what we're going to call these kids was a challenge in and of itself.

Adult children sounds like difficult little kids or immature adults and I don't mean either of those.

The book was written for the parents and when I recorded the audiobook for this I worked with two people in their mid to late 20s.

The producer and the sound engineer.

And neither of them had read the book, but they had to listen to me very carefully because when you do an audiobook you make mistakes and you flub certain sentences, and they're trying to say you have to say that word again, that was muffled, or there was a clicking sound.

So they're paying close attention and this is their first exposure to the material.

After the first day, the young woman who was the producer, about 27 or 28 years old takes me aside and said my parents have to read this book because they don't understand me at all.

And honestly, like the same thing happened two days later with the sound engineer who came up to me and said "I'm going to get a copy of this for my parents, they don't understand me."

So I realized it was too late to do anything because the book was written, but I realized there was a lot in here for adult children, young people, to understand about their relationship with their parents and why their parents may treat them in a certain way and what is going on in their family.

>> I thought that was great.

Let's talk about nomenclature for a second.

I didn't like this phrase.

I thought it was dissonET like smart moron or good killer.

Owe know I thought young adult really to me sums it up more accurately.

You're saying someone is an adult, and when you're 20 or 21 you have an opportunity to be an adult or to have adult experiences, but your brain is not fully formed, your tendency to make mistakes is greater.

That is one area of disagreement.

I noticed in the book, though, you didn't use the phrase adult child that frequently.

So I kind of felt that you subconsciously moved away from that a little bit, but give me your take on that.

>> Well, we struggled with this.

We meaning my editor and I.

We went through a number of iterations.

And they're always kids, by the way, some people find that term offensive.

I don't at all.

But the kids that we're talking about are in their 20s and their 30s.

And I think when people hear the phrase young adult, they're thinking about people in their 20s, probably their early 20s.

In had my field of developmental psychology we use young adult for 21 to 25 or 26, around there.

We didn't want to exclude any audience.

What do you call these people?

Now we could have done you and your adult son or daughter.

That is so cumbersome.

We went around and around, I would say for a month about what to do.

And there was a, you know, there was one iteration that was like you and your 20 or 30-year-old or something like that.

We thought this was the simplest, imperfect, but simplest way to let readers know what the book is about.

One reader called me out on Amazon and said how could you possibly use that phrase?

Your editor should have told you not to use that phrase as if we didn't talk about the book title.

So I understand, if you have a suggestion, young adult doesn't work for me, but if you have a better suggestion I'm all ears.

>> Young adult works for me and if you ask people in their 20s and especially over the age 25, adult child, I think you would get a lot of resistance.

I think a lot of them would find it offensive.

>> I don't know many people over 25 that want to be described no matter what word may proceed it, as a child.

>> Yes, I agree.

I have not gotten pushback from people that age and I have spoken with a lot of people that age about the book.

I think also, and I'm sure we'll get to this later in our conversation, there are, you know, a big theme of the book is that there is still a lot of active parenting going on in this time in a family's life.

And I think reminding people that this young person is somebody's child is an important part of what the message of the book is.

>> Sure.

So you talk about active parenting and how long it goes on today.

But what is your take on how much people think about what it means to be a parent before they have a child or children?

I know a lot of parents think about it after they had a child, but then it is too late.

How much thought goes into that, number one?

And given this phenomenon that young adults or adult children are in the home longer, they have much greater challenges in terms of achieving adult objectives and milestones.

Getting a job, getting married, having a career, getting a home, whatever the case may be.

That means that you're going to be a much more active parent.

You'll always be a parent, but you'll -- the parent of being an active parent has obviously lengthened.

Do you think that many people are considering that when they're making a decision whether or not to have a child?

>> Well, I think that most people when they decide to have a child, they're thinking about having a baby.

And they're probably not thinking much further in the future than that.

I mean most parents that I know will go out and buy baby books when they are pregnant.

Because they don't know how to put a diaper on, put a baby to sleep, or so on.

>> Maybe vodka.

>> Funny story there.

My son who is now an adult was very, very young infant, he would go through this -- as many kids that age do, a really difficult time around 4:30 or 5:30 or 6:00 in the around.

And it got to be very frustrating.

>> By the way my reference to vodka was for the parents.

>> That will be to my point.

We asked the pediatrician if he had suggestions, and he said have you tried white wine?

And I said you want us to give white wine to a baby?

And he said no no, you and your wife pour a glass of wine and this will pass.

So then I think that parents understand in the abstract that their child will go through different developmental fazes.

And then they're caught off guard, right?

Your child becomes a toddler and they all of a sudden they're talking to you, they're challenging you, they're saying no.

They're being oppositional.

And they might run out to the bookstore and get a book for parenting toddlers.

But they won't be thinking about what is going to happen when their toddler becomes, you know, a school aged child, a teenager, or whatever.

I will say that I don't think very many parents at all anticipate being actively involved as parents after their child has left adolescence.

Maybe a little bit, you know, paying for college or that sort of thing.

Which, if I may, telling you about the origin of the book.

That is informative, I think.

It wasn't my idea.

I wish I would say it was my idea, but it wasn't.

AARP which as you know represents and supports and advocates from people 50 and older were hearing from members that they were having trouble parenting their adult child.

They didn't know what to do.

And they went out and they could not find any resources.

They didn't expect to have to deal with all of these issues.

So AARP and Simon and Shuster have a long relationship of doing books together.

And so they called Simon and Shuster and luckily for me the person that answered the phone that day was my editor.

And they said can you find us somebody to write a book for parents of adult children?

>> And she said I have just the person.

>> Yeah, Amon called my agent who called me and said are you interested in doing this book?

>> That is a wild story.

For those that know the publishing industry, because -- that is a lightning strike story.

>> Absolutely.

This is not my first book.

As an author you're usually pitching the idea to multiple publishers to try to get somebody interested in doing the book.

And here, they're coming to me saying would you be interested in writing this book?

Well AARP said "and we'll promote it and advertise it."

AARP has 37 million members.

Their magazine is the largest circulation in the world.

So when I was approached to do a book that would be marketed by an organization that had the capacity to reach 37 million people, you would have to be out of your mind to say no.

>> I'm sure you said give me ten seconds to think about it.

>> Exactly.

>> What about when the issue of deciding to have a child?

How much of that do you believe is biologically driven?

Certainly that is a key part of people's desire to have a child.

>> I think a lot of it is.

I think that the timing of it maybe isn't so specifically biologically driven but maybe by the circumstances in a couple's life at that time, or in a person's life at that time.

Saying does this feel like the right thing to do now?

You know we know that fertility declines after a certain age.

So particularly for men but also for men, and so there is that, you know, ticking clock there and people that may have a a biological inclination, but they say we're not financially ready to start a family.

As they get closer and closer to 35 and 40 and about can whether or not they can conceive, they say we'll have to take the plunge now or not at all.

But sure, we would not have survived as a species if there wasn't some biological force inclining us toward having children.

>> So look at it from the perspective of that continuum of say 20 to 40.

Where say in the past, women were having children primarily in their 20s.

You now have people, especially men, males, young adults, whatever.

They're taking that 20 year continuum and have eliminated half of it.

And so now they're looking to have kids in their 30s with a partner who was likely in her 30s.

But the reality is despite the fact that our longevity has increased, at least until the last few years, our life span has increased, and I think with that increase there has been a misperception on the part of the general public that a woman's child bearing years have increased.

The reality is, scientifically and medically, that most women after 35 enter a period of decline in terms of their ability to conceive and for most women after 40 it becomes fairly difficult and certainly after 45 for most very difficult.

So you have a very short window now.

How does that impact decision making?

How does that impact family decisions?

How does that impact population growth?

>> I think that we know people are having fewer children, and we know there has been an increase in the percentage of married couples that are happy to be childless.

We have good data on that.

Maybe this is part of it.

>> Also people are getting married later.

If you're getting married later you have a shorter period of time where that biological imperative is so great.

Especially for a woman in her 30s, probably greatly affected more so than I would guess most men by that imperative.

If she is getting married at 42 or 45 or whatever -- >> That is also rare.

I think if you look at, and I looked at this data for writing the book, that for college-educated people, at least, they're typically getting married, you know, between 30 and 35.

That is the average age.

But it is getting close to that time where your fertility is going to decline.

I think we have to add into the mix new technologies.

IVF and people freezing their eggs and so on.

That has lengthened the window, but -- >> But the percentage of the population that has access to those options is really small.

>> Exactly, small.

And it is also the case -- and I did not know this until I began doing some research for this, that the success of IVF declines with the age of the mother and the age of the father, also.

So even if you conceive the embryo at your early 30s, and you're waiting until your 40s to have the child, your chances of having a successful fertilization process are lower than had you done it in your 30s.

So that technology helps extend the window, but it doesn't make it limitless.

>> And obviously cost is a factor.

And when you look at your research and I think the reality is that if someone is still at home at the age of 29, is not on a career path, may not have completed college, obviously not financially secure, that person is unlikely, even several years later to be able to afford IVF or some of those options.

>> So just expanding this a little bit, once I decided that I would accept this offer and write the book, I had the hard work of figuring out I wanted to say.

It is very different from writing a book for parents with infants.

You kind of know the topics.

I wasn't sure what topics were and my editor, and this is a very wise decision on his part, wanted a narrative framework for this.

It is an encyclopedia of what is happening.

It seems to me that the most important part of the story is the changing time line -- timeline of these years of life.

I had done some thinking about that.

My last book "Age of Opportunity" was about the elongation of adolescence and the delayed transition into adulthood and the affect that that was having on young people.

As I began to plot this book out, I started thinking that you have not thought at all about what the effort is on parents on this.

It has to affect them.

For example, you might have thought it was perfectly normal to comment on your child's choice of a potential spouse when they were 20 or 22 years old, right?

Because they're still, you know, you're still very involved with their parent, and you feel it is your place -- what if your child is 33.

Now do you feel -- it is the same task.

>> I would feel the same way.

>> But you might not feel as free to express your opinion.

I mean the other thing is that we will get to this because it is a big issue on everybody's mind, the financial support issue.

I don't think that there are a lot of parents out there that expected to be supporting their child when their child was 29 or 30 years old.

And by the same token, I don't think there is many 29 and 30-year-olds that were expecting that when they got to that age they would need to ask their parents to help financially.

Dealing with that is a real challenging issue for lots of families.

Because it raises questions of how much control as parents should you have over what your adult child does with the money that you're giving them.

Should you say we're only going to give you money if you use it for X, Y, and z?

Or should you let your child -- you say I'm supporting you and you can use the money how you want to use it?

And this is what I think was one of the questions that was driving AARP.

Because the members were saying we never thought we were going to have to face this kind of issue.

And can you help us with this?

It is a challenge.

>> And if you're financially supporting a child for an extra ten years, that is going to impact your ability to retire.

And a whole series of life choices that a single parent or as a husband/wife.

One of the things that you were talking about was just kind of what happened chronologically.

So there was an article, I think in the Atlantic, and I want today read some of the statistics, too.

In the late 19th century, youth achieved the markers of adulthood in ages similar to youth today.

Despite the fact that life expectancy was less than 50 years.

In 1890 the median age for men for marriage was 26 years old.

You lived more than half of your life before you even got married.

In 1900 41% of adults, ages 18-29, lived with their parents crisising to 48% in the after math of the great depression.

That number dipped in 1960 and then rose steadily to 47% in early 2020 before the pandemic shut downs which, I'm sure -- it skyrocketed.

So it seems when you look at those patterns, that you've had these shifts, that what is happening today isn't new, number one.

And when I look at it, it seems to be more a function of economic and financial issues than developmental.

>> I agree, and what we really need to explain is why the transition started occurring earlier and earlier as we moved from the 1890s into the 1950s and 1960s, right?

And then they started to go back up again to later and later ages.

It is something that I guess I would refer to as the "Leave it to Beaver" idea.

That that becomes the comparison point.

So when we look at people today, delaying marriage until their early 30s, and we say that seems very odd.

It wouldn't have been that odd 150 years ago.

>> Or 100 years ago.

>> But it was odd during the cleavers.

>> I know we only have a few minutes left in this segment, but the argument is actually that the baby boomers were the outlier.

>> Yes, exactly.

>> And that was happening now is more normal, historically, than what happened with the baby boomer generation.

>> Yes.

Historically and in some senses culturally.

There is many parts of the world where it would not be seen as abnormal at all to be living with your parents when you were in your late 20s or early 30s.

>> Or even later.

In some societies, that actually was an intentional part of a family unit that, you know, it may have been an agrarian operation.

You wanted the adult kids close to you and involved and being part of supporting the family.

>> In American culture, we place a huge premium on independence.

Huge.

Probably more than any other place in the world.

As I joke in the book, the movie was called "Failure to Launch."

Not congratulations on moving back in with your parents.

For us we take that as a sign of failure.

Or as a sign that gee, did we as parents do something wrong?

That our child is not able to support themselves or even the young people themselves say I didn't think I would be moving back into my childhood bedroom.

You know, during the pandemic -- >> My daughter has never moved out.

>> How old is she?

>> Well, it will date the show, but in the later range of -- and I'm sure if someone asks, a friend and I have a bet, and we think the situation will not change for another ten years.

>> I don't want to get too personal -- >> You're welcome to.

>> I can just say from experience as a professor, I teach courses in adolescent development.

I was teaching a senior seminar, and I was teaching it remotely and I divided them up into small groups because I knew that zoom meetings with 20 people in them are not going to do anything.

So I got to know the students very well.

A lot of them were taking this class from their child bedroom.

And I still have the images in my mind of these, mostly young women, that's who usually majors in psychology these days.

>> Young women are most of the college students.

>> Taking my class, sitting in their childhood bed with their stuffed animals around them.

They are 22-year-olds.

I would say to them how do you feel about, you know, moving back in with your parents?

Of course in adolescence it's not that long ago for the students.

>> What did they say?

>> They said it's not what I would want to be doing, but it's okay.

And many said I really got to know my parents much better than I ever did before because I see them as people.

We talk about what is going on at work.

And you know if their life and how they're thinking about themselves and whatever.

I don't do this -- I don't think is bad at all.

And I think if you ask most young people I think they would say it is not as bad as I thought it would be.

I don't know what the affect is for parents who thought they were getting a big empty nest, and someone is occupying the room that would be the study they thought they would finally have, and now is still a childhood bedroom,ly ask you.

>> I'll defer, but I will confess do I have stuffed animals, so maybe I'm in great greater psychological trouble than you realize into that is the end of part one with Dr. Laurence Steinberg.

Thank you for watching.

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