What couples can learn from "solo" parents
"How was Sam?" asked Beth, as her husband Gus sat down beside her on the porch.
He'd been out with his oldest friend whose wife had died last year after a long battle with breast cancer.
"It was great to see him," said Gus.
"He's struggling but pushing forward." Gus then said, "You know what was really striking?
Sam is having conversations with his kids about his financial and health planning and decision-making that they never had when Claire was alive.
It got me thinking that you and I only really talk to each other.
Maybe we need to be talking to the kids more." Sam's new approach is consistent with a finding from the Later-in-Life Conversations Study that solo parents, such as those who are divorced or widowed, have twice as many conversations with their children about later-in-life topics as do married couples.
It's a finding that makes intuitive sense.
When you have a partner beside you to fulfill your conversational needs, or you assume one of you will survive "to take care of things," there isn't the same motivation to talk to your children.
Don't leave the surviving spouse with "all the conversations" in the event of a death.
Gus and Beth saw an opportunity they had been missing.
Rather than being on autopilot and only having conversations with each other about later-in-life topics, they committed to having more conversations with their children.
Here are some reflective questions that could help Gus and Beth think about starting new conversations.
Having a "voice" input conversation is different from having a decision-making "vote" conversation.
"As we get older, there are going to be more and more decisions that impact our kids," said Beth.
"So it makes sense that we would start talking to them now instead of waiting until one of us is in Sam's shoes." The more we talk and plan as a couple, it may mask the need to talk with our children.
Get started Establish a family continuing agenda of topics people want to talk about.
It sounds like, "What later-in-life topics would you like to put on the agenda to talk about?" Senior generation Run a thought experiment in the family: If I were gone today, what would you need to know?
Next generation Acknowledge it is hard to discuss someone "not being here," but that it is an important premise for the planning process.