May 2, 2025
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First: Parenting Adult Children With Compassion
In today's episode, Dr. Gene Beresin, Executive Director of the Clay Center for Young and Healthy Minds, explores the complexities of adult children returning home and maintaining healthy relationships during life transitions. Based on four decades of experience with youth and young adults plus his personal journey as a father of four whose adult children all boomeranged at some point, he offers practical wisdom for navigating these delicate family dynamics.
Drawing on revolutionary brain science, Dr. Beresin challenges our traditional understanding of development, revealing that neurobiologically, adolescence doesn't end at 18—but continues until age 26. This critical insight reshapes how we approach relationships with young adults who are still developing the neural connections between emotional impulses and rational decision-making.
For parents navigating the return of an adult child, transparency becomes essential. Conversations about finances—typically avoided in most families—need prioritization alongside discussions about household expectations, timelines, and mutual support. "The rare family that speaks openly about money," Dr. Beresin notes, "is better equipped to navigate these transitions without resentment building." The key lies in balancing empathy for the challenges young adults face with appropriate boundaries that foster continued growth.
He also reminds us of what he calls the "oxygen mask principle"—the essential reminder that both parents and adult children must attend to their own emotional regulation and self-care before attempting to help each other. When both generations put on their metaphorical oxygen masks first, they create the foundation for authentic communication, mutual respect, and relationships that continue evolving through life's inevitable transitions.
Huge thank you to Connie Gorant Fisher, our audio engineer.
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00:00 - The Oxygen Mask Principle for Parents
01:07 - Introduction to Dr. Gene Boreson
03:42 - Understanding Boomerang Kids
06:20 - Navigating Financial Conversations
18:12 - Today's Young Adults: Social Consciousness & Entitlement
23:01 - Brain Development Continues Until Age 26
29:36 - Mental Health and Developmental Needs
35:13 - Building Healthy Relationships with Adult Children
43:49 - When Parents Feel Shut Out
48:17 - Navigating Religious and Cultural Differences
51:59 - Final Thoughts and Clay Center Resources
WEBVTT
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One important principle.
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I think that applies to both parents and teens and young adults themselves.
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For the parents, it's like when the flight attendant says, if the oxygen drops, put the life mask on yourself first and then help the person next to you.
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If we don't control our own anxiety and our own emotional state, we can't help our kids age they are, whether they're very, very young or whether they're young adults.
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So we have to basically control our own emotions and anxiety through self-care and well-being worn out term, but it's it's, it's valid, I mean and that means diet, exercise, nutrition, good sleep you know all the things that folks talk about meditation and the same thing is true for young people that they have to learn to kind of take care of themselves and their emotions.
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Then they're in the most positive position to actually take advice, take it in, try something different.
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We all need to kind of put on our life masks together.
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We kind of put on our life masks together.
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Hey everyone, welcome to Bite your Tongue the podcast.
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Join me, your host, denise Gorin, as we explore the ins and outs of building healthy relationships with our adult children.
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Together we'll speak with experts, share heartfelt stories and get timely advice addressing topics that matter most to you.
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Get ready to dive deep and learn to build and nurture deep connections with our adult children and, of course, when to bite our tongues.
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So let's get started.
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Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Bite your Tongue the podcast.
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Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Bite your Tongue the podcast.
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We are so glad you're with us.
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Today we're answering a listener's question, but stay tuned because we're going to answer lots of other questions too, because our guest has been working with kids and younger adults for over 40 years.
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Today we're speaking to Dr Gene Boreson.
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He's Executive Director of the Clay Center for Young and Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
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He's also a full professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
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One of our listeners wrote a long email asking about issues involving a boomerang kid.
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Not your typical boomerang kid, but an adult child who leaves the nest, sets out on his or her own, is completely financially responsible, finished college, maybe even married, and then suddenly they're back in your home, sometimes even depending on you financially.
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Gene wrote an article about this a few years ago and we thought we'd get his perspective, but he reminded us that the article was written before COVID, so lots has changed and he's got a lot to share.
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So we hope to talk to Gene today about that, but also pick his brain about many other things.
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He tells me he's got a lot to say about building healthy relationships with adult children and their children.
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He's a father of four with nine grandchildren.
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Almost all of them moved home after college or between college or after grad school, and all of them have kids, making family relationships complex but incredibly rich and rewarding.
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So let's get started.
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So welcome, gene.
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We're so happy you're joining us.
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For listeners I might mention that Gene worked with Ellen for many years at both the Clay Center and at Harvard.
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So welcome again, gene.
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Did I miss anything in the introduction?
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Yeah, one thing that's new.
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Our chair, maurizio Fava, at Mass General established a division of professional and public mental health education, and what that combines is the MGH Psychiatry Academy, which is one of the largest CME programs, that's, continuing medical education programs in the country, if not the world, and with the Clay Center.
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So we do both professional education for people who are in health professions of all specialties and connect that with public mental health education for parents, caregivers, all who work with youth, and for youth themselves.
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There's certainly been a demand for mental health educational sources like this.
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Is this the first in the country, and what do you think this will offer to just the general public?
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Or why did they establish this.
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I guess I should say Well, a couple of things I should mention.
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I'm director of education and David Rubin, who runs the psych academy, is executive director.
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So you know, one of my residents from the past is now my boss.
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Oh my gosh.
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Which is great because you know the son is father to the man, which is probably not politically correct.
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I don't know how I would say it politically correctly, but at any rate it is unique.
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Many departments and programs around the country have professional education and, more rarely, public mental health education, but combining them covers the waterfront, and the whole point is that we want to create a community of professionals and everyday folks parents, teachers and young people themselves to be able to speak the same language, to talk together, to have conversations that are more sophisticated, more nuanced.
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It saves time, it's efficient and better questions are asked and better conversations occur.
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So you know, as the parents and caregivers know what to look, the three W's, as we say at the Clay Center, know what to look for, when to worry, what to do and get some answers, presumably from the Clay Center's website or YouTube channel.
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And the professionals are online and even those who are not mental health professionals, like primary care pediatricians and primary care nurse practitioners and others, know more about mental health.
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Then we're all better informed with a trusted resource and we all can actually talk with each other in a more kind of thoughtful and expedient way.
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That's great.
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Well, congratulations, because I think there's a need for this.
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There aren't enough quote-unquote mental health professionals in the world, so having others that also understand this, from nurse practitioners to internal medicine doctors, to all of this, that have a more knowledgeable view, is going to help everyone.
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So I will definitely link the Clay Center in the podcast notes so everyone knows more about this.
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So lots of help on this site too, for both young people and young adults, and I loved your three W's.
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So let's, get started here.
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We're going to start with the listener question, which I shared with you.
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She wrote a very long email that basically said parenting was a strength of hers.
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She raised her kids to be adults.
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They went to college, they got jobs and all of a sudden, at 29, her son was back home, and she didn't give the circumstances of the situation, she just said he's home, he's living here.
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I don't know what to do.
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Do I set up parameters?
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What do parents do in these kinds of situations.
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Before we talk about what they do, I think you should kind of think about what are the parental concerns, what are the young person's concerns, and then how can they work together?
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Some of the parent concerns are, and it depends whether there are any other kids home, but let's just say that there are no other kids home.
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I think she was definitely an empty nester.
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She thought she was done.
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Yeah.
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Everyone thinks they're done when they go off to college, but really the hard stuff just begins.
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The rule of thumb is that when you're a parent, you're never done, ever, ever.
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You know as a parent and then as a grandparent, that happens.
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So I think that the parental concerns are how is this going to affect my expenses?
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How is this going to affect me and anyone else who's living at home, whether it's my partner or a parent or other relatives?
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How is it going to affect the situation that we have?
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Most parents, when their adult kids come home, worry about their future.
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What does this mean?
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Are they going to get stuck here?
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What are they going to do next?
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How do I know and finally, I think you know finances?
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I mean very few people in this country have enough money in retirement savings to live a long life.
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I mean with life expectancy.
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If you make it to 85, as one primary care physician said to me at MGH, you're likely to make it to 100.
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Is that true?
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Yeah.
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Oh, dear gosh, Okay.
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Statistically it's true, but you know everybody's situation is different.
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But from 65, I mean that's an arbitrary number.
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I mean many people are working into their 70s and some people retire if they're fortunate enough in their 50s and live on Social Security and meager savings.
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But most people in this country don't have enough money to live the way they lived when they were working.
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They're trying to squirrel away money and worry about the economy, and finances get to be really important.
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So that's the parent concerns.
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Then you have the young adult concerns, and that is hopefully.
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They're thinking about things like what does this mean for my career?
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What am I going to do next If I don't have any money?
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What about my debt?
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I mean, do they have student loans that they're responsible for?
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Do they have a car that they have to pay loans on?
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And it may be that the parents used to be helping them out.
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But once they're out of college and they're supposedly launched, most parents assume that they're going to try to find a way to kind of cover their own expenses.
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How do they maintain their sense of independence and autonomy?
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I mean, you know when you leave home whether you're going to college, as 60% of young adults do 18-year-olds-ish do and 40% don't.
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You have your own space.
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I mean, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing at that age.
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You're supposed to be seeking autonomy, separation, independence, learning to navigate the world on your own, not turning to your parents for every answer to every question, and to help support yourself.
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Furthermore, to have your own space so that you can have some privacy and start building your own world.
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And then, when you go back home, for many it's kind of like going to high school again, for both the kids and for the parents.
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So those are the considerations.
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Given those considerations, the question is what do we do?
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And I think, in general, the answer is and it's complicated, it depends on each situation.
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First of all, I would have frequent conversations.
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I mean, we need to talk both about our situations, our worries, our concerns and about finances, since that's a really big concern for many, many empty nesters.
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Having another member of the household is an added expense.
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I think it's really useful to be transparent about expenses, although few people in families talk about money.
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Someone told me there's a.
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What is it?
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A 40-70 rule?
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Have you heard of it?
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70-40 rule or something Before you're 70 or when they're 40, you tell them everything about your expenses because it should be transparent to your adult children.
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In my experience, it doesn't happen.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But I think it's important.
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It's very important.
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I wrote a paper with a friend of mine, mike Jelinek, who was then chief of child psychiatry at Mass General.
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It was called Money and what.
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The bottom line of what we said was that patients will come in and they will talk about drugs, sex, rock and roll affairs, all kinds of sketchy details of their private life.
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But very few patients, as well as very few parents, tell their kids what they're making.
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If you ask a young adult what does your parent make a year, they won't know.
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They will not know Now they should for various reasons.
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But why don't we talk about what we make?
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Why is money in such a different category?
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I mean, many young people know that their parents have had affairs or have had marital conflict or have had substance use problems, that have had issues with the law, that have had unemployment.
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They had marital conflict or have had substance use problems, that have had issues with the law, that have had unemployment.
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They've been fired.
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They know a fair amount of details about the personal, social, interpersonal aspects of their parents' lives.
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But I'll bet you, if we asked 100 young people what their parents make, a small fraction would know and how much is put away for them.
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Some young people don't even know that there's a trust fund for them or that there's inheritance money put away.
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But sometimes that's good to a certain age.
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You don't want your kid to think, oh, they've got millions coming to them, so they don't launch themselves.
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So there's sort of a balance here.
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We interviewed a woman.
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You should get this book by Cameron Huddleston Mom and Dad we Need to Talk, and it basically lists exactly what you need to be talking about, because I think everything you're saying is true and I'm not 100% sure the kid has to know everything, but has to have a good sense.
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You think about a kid coming back, moving in and parents are off to Hawaii for a vacation.
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So the kid looks at that.
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Oh, they got lots of money, you know, whatever.
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That doesn't mean they have a lot of money.
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It means they saved enough so they could take this vacation, which they've wanted to do for 100 years.
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But the kid who's moved back home might think oh geez, they shop at Whole Foods or they went to Hawaii.
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They've got a lot more money so I can stay here for a while.
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So that's why I think it needs to be clear.
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So what you're saying, I think, is very important in that it's not just about money.
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It's about sharing what your goals, objectives, wishes, aspirations, plans are for the future.
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That's what I think.
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As we move into adult life together, that is, our young adult children and us.
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At home, we need to be talking about what we hope to do.
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Do we want to sell the house and downsize?
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Do we want to take trips?
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Do we want to travel and see the world?
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Do we want to live in an RV and really save money?
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And also, who's going to take care of the elderly?
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If there are the parents' parents still alive or elderly relatives, what's expected?
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What am I planning to do?
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And for the kids and for the adults to both know what their goals and aspirations are, then they can brainstorm together about their plans and they can give each other advice and they can talk with each other candidly.
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Why don't you try this?
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They can brainstorm together, they can have open conversations, but if we're not transparent, you can't have these conversations.
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The adult child has to be open to the conversations.
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I would imagine any adult child that's coming home after launching and living financially independent is a little embarrassed and mad.
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And when you're embarrassed and mad or embarrassed, I should say, and unhappy with yourself it comes out in anger a lot of times with any age person, but I think even more so when it's your adult child.
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So don't bug me, I don't know what I want to do.
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I really screwed up.
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I don't know I need to be here and you don't see movement.
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But you're empathetic too, because you know things can go wrong.
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And should our home always be a safe space for them to come to or not?
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It should always be a safe space.
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But let me put it two ways.
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First of all, even if they don't come home, they may not have left home.
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In other words, there are kids who are dependent, and so dependent on their parents that they're calling and texting every single day and multiple times a day and they really have never left home.
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They've never progressed to kind of self-sufficiency, autonomy, independence, and they're too dependent upon their parents.
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Then they're the ones that come home, who've achieved some sense of independence, and they are angry and irritable and embarrassed and ashamed, often not always or they come home and it's not that they're ashamed, they come home and it's not that they're ashamed, but they feel like they're imposing.
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And then there's the question of they're interrupting their parents' lives and it's done out of necessity.
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Then the question is well, okay, let's come up with a plan, let's come up with some ways that you can kind of feel less upset and worried and concerned.
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What can you do to contribute to the home?
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What can we do to help contribute to you, to help get you launched, and you can have, we can have an open conversation about that.
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I think that's important.
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Do you set a timeline for it?
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Absolutely Now.
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Will that timeline always work?
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Well, you know, it's like what Yogi Berra said predictions are always difficult, especially about the future.
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So you know who knows?
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I mean, nobody expected COVID to have a two and a half year lockdown and look at what that did.
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I mean that brought a lot of people home in isolation.
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Look at what the economic downturn did and, with climate change, no-transcript population.
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But we'll get to that Before we get to loneliness.
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They are among the most socially conscious groups that I've seen since the 60s.
00:18:03.767 --> 00:18:19.854
Now, when I was in college, we were dealing with the war in Vietnam, we were dealing with the civil rights movement, we were dealing with women's liberation, and it was a very exciting and important time and a big time of change.
00:18:19.854 --> 00:18:24.692
And we were extraordinarily attentive to what's going on around us in the country.
00:18:24.692 --> 00:18:29.929
And young people the Gen Zs and the millennials, by the same token are as well.
00:18:29.929 --> 00:18:46.441
They're concerned about things like climate change, about sexual assault, about health care, about disparities, not just in health care but health care, but disparities that are racial, cultural, ethnic, gender, lgbtqia+.
00:18:46.441 --> 00:18:50.441
They are very concerned about mass shootings and gun control.
00:18:50.441 --> 00:18:52.737
They are new activists.
00:18:52.737 --> 00:19:04.296
They were thwarted to some extent during COVID, but their level of social and global consciousness is quite extraordinary and, I think, extremely positive.
00:19:04.957 --> 00:19:11.921
On the other hand at the risk of alienating some of the listeners out there, there's a sense of entitlement.
00:19:11.921 --> 00:19:14.461
Out there, there's a sense of entitlement.
00:19:14.461 --> 00:19:15.142
What about me?
00:19:15.142 --> 00:19:17.443
We hear about work-life balance.
00:19:17.443 --> 00:19:40.135
What that really means is I don't want to work all the time, I want to have my comfort zone, I want to have some time to kick back and relax, and I feel entitled to that because it comes in part with, I think, a general sense of entitlement that many people feel, both kids and adults.
00:19:40.135 --> 00:19:42.343
I think it's pretty pervasive.
00:19:42.343 --> 00:20:04.500
So it's not as though one can be socially and globally conscious and aware and care but at the same time try to figure out how do I balance that with my own sense of entitlement to relax, to be with my family, to have some downtime, to not work, to take it easy, to have some time off.
00:20:04.500 --> 00:20:08.897
So it's that dialectic that we're talking about.
00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:11.165
So I wonder where this comes from.
00:20:11.165 --> 00:20:14.817
I have a couple questions and I want to ask about when you were talking about the texting.
00:20:14.817 --> 00:20:17.686
But I want to ask about this when does this come from?
00:20:17.686 --> 00:20:23.481
And is it across all socioeconomic levels, you know, is it more college educated that you think are like this?
00:20:23.481 --> 00:20:27.719
Is it more affluent families that are like this, kids that are like this?
00:20:27.719 --> 00:20:35.018
And number two, did our generation, the baby boom generation we were not as socially conscious.
00:20:35.018 --> 00:20:46.362
I think we worked very hard because we were really we're probably the first generation, I think, to have done better than our parents or something like that, whereas this next generation is having a hard time doing as well as their parents.
00:20:46.362 --> 00:20:53.483
How did our role play into what's happening right now with the millennials and Gen Xs and that sort of thing?
00:20:53.483 --> 00:20:55.657
Was it somewhat the way we were raised?
00:20:55.657 --> 00:20:56.996
Did we give them too much?
00:20:56.996 --> 00:20:59.939
Did we contribute to this in any way as parents?
00:21:00.890 --> 00:21:08.970
In my experience and all the readings I've read about these different generations, I think it's not based on how much money you make.
00:21:08.970 --> 00:21:16.638
I know kids of very affluent parents who feel guilty about born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
00:21:16.638 --> 00:21:27.398
And then there are those who don't come from such affluent families who do feel entitled, particularly those who are worried about being replaced.
00:21:27.398 --> 00:21:33.498
The fact of the matter is that there are many people in this country that are worried about the future.
00:21:33.498 --> 00:22:02.258
For example, we're working class people who are worried about artificial intelligence and jobs being lost, advances in artificial intelligence and robotics and that means job losses or those who, for whatever reason, believe that this was a white Christian country that is no longer ruling the roost and that the minority is the majority, and they're having a hard time accepting that.
00:22:02.659 --> 00:22:07.375
You know, you might call it racism or you know, and for some it's truly racist.
00:22:07.375 --> 00:22:20.993
There are there's clear and present danger among those who are angry, hateful, fearful of the change and who will take up arms if necessary to prevent this.
00:22:20.993 --> 00:22:31.136
And then there are those who are not that way but who just have a hard time understanding where they're going to fit in a new world and national order.
00:22:31.136 --> 00:22:43.567
There's a real range of attitudes that I've seen, from the extremists to the moderates, to those who can accept the fact that the world is changing.
00:22:43.567 --> 00:22:52.634
Society is changing and we need to learn to deal with it and learn to understand it, help craft the future and be empowered.
00:22:53.276 --> 00:23:04.912
So how can my generation of parents of adult children support this next generation and help our kids through these difficult times that they're having or feeling?
00:23:04.912 --> 00:23:06.134
I think you're right.
00:23:06.134 --> 00:23:08.441
There's this cross of entitlement and this cross of.
00:23:08.441 --> 00:23:14.712
I'm in this horrible environment of climate change, racism, shooting, but I really need to go to Bora Bora.
00:23:14.712 --> 00:23:15.877
What's our role?
00:23:15.877 --> 00:23:17.874
Have we just launched them and we're quiet?
00:23:18.213 --> 00:23:20.480
I think we have a very important role.
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:22.672
Let's re-look at development.
00:23:22.672 --> 00:23:29.613
The notion that when you're 18, you're an adult and you're launched and you're on your own is nonsense.
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