July 22, 2025 • 39 mins
Extended family relationships: they can be wonderful, and they can be hard!
In today's episode, Sarah and Laura talk through some common challenges in this arena -- from conflict over traveling for the holidays to family members as babysitters -- and provide ideas that might help make things a little bit easier.
Plus, family text chains and a thought-provoking question: what kind of role do you see yourself playing as an extended family member in 20-30 years?
In the Q&A, a listener with young kids writes in asking about the logistics of doing remote work in a different location over the summer
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in mid to late July. We are
(00:46):
going to be talking extended family management. So many people,
of course have extended families, which is a good thing
in life in general, but it can introduce some complications
and some logistical challenges as you're trying to figure out
how to manage that in addition to all the other
things that you have going on in your life. So
(01:10):
real quick questions, Sarah, do you see more of your
family or your husband's family.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I would say I think it's kind of different. I
do see more of my husband's family on a regular basis,
but it's not like I have multi day adventures with
them versus because my family lives farther. When I do
go to see them, it's generally for longer a period
of time.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, I mean it's sort of similar split, although the
other direction with us, we live closer to members of
my family, so when we see them, I mean, we
can see them more frequently, but it would be shorter
when we do, Like we would pretty much never stay
overnight in New Jersey when visiting family there. My husband's
(01:52):
family nobody lives that close, so it tends to be
a longer trip if we are seeing them, but we
probably see them less frequently. But yeah, this episode is
all about extended family management and just a couple of
things to talk about it with it first, I mean,
people's lives are so different in this regard. There's some
aspects of life that could be similar people to people.
(02:13):
But as we started talking to people for this episode,
you realize that some people live like in the same
town as dozens of their immediate family members, and some
people live across the country across the world from like
one other family member. There are varying expectations on either
side of what these relationships should look like. Some people,
(02:36):
it's going to be an expectation of seeing each other
all the time. Some people that is not the case.
Just one other thing is that this episode is not
necessarily about dealing with aging parents, although that obviously plays
into the idea of extended family management, but that's just
(02:57):
an entirely separate can ofform so not getting in to
all that also will not be tremendously personal. Just our
families may listen to this episode too. But we did
talk to a ton of people about this as we
were coming up with the episode, So Sarah, maybe you
mentioned why you thought we should do this episode too.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, this is such a universal thing. Everyone has to
manage it, and I think there are so many thoughts
about there being a right way to do it, and
I think that getting a sense of the very different
ways that people manage this, from having older relatives live
in their house to being on completely different continents and
not having any consistent content like there is no one
(03:35):
right way. Everyone can choose what works for them. And
that applies both to us as these middle sandwich generations
many of us, and it applies to the older generation
and how much they choose to remain involved in their kids.
And hopefully there's not a big mismatch and people's desires,
and I guess that the overarching thing was like, Okay, interesting,
everyone has to find some sort of compromise.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, So we started organizing this episode by a
few overarching principles that can help as you think about
how to manage whatever the different situation you happen to
be dealing with versus other people you know might be
dealing with. The first is that extended family management. We're
going to imagine that most of our listeners are female,
(04:22):
but extended family management is not your job alone. If
you happen to be in a two parent family that
you have a partner, the most logical setup is that
each of you is responsible for your own relationships with
the extended family on your side, right, So you are
(04:44):
responsible for your extended family management. Your partner is responsible
for his or her extended family management. And the expectation
is not that one partner would deal with all of
it for everyone, right. And I think this is important
to realize. I saw a book that was being advertised
recently about managing the mother in law relationship, and I
(05:05):
realized how hard it would be to sell a book
about the son father in law relationship. People would be like,
no one's going to read that, like that's not a thing.
I mean, people just don't still expect men to be
managing these cross family relationships or that it would be
a source of huge drama like how to deal with
your father in law disapproving of how you are being
(05:25):
a dad or something like that. You just like that
book does not exist because people are still not walking
around with that story, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Super super interesting And I haven't done a lot of
thinking about this myself. I was reflecting on why, and
I think it has to do with the fact that
I met my in law so young that like I
don't know, like they've known me for more than half
my life at this point, and so there is like
a little bit of a parental takeover, not to replace
my own parents, but yeah, for us, I think it
(05:55):
gets a little messier in that I feel like I
want to manage that relationship too because it's so long
standing as well, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, but just that it shouldn't be seen as primarily
your responsibility, like you know, totally, like if your mother
in law didn't get a birthday present, it would not
be that everyone thinks Sarah is doing something wrong, right.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I mean, everyone probably would, but it shouldn't be that.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
It shouldn't be that. Yeah, And related to that, I
saw another social media post that was complaining that in
this day and age, the mother in law shouldn't be
iced out, that the mother in law should be just
as important a relationship, and I was like, well, that's
the wrong way to view it. It's not that. Like,
what it is is that if a mother in law
is sort of iced out, it's because the son is
(06:37):
not managing that relationship, is not doing like the emotional
labor to keep that relationship going and like making sure
that he knows the schedule well enough that they are
able to see them and like that. It works into everything,
you know, and it's not doing the calls and doing
the right you know. It's like, it's not that she's
iced out, it's that each person is responsible for their
(06:57):
own family management. And if you're son is not doing that,
that's not on your daughter in law to make it happen, right,
So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And joking aside, I actually don't really manage gifts for
my in laws because we're not like a super gifty
family and it's seen as like a bonus. So I
feel like if it's going to happen, it can be him,
and he does it when it feels right, like bringing
flowers for around Mother's Day, or we just forgo gifts
and everyone's fine. So yeah, I think gifts are actually
(07:28):
an interesting way to gauge to ask yourself that question
like who is in charge of this relationship and if
you feel like you wouldn't be awkward to show up
around their birthday or like who would kind of get
the blame, then that would kind of answer that question.
If you didn't have a gift.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
We definitely split it that who is responsible for each
of the gifts as I am my family, Michael is
his family, and that's just the way we have set
it up with that. Another general principle is that if
there is any drama for anyone, we're not saying any
of our listeners ever would have that happen. But as
(08:07):
an adult, you get to choose who to have a
relationship with, right and even if the answer isn't no relationship,
you do get to set boundaries around it. You get
to decide how much effort you are going to put
into things. And where this came up. We saw mention
this on our Patreon page, like, if you, for instance,
(08:28):
have three small children, and other relatives do not have
three small children, it is not necessarily fair of them
to expect that all contact will be you getting on
the plane with three small children to go see them.
And you can decide that you're not going to do
it right, You're say like, we would love to see you.
It's really hard, expensive, challenging to get three small children
(08:51):
on the plane. Open invitation comes see us whenever you want.
They can whine about it. But Sarah and I have
both been reading the Mel Robbins book the let Them Theory,
which is that you can also just let them whine
about it. That doesn't mean that you have to do
(09:11):
anything about it.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, I think this is really great. I think that.
And interestingly, you said something like we're open to have
you visit. That doesn't even mean we're open to have
you stay in our house, because depending on you might
live in a New York City apartment that night might
not be feasible. But it doesn't preclude someone else coming in,
renting a hotel two blocks away, or whatever it is.
It's going to take time, money, and effort. To bring
(09:36):
fur floung relatives together, and everyone can choose whether they
want to expend that effort, and the other side can
be fine with, Okay, you're not traveling, but then they
can't be mad about not seeing you if they're not
willing to make the effort either. So I'm with you.
I mean, I've come up basically with my own policy
around this, which works really well and I think keeps
everyone reasonably happy, which is I've just decided I'll come
(09:58):
to Philadelphia twice a year. I try to one in
the summer, one in the winter. The dates vary a
little bit, although I've gotten into a quite of a
Fourth of July groove the last four years. And bonus,
Laura lives there too, so I'm able to have like
a friend trip and a family trip in one and
so everyone seems okay with that. Thankfully. I haven't heard like,
(10:18):
we want to see you more. I'm like, great, you
know where Florida is. It's not that far and you
can buy a ticket. But everyone seems okay with the
current situation, so we're good.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And so with that, especially if you
are living farther away from people. Another principle well, all right,
Well we'll take a quick ad break and then we'll
come back and talk about this next principle.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I'm just gonna leave a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, we are back talking extend family management and some
of the principles we've been talking about. First, this is
a shared responsibility. It should not generally be on one
person if there are two adults in a family to
manage all extended family relationships. In general, it's probably logical
for people to own the relationships with their side of
(11:18):
the family, even if the other partner does obviously have
a long standing relationship with the people. Second, that as
an adult, you get to choose how much effort you
are putting into various relationships. There is no one objective
right standard. There is the amount of effort that you
can muster given everything else that is going on in
(11:41):
your life, and that people can share the responsibility of
getting together. A third principle is that you might want
to look at time holistically. And one reason we've talked
in the past about setting travel and vacation dates for
an entire year time and I know Sarah does this
(12:01):
just because of when the call schedule it comes out.
She and her husband need to put in their dates
for call right, so you have to look at this
a longer period of time.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
We are forced to think about things almost eighteen months
in advance in some circumstances because like midyear twenty twenty five,
we have had to give our dates for twenty twenty
six and have already received a call schedule. It does
not mean there's no room for swapping things, moving things,
but it does force us to think through it a
little bit. And honestly, if anything, I feel like it's
a bonus.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, because even if you don't have that, like even
if you don't have to put in your vacation days
ahead of time in order to know that you'll get them,
thinking through how you will spend your days off work
or your travel days over the course of a calendar
year allows you to balance things and this will allow
you to not view each trip like, well, why aren't
(12:52):
you going to see your relatives in this other city
for that particular trip, because you know that there will
be a time trip to go see them, So it's
not always being way to like well, why are you
going to the beach instead of doing this? Why are
we going skiing instead of doing this, why are we
going to Europe instead of doing this, It's like, well,
we're going to do that at this other time. So
(13:15):
if there are any hard feelings about it, like well,
we're so disappointed that we're not seeing you this summer,
it's like, I can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving
and when we have this whole week at Thanksgiving book
to be visiting with you guys or something that it
can help mitigate any hard feelings by doing that.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's funny. This makes me think of my sister in law, who, like,
there are certain Jewish holidays I know I'm going to
see her and certain ones I know she always is
going to Boca to be with her husband's family, and
it's like they keep it the same every year, so
that I think it's easy and it feels relatively even.
And then this can even work with the burden or
gift of hosting. So if you don't like to be
(13:51):
the one that hosts, you can just pick like one
holiday and own it and then at least you kind
of know like, Okay, I'm doing that and I've already
figured it out. Over the course of the year, everyone
kind of takes turns, but yeah, I think also having
things be regular invites tradition, which can make things more fun.
I know that can be counter to people who like
(14:12):
more variety, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's my question with holidays, traditions can be fun. I mean,
that's sort of a way to make it not as
difficult to do. I mean, because yes, if you are
always the family that does Thanksgiving, then it's not being
renegotiated every year, like are you spending Thanksgiving with your
family or your partner's family. Maybe you know that you
always do Thanksgiving with one family and Rashishana with the
(14:37):
other family, if that's what you celebrate, or if maybe
it's Easter with one family and Christmas with another, if
those are big things, or you go to one family
for a week in the summer every year, but the
other family gets Christmas, or you can figure out how
to do it, or just to make sure that there's
some time that one group owns. And so my extended
(14:58):
family often does do Thanksgiving to the other, to the
point where one of my sister in laws actually mentioned
when they were specifically doing something different when you're well
ahead of time, because I think I should thought that
the expectation would be that that would be the case,
and so I appreciated that, Like I guess we'd come
to kind of own that holiday. And so you might
think that through is there one that makes sense?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And it's interesting because I think when you first have kids,
there's often like a reshuffling and figuring out what this
looks like, right, because maybe you were so mobile and
it was just easy to go everywhere before you spent
Christmas Eve in California and Christmas in New York or
something like that, and then once you have kids, you're
like starting from scratch. But I think as things work,
you will fall into that good rhythm and pay attention
(15:43):
when a given holiday works well in a certain place,
because then you can make a tradition out of it.
I think that is how Fourth of July came to be.
It worked, so we kept doing it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I kept doing it. And with that, I mean you
can also invent holidays, right, I mean sort of one
thing that some people do to celebrate a major holiday
at a slightly different point, like maybe you as an
extended family all get together on like January second or
whatever that first weekend is, and then a year to
celebrate Christmas together, and that would have some upsides in
(16:14):
that it would leave people free to travel or go
see the other side of the family on Christmas itself,
or to enjoy it in their own house if they
would like, and it would be less of an opportunity
cost for everyone, And so you could probably convince people
to get together. And again, if the point is getting together,
often the exact calendar date may be a little bit
less important for certain things.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah. So another general principle that a lot of people
suggested was to have some regular cadence for getting together.
And this is particularly helpful I think for people who
do live close enough, yes, where it is maybe always
an option to be together or not to be together
as the case maybe. And so rather than needing to
(17:00):
renegotiate this constantly and figure out what everyone's comfortable with,
to establish some regular cadence that you try to make
work and so you're not constantly figuring out what the
next get together will be and when it will be,
and it will how will fit your schedule. So an
example might be you get together for dinner the first
Saturday of the month or something like that. You kind
(17:20):
of do that with your Miami Beach relatives, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
We don't have a very specific cadence. I think we
tend to do more like the hair appointment style, which
is like at each visit, we think, oh, when can
we see you guys next, and kind of tentatively plan
that out based on when we're on call. And that
way we always know something's coming up and we try
to get there at least every month or so so
or they come up to us. But lately we've been
(17:44):
going down there for various reasons, and yeah, that works
really well too, just like set up your next gathering
as you are finishing your current gathering. But if that's
hard to negotiate, then yeah, I love the idea of
like first Fridays or whatever. Cadence seems to work first every.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
People regular, Yeah, I mean it's like a lot of
people want to get together more frequently that you would
do like Sunday dinner every week. I mean, that would
be an option, but seeing each other weekly is a lot.
But then it makes sure that you don't it's not
every single time, like, oh, well are you doing this
some other time? And then when you're seeing each other
once a week in a case like that, then you
(18:22):
can mention at that time, like anything that's coming up
that's special that they might want to know about, like
a kid's performance or something like that. So it allows
for more regular communication, but without a lot of the
the hassle of figuring it out asynchronous communication. So in
(18:43):
this day and age text threads, what's yours called, Sarah?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
We have a couple. Actually I don't think the one
with my parents and my sister. I don't think that
one has a name. And after this episode, I am
going to give it a name and it's going to
have some play on the word heart, so that's going
to be fun. And then we have the Bbe Poppy
Bragg thread. My husband named it, which because basically it
was like us sending his parents like pictures of the
(19:07):
kids doing good things. So we're like, let's just call
it what it is. And then we have Los Primos
for all of the younger cousins, of which I count
as one because been in that family for a while.
So yeah, they're great. I mean, they really are so
lovely for filling in the gaps. And the more you talk,
the more you have to talk about, which I think
is kind of why what you just said works, Like
the more you see someone, the more you are going
(19:29):
to naturally be keeping up with everything, and the more
you want to see them. And I think these types
of text threads are so awesome for filling in those
kinds of gaps. I talk to my parents via text
basically every single day. I do not think that would
be the case pre messaging, well.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Because phone calls are challenging and some people do like so,
I know my husband calls his mom frequently when he's driving.
But if you're not driving around a lot, or you're
not a big phone person, which I have to admit
I am not a big phone person. I actually hate
talking on the I mean, so it's like texting is
a way to do it without it having to be
(20:07):
at a set time where you're not doing other things,
or at least you shouldn't be doing other things. I'm
not a big fan of talking while driving either, but yeah,
it just allows for more of a back and forth
in a way that I think works for a lot
of people. I mean, people love to complain about technology,
but texting is amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I love texting and group texts.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Group texts, yeah, and yeah, you can do like this
funny named WhatsApp group or whatever to make it a
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Are you in any funny name text groups? Laura, I
feel like I haven't heard of any, and I have
a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
There's maybe some mysterious ones.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Oh okay, we'll talk after, we'll talk, after.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We'll talk after well, we're gonna take one more quick
ad break and then we will be back with more
unextended family management. We're back talking extended family management. Our
(21:08):
next principle for this is that it doesn't have to
be the whole family the whole all the time. Obviously,
it's wonderful if you could get everyone together, and sometimes
that sort of happens even if you're not expecting it.
We a whirl. My entire extended family was at my
niece's PhD graduation party, and I hadn't actually known that
was going to happen, so it was kind of fun.
(21:29):
It was like, WHOA, we just had an entire family reunion.
But if you have one particular relative that you are
particularly close to, you could kind of move that one
into more of a friend category. I guess I would
put it and treat that relationship in that way that
it's sort of separate from extended family members or if
you have like one kid who's particularly close with one cousin, again,
(21:52):
that can be managed to sort of a get together
with friends. I know Ruth has a cousin who is
exactly her age that we have gotten those girls together
for longer periods of time, like the whole family. It
wouldn't work for them to come visit for a week
at different points, but sometimes one person can be more
mobile totally.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Actually, as we were recording, in my mind started wandering,
I'm like, I should take Genevieve for Miriam's birthday because
they're like close in age, and that would be like
taking one kid. It would serve two purposes to build
that relationship because those who are close in age, and
then also to be a natural solo trip with one
of my kids. So who knows, maybe I will add
a third.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
At a third trip. Happy to see you whenever you
could could come up here, Sarah. The other sort of
one more big principle here is no expectations, I guess
is what we decided to call this one. So families
have wildly different ideas of how much they should help
(22:57):
or give to each other, and that could be both
in terms of time and in terms of money or
gifts or things like that, and so just on the
small scale, one of the things people mentioned with extended
family is like, especially if grandparents like to give gifts
to grandchildren or even to you, you might maintain a
(23:19):
list of things that you would really like to have,
and so you can direct that generosity in a way
that is helpful. Like, Okay, yes it's fun to have
lots of plastic toys, and the kids would like that too,
But if you bought us a zoo membership, we could
use that all year, that would be really fun to
have or for you, right that lots of times people
(23:41):
want to give you things, and as an adult, you
may buy whatever you want. So it's uncle, jeez, what
on earth am I gonna tell people to give me?
But so maintain a list of things that are sort
of small and fun and that you could buy yourself,
but you don't not going to like actively be buying
for yourself, and you can share that with people. But
for bigger things, this is the most challenging thing because
(24:04):
some people were hoping maybe that parents grandparents would like
babysit constantly, and then the grandparents aren't necessarily interested in that,
or it could go the other way that maybe the
grandparents thought they would be there all the time, but
because you both work, you really need sort of a
professional childcare situation. You can't just have Grandma come over
(24:26):
three afternoons a week and have that be the thing, right,
or if it is, you're not there right when she's
coming over three afternoons a week.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You want someone to do housework and you don't want
to tell Grandma.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Don't if you're to tell grandma to go vacuum your floors,
whereas you can have an employee, you know, to do that,
and so it can go both ways with that, right Sarah.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, I think the safest thing is that you're grateful
for help that is offered, but generally like letting them
live their lives and decide what they want to give.
That's been our policy. And another sort of adjacent thing
is that if you're helping out a family member, I
always think it's better to give rather than lend, just
(25:07):
because I've not personally really experienced this, but I've heard
of a lot of messy situations involving borrowing or even
giving with very specific expectations of how a gift could
or should be used. It's probably better if you're really
ready to give to someone, just give it with no
strings attached. Maybe some advice, but we can't make adults
do things.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, which if you are in a situation like that,
So again, yeah, being on the same page with your
partner about how much you are willing to help out
other people. I mean, obviously there's a situation where you
are being helped. I mean, I'm gonta know a lot
of people's parents may have helped people when they were
young with doing stuff, and that's wonderful. But again if
they can't, no expectations or they don't want to, no expectations.
(25:49):
And then the same with you for others. Because we
know a lot of our listeners have great jobs, probably
good financial situations. You may be the people in your
extended family who have have more of the ability to
do that. But sometimes it's been done with something very specific,
like you pay a person's rent for three months, right
that you do that as opposed to giving a chunk
(26:13):
of cash, because again, if you give a chunk of cash,
you have to be prepared for whatever they're going to
decide is to be.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Used with it. That's true. I guess if you have
a specific thing, then offer to give it directly, and
then there you go.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But the widely varying amount of involvement that extended family
have is one reason I think, you know, if I'm
gonna get up on my soapbox here, people shouldn't feel
guilty about paid childcare. We both know people who, for instance,
have grandparents who come over every Saturday afternoon and take
the kids through to Saturday evening or something and so
(26:44):
the parents can go out, or even that they take
the kids every weekend at their house or something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And everybody loves that story, right, everyone like, oh, how sweet?
How sweet?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Isn't that awesome that you have that? Like that your
grandparents have the kids like two weekends a month and
you guys go travel or whatever it is. If people
want to do that, that is amazing. But I think
you can't expect that from anyone. I mean, obviously, people
may have just retired, they have their own lives, they
want to travel. You know, some people don't want to
commit to that sort of thing, but it is the
(27:17):
exact same thing to hire someone to do that for you, right,
And so if you would feel guilty about having a sitter,
on Saturday afternoon into evening, so you and your partner
can go do something. The people whose grandparents are doing
that don't feel guilty about it, and so I think
we need to operate from that perspective.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I guess detractors might say something like, well, the grandmother
parents are cultivating a loving relationship, but that is not
to say your kid can't cultivate a true relationship with
a caregiver, especially one that's in their lives multiple years.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean I don't think this is
an either or situation or not. Yeah. I mean again,
like people have something about paying for help that it
seems okay when extended family just.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Actually say something for women paying for help.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Because women paying for help.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Okay, yeah, you're like, no one minds, but like it's
it's yeah, it's we know what it is.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
So again, if you don't have that with extended family,
then you should not feel guilty about approximating it with
the village of people who you have brought in to
help you do what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yes, And then I think we have to go through
the thinking ahead piece because that was a great thought experiment. Okay,
you share it, all right.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
So, well, here's this. I mean, you know, everyone has
their experience with how they're managing their extended family now,
and you probably have young kids, and you see what
you know between your parents and your in laws and
extended cousins, and think about, Okay, well, sometime you will
be somebody's sort of extended family from the perspective of
being your kid's parents and in laws when they are
(29:01):
adults and they have their own families. How would you
like to manage that relationship then? Like, if you've envisioned
yourself as like the family matriarch twenty thirty years in
the future, what do you think you'll be doing to
have a good relationship with your adult children? Sarah? What
did you come up with?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well, first, I just have to say like, hello to
my adult children listening to this. They've gone into the
cloud and asked AI to find this episode, and hey,
I fed it to their digital devices, and I said
that it didn't directly into their brains.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Sarah, what are you talking about digital device?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
You're right, You're right directly into their brain. It said that.
I said that I definitely want my kids to want
to hang out with me. Josh and I have talked
about like doing some sort of thing where we spend
a certain number of weeks each year very near where
our kids live. We have no idea if that's all
going to be in the same place, if it's going
to already be near off, if it's going to be
another continent, but we're like dedicated to like, okay, three
(29:54):
weeks here or three weeks here or whatever it is.
And we do also love the idea of like either
like serially renting places for us all to get together,
or even owning. Like I don't love owning any real estate,
but if I was gonna own any like having a
little ski cabin that everyone wanted to come hang out
in with us, even if I was too old to
ski anymore, who cares? Come hang out and I'll sip
(30:16):
hot cocoa by the fire and you can tell me
about all the slopes you went to. I could totally
imagine loving that. So yeah, if you're listening to this
in twenty fifty and that's happening.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Great, Yeah, I definitely I was same with it. Like
the idea of owning a second property like the first
one is such a headache. I can't even imagine maintaining
a second one. But the reason to have, say a
beach compound is because then people will come to you
(30:49):
for a low cost vacation that has an upside beyond
just seeing you. Right, And so much as I love
my part of Pennsylvania, it is not somewhere that people
generally visit as a vacation destination.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, you know, there's gonna be a lot of climate
change jokes that people are making in their head right
now that it will be a beach conpound.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, maybe it'll be right up to my door. The
ocean will have gotten all the way here by twenty fifty,
let's hope not, but you know it, or there may
be no snow. But hey, if we're doing this skiing,
just having the condo in Colorado that people would come
and stay at, and that would be a reason to
(31:30):
get the extended family to gather and have them come
see you. I could totally see wanting to do that,
So that's on my mind as an idea. I also
do love the idea of having a non peak time
celebration that people come see you. So yeah, like having
a labor day, Labor day like we do up labor
Probably not because if kids start school the Tuesday after
(31:53):
unless everyone's very close, that wouldn't necessarily work. But something
like the weekend after Christmas, or on how far people
are away from each other, or like everyone comes and
sees you on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend or something
like that, and having a get together then, because then
they can celebrate on their own, they can celebrate with friends,
(32:13):
they can celebrate with their My kids could go to
their in laws and I'd still see them, and I
could make it easier for them to do all of that.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I love it. All right, you're already planning the calendar
thirty years ahead. It's awesome. And I was going to
say something like, well, not everyone will always be in school,
but the number of kids you have in different ages, Yeah,
someone's like always going to be in school always, like
your older kids kids are going to be in school
by the time your younger kids are out of school.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Wow, could happen? Could happen? We just don't know how
these things or yeah, the idea of like would we
ever be able to get all five at once for something?
I mean I hope so, like I mean for maybe
each of their weddings or something like that, but we
were even thinking of that with Like, I think we
will be able to do Christmas travel this year with
(32:58):
Jasper home, amazing, But I know that next summer he's
already got something that he's most likely going to be
out of the country for a big chunk of time,
and so it's like summer travel would not really be
an option with him. And so yeah, it's all ah,
they do grow up. It's in flux. It's in flux.
(33:18):
Much of life will be in flux for forever. But
that is life. So you learn to celebrate whatever you
can do and the relationships that you can maintain with people.
And I certainly hope to maintain a relationship with my
adult kids. So all right, moving on to the question
do you want to read it? You want me to
read it? Sure?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I can read it? Okay, this person wrote, I can
work remotely at least some of the time. I'd love
to go somewhere more interesting for longer periods of time
and feel like work flexibility would allow it. But since
we have kids that are both working, we tend to
stay where we are for regular childcare, camps, et cetera.
Any ideas.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, so this is so much more doable now than
it has ever been in the past to go work
somewhere else, as people have arrangements where you generally have
to be in the office three days a week and
be at home two days a week, but it's usually
not every single week that has to happen, so you
might even if you have to like swipe in one
hundred and forty times a year or whatever it is,
(34:14):
you might do that five times a week a couple times,
and then have a couple of weeks where you might
be able to work fully remotely if you wanted. So,
you might think about camps for next summer with an
idea toward making this be possible now. Obviously, if your
kids are old enough to go to overnight camp coordinating
so there at least a couple of weeks where everyone
is gone would allow you to go somewhere more interesting
(34:36):
to work during that time. But even if not, you
could sign them up for daycare in a place that
you wanted to go. So let's say you are somewhere
in the Midwest and you've thought, oh, it'd be fun
to live in California for a while. Well, you could
go rent an apartment in San Diego, for six weeks
(34:57):
or something next summer, and then and you find day
camps that are near your condo in San Diego for
your kids, and you obviously do not have to live
somewhere in most cases. I mean maybe if it's run
by the school district and there's a residency requirement, but
for a lot of private day camps, that wouldn't be
the case. And so you'd go to this place and
(35:18):
you could plan on maybe a week or two you're
not working, but the others you are, and you enroll
your kids in a day camp there, and then you
can still have adventures in the evening and on the
weekends and make that work.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yes, this is like a fancy Miami people kind of
a thing, and I have to admit whenever I hear it,
I'm like so jealous because it does not work with
my profession. I cannot really work remotely. And that's fine.
But when they come in and like, yeah, we're about
to head to Colorado. My husband and I are both
going to work from our little condo and our kids
are going to go to day camp there, I'm like,
oh my gosh, you're escaping the heat. You're getting a
(35:53):
total change of scenery. It's going to feel kind of
like vacation. I mean, yes, you're working, but of course
they're taking time off too, if they can even like
rent out their home or something like that, although I
think many of them just choose to airbnb somewhere for
a while. And yeah, I mean, if you are able
to do that, young kids should not stop you, because
there are a decent number of camp programs. You could also,
(36:14):
if you're planning well enough in advance, like hire a
college student to be like a summer I've heard of
one friend that they never had nanni's except for summer nanny's.
So that is a thing that you could do. And
of course that person could travel with you wherever you
chose to be.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Or I mean if you had visited that place to
do like interviews with someone, I mean, you could hire
someone who is there right like they wouldn't even have
to live with you. If you were maybe thinking to
Colorado for the summer, like Colorado also has people who
want jobs, and so you could figure out a way
to make that happen. Or yeah, maybe it's getting back
to the extended family management. Maybe you have a niece
(36:48):
or nephew who would think that would be a cool
job for this summer if they wanted to go someplace
that you were as well. And then they could take
care of the kids from eight to four and then
they can go have their teen beach experience after that
and on the weekends and stuff. So lots of options
to consider, all right. So, Sarah, Love of the week,
what do you have this week?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Choosing fun seasonal nail colors? So I went and took
two of my kids to get their nails done yesterday
so they could have cute nails for kids.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You're not specifying which two kids?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh yeah, okay. It was Annablee and Genevie No Judgment
said like can I go to I'm like you can.
He's like, yeah, no, I'm not going to, but I'm
like sure. And I got bright yellow on my feet,
and I'm like, this is so summary and fun. And
I tend to keep my fingernails like a relatively nailish
adjacent color, but my feet are no holds barred, and
(37:39):
I try to do something seasonal and ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So I thought bright yellow, bright yellow, love it, love it.
Probably I think I just had this memory. I think
when I was a kid once I painted my toenails black.
I had like black to and people like thought it
was like injured myself.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Well, Genevieve goes, should I get pink? White or black?
And Adabell and I were like, not black.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Unless you want to add or like a million questions
like oh are you okay? What happened?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
What is your love of the week.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
My love of the week is the Flower Bakery and
Coffee shop in Boston. So I was in Boston week
before we were recording this with Jasper for college orientation,
and there was a Flower location right across from my
hotel and I was like, Oh, that looks cute. I'll
(38:26):
stop by there. And then I went and I was like, oh,
my goodness, I will be back. Ridiculous variety of baked
goods and coffee options. It was all incredibly good. So
I am excited about these various Boston institutions that I'm
going to be getting to know over the next four years,
and that is definitely one of them.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
That is so exciting. It really is a great city. Yes,
you're lucky.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
I am all right, Well, this has been best at
both worlds. We've been talking extended family management, how to
celebrate and perhaps deal with depending on the situation. Your
extended fan. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in mid to late July. We are
(00:46):
going to be talking extended family management. So many people,
of course have extended families, which is a good thing
in life in general, but it can introduce some complications
and some logistical challenges as you're trying to figure out
how to manage that in addition to all the other
things that you have going on in your life. So
(01:10):
real quick questions, Sarah, do you see more of your
family or your husband's family.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I would say I think it's kind of different. I
do see more of my husband's family on a regular basis,
but it's not like I have multi day adventures with
them versus because my family lives farther. When I do
go to see them, it's generally for longer a period
of time.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, I mean it's sort of similar split, although the
other direction with us, we live closer to members of
my family, so when we see them, I mean, we
can see them more frequently, but it would be shorter
when we do, Like we would pretty much never stay
overnight in New Jersey when visiting family there. My husband's
(01:52):
family nobody lives that close, so it tends to be
a longer trip if we are seeing them, but we
probably see them less frequently. But yeah, this episode is
all about extended family management and just a couple of
things to talk about it with it first, I mean,
people's lives are so different in this regard. There's some
aspects of life that could be similar people to people.
(02:13):
But as we started talking to people for this episode,
you realize that some people live like in the same
town as dozens of their immediate family members, and some
people live across the country across the world from like
one other family member. There are varying expectations on either
side of what these relationships should look like. Some people,
(02:36):
it's going to be an expectation of seeing each other
all the time. Some people that is not the case.
Just one other thing is that this episode is not
necessarily about dealing with aging parents, although that obviously plays
into the idea of extended family management, but that's just
(02:57):
an entirely separate can ofform so not getting in to
all that also will not be tremendously personal. Just our
families may listen to this episode too. But we did
talk to a ton of people about this as we
were coming up with the episode, So Sarah, maybe you
mentioned why you thought we should do this episode too.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, this is such a universal thing. Everyone has to
manage it, and I think there are so many thoughts
about there being a right way to do it, and
I think that getting a sense of the very different
ways that people manage this, from having older relatives live
in their house to being on completely different continents and
not having any consistent content like there is no one
(03:35):
right way. Everyone can choose what works for them. And
that applies both to us as these middle sandwich generations
many of us, and it applies to the older generation
and how much they choose to remain involved in their kids.
And hopefully there's not a big mismatch and people's desires,
and I guess that the overarching thing was like, Okay, interesting,
everyone has to find some sort of compromise.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, So we started organizing this episode by a
few overarching principles that can help as you think about
how to manage whatever the different situation you happen to
be dealing with versus other people you know might be
dealing with. The first is that extended family management. We're
going to imagine that most of our listeners are female,
(04:22):
but extended family management is not your job alone. If
you happen to be in a two parent family that
you have a partner, the most logical setup is that
each of you is responsible for your own relationships with
the extended family on your side, right, So you are
(04:44):
responsible for your extended family management. Your partner is responsible
for his or her extended family management. And the expectation
is not that one partner would deal with all of
it for everyone, right. And I think this is important
to realize. I saw a book that was being advertised
recently about managing the mother in law relationship, and I
(05:05):
realized how hard it would be to sell a book
about the son father in law relationship. People would be like,
no one's going to read that, like that's not a thing.
I mean, people just don't still expect men to be
managing these cross family relationships or that it would be
a source of huge drama like how to deal with
your father in law disapproving of how you are being
(05:25):
a dad or something like that. You just like that
book does not exist because people are still not walking
around with that story, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Super super interesting And I haven't done a lot of
thinking about this myself. I was reflecting on why, and
I think it has to do with the fact that
I met my in law so young that like I
don't know, like they've known me for more than half
my life at this point, and so there is like
a little bit of a parental takeover, not to replace
my own parents, but yeah, for us, I think it
(05:55):
gets a little messier in that I feel like I
want to manage that relationship too because it's so long
standing as well, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, but just that it shouldn't be seen as primarily
your responsibility, like you know, totally, like if your mother
in law didn't get a birthday present, it would not
be that everyone thinks Sarah is doing something wrong, right.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I mean, everyone probably would, but it shouldn't be that.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
It shouldn't be that. Yeah, And related to that, I
saw another social media post that was complaining that in
this day and age, the mother in law shouldn't be
iced out, that the mother in law should be just
as important a relationship, and I was like, well, that's
the wrong way to view it. It's not that. Like,
what it is is that if a mother in law
is sort of iced out, it's because the son is
(06:37):
not managing that relationship, is not doing like the emotional
labor to keep that relationship going and like making sure
that he knows the schedule well enough that they are
able to see them and like that. It works into everything,
you know, and it's not doing the calls and doing
the right you know. It's like, it's not that she's
iced out, it's that each person is responsible for their
(06:57):
own family management. And if you're son is not doing that,
that's not on your daughter in law to make it happen, right,
So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And joking aside, I actually don't really manage gifts for
my in laws because we're not like a super gifty
family and it's seen as like a bonus. So I
feel like if it's going to happen, it can be him,
and he does it when it feels right, like bringing
flowers for around Mother's Day, or we just forgo gifts
and everyone's fine. So yeah, I think gifts are actually
(07:28):
an interesting way to gauge to ask yourself that question
like who is in charge of this relationship and if
you feel like you wouldn't be awkward to show up
around their birthday or like who would kind of get
the blame, then that would kind of answer that question.
If you didn't have a gift.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
We definitely split it that who is responsible for each
of the gifts as I am my family, Michael is
his family, and that's just the way we have set
it up with that. Another general principle is that if
there is any drama for anyone, we're not saying any
of our listeners ever would have that happen. But as
(08:07):
an adult, you get to choose who to have a
relationship with, right and even if the answer isn't no relationship,
you do get to set boundaries around it. You get
to decide how much effort you are going to put
into things. And where this came up. We saw mention
this on our Patreon page, like, if you, for instance,
(08:28):
have three small children, and other relatives do not have
three small children, it is not necessarily fair of them
to expect that all contact will be you getting on
the plane with three small children to go see them.
And you can decide that you're not going to do
it right, You're say like, we would love to see you.
It's really hard, expensive, challenging to get three small children
(08:51):
on the plane. Open invitation comes see us whenever you want.
They can whine about it. But Sarah and I have
both been reading the Mel Robbins book the let Them Theory,
which is that you can also just let them whine
about it. That doesn't mean that you have to do
(09:11):
anything about it.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, I think this is really great. I think that.
And interestingly, you said something like we're open to have
you visit. That doesn't even mean we're open to have
you stay in our house, because depending on you might
live in a New York City apartment that night might
not be feasible. But it doesn't preclude someone else coming in,
renting a hotel two blocks away, or whatever it is.
It's going to take time, money, and effort. To bring
(09:36):
fur floung relatives together, and everyone can choose whether they
want to expend that effort, and the other side can
be fine with, Okay, you're not traveling, but then they
can't be mad about not seeing you if they're not
willing to make the effort either. So I'm with you.
I mean, I've come up basically with my own policy
around this, which works really well and I think keeps
everyone reasonably happy, which is I've just decided I'll come
(09:58):
to Philadelphia twice a year. I try to one in
the summer, one in the winter. The dates vary a
little bit, although I've gotten into a quite of a
Fourth of July groove the last four years. And bonus,
Laura lives there too, so I'm able to have like
a friend trip and a family trip in one and
so everyone seems okay with that. Thankfully. I haven't heard like,
(10:18):
we want to see you more. I'm like, great, you
know where Florida is. It's not that far and you
can buy a ticket. But everyone seems okay with the
current situation, so we're good.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And so with that, especially if you
are living farther away from people. Another principle well, all right,
Well we'll take a quick ad break and then we'll
come back and talk about this next principle.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I'm just gonna leave a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, we are back talking extend family management and some
of the principles we've been talking about. First, this is
a shared responsibility. It should not generally be on one
person if there are two adults in a family to
manage all extended family relationships. In general, it's probably logical
for people to own the relationships with their side of
(11:18):
the family, even if the other partner does obviously have
a long standing relationship with the people. Second, that as
an adult, you get to choose how much effort you
are putting into various relationships. There is no one objective
right standard. There is the amount of effort that you
can muster given everything else that is going on in
(11:41):
your life, and that people can share the responsibility of
getting together. A third principle is that you might want
to look at time holistically. And one reason we've talked
in the past about setting travel and vacation dates for
an entire year time and I know Sarah does this
(12:01):
just because of when the call schedule it comes out.
She and her husband need to put in their dates
for call right, so you have to look at this
a longer period of time.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
We are forced to think about things almost eighteen months
in advance in some circumstances because like midyear twenty twenty five,
we have had to give our dates for twenty twenty
six and have already received a call schedule. It does
not mean there's no room for swapping things, moving things,
but it does force us to think through it a
little bit. And honestly, if anything, I feel like it's
a bonus.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, because even if you don't have that, like even
if you don't have to put in your vacation days
ahead of time in order to know that you'll get them,
thinking through how you will spend your days off work
or your travel days over the course of a calendar
year allows you to balance things and this will allow
you to not view each trip like, well, why aren't
(12:52):
you going to see your relatives in this other city
for that particular trip, because you know that there will
be a time trip to go see them, So it's
not always being way to like well, why are you
going to the beach instead of doing this? Why are
we going skiing instead of doing this, why are we
going to Europe instead of doing this, It's like, well,
we're going to do that at this other time. So
(13:15):
if there are any hard feelings about it, like well,
we're so disappointed that we're not seeing you this summer,
it's like, I can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving
and when we have this whole week at Thanksgiving book
to be visiting with you guys or something that it
can help mitigate any hard feelings by doing that.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's funny. This makes me think of my sister in law, who, like,
there are certain Jewish holidays I know I'm going to
see her and certain ones I know she always is
going to Boca to be with her husband's family, and
it's like they keep it the same every year, so
that I think it's easy and it feels relatively even.
And then this can even work with the burden or
gift of hosting. So if you don't like to be
(13:51):
the one that hosts, you can just pick like one
holiday and own it and then at least you kind
of know like, Okay, I'm doing that and I've already
figured it out. Over the course of the year, everyone
kind of takes turns, but yeah, I think also having
things be regular invites tradition, which can make things more fun.
I know that can be counter to people who like
(14:12):
more variety, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's my question with holidays, traditions can be fun. I mean,
that's sort of a way to make it not as
difficult to do. I mean, because yes, if you are
always the family that does Thanksgiving, then it's not being
renegotiated every year, like are you spending Thanksgiving with your
family or your partner's family. Maybe you know that you
always do Thanksgiving with one family and Rashishana with the
(14:37):
other family, if that's what you celebrate, or if maybe
it's Easter with one family and Christmas with another, if
those are big things, or you go to one family
for a week in the summer every year, but the
other family gets Christmas, or you can figure out how
to do it, or just to make sure that there's
some time that one group owns. And so my extended
(14:58):
family often does do Thanksgiving to the other, to the
point where one of my sister in laws actually mentioned
when they were specifically doing something different when you're well
ahead of time, because I think I should thought that
the expectation would be that that would be the case,
and so I appreciated that, Like I guess we'd come
to kind of own that holiday. And so you might
think that through is there one that makes sense?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And it's interesting because I think when you first have kids,
there's often like a reshuffling and figuring out what this
looks like, right, because maybe you were so mobile and
it was just easy to go everywhere before you spent
Christmas Eve in California and Christmas in New York or
something like that, and then once you have kids, you're
like starting from scratch. But I think as things work,
you will fall into that good rhythm and pay attention
(15:43):
when a given holiday works well in a certain place,
because then you can make a tradition out of it.
I think that is how Fourth of July came to be.
It worked, so we kept doing it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I kept doing it. And with that, I mean you
can also invent holidays, right, I mean sort of one
thing that some people do to celebrate a major holiday
at a slightly different point, like maybe you as an
extended family all get together on like January second or
whatever that first weekend is, and then a year to
celebrate Christmas together, and that would have some upsides in
(16:14):
that it would leave people free to travel or go
see the other side of the family on Christmas itself,
or to enjoy it in their own house if they
would like, and it would be less of an opportunity
cost for everyone, And so you could probably convince people
to get together. And again, if the point is getting together,
often the exact calendar date may be a little bit
less important for certain things.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah. So another general principle that a lot of people
suggested was to have some regular cadence for getting together.
And this is particularly helpful I think for people who
do live close enough, yes, where it is maybe always
an option to be together or not to be together
as the case maybe. And so rather than needing to
(17:00):
renegotiate this constantly and figure out what everyone's comfortable with,
to establish some regular cadence that you try to make
work and so you're not constantly figuring out what the
next get together will be and when it will be,
and it will how will fit your schedule. So an
example might be you get together for dinner the first
Saturday of the month or something like that. You kind
(17:20):
of do that with your Miami Beach relatives, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
We don't have a very specific cadence. I think we
tend to do more like the hair appointment style, which
is like at each visit, we think, oh, when can
we see you guys next, and kind of tentatively plan
that out based on when we're on call. And that
way we always know something's coming up and we try
to get there at least every month or so so
or they come up to us. But lately we've been
(17:44):
going down there for various reasons, and yeah, that works
really well too, just like set up your next gathering
as you are finishing your current gathering. But if that's
hard to negotiate, then yeah, I love the idea of
like first Fridays or whatever. Cadence seems to work first every.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
People regular, Yeah, I mean it's like a lot of
people want to get together more frequently that you would
do like Sunday dinner every week. I mean, that would
be an option, but seeing each other weekly is a lot.
But then it makes sure that you don't it's not
every single time, like, oh, well are you doing this
some other time? And then when you're seeing each other
once a week in a case like that, then you
(18:22):
can mention at that time, like anything that's coming up
that's special that they might want to know about, like
a kid's performance or something like that. So it allows
for more regular communication, but without a lot of the
the hassle of figuring it out asynchronous communication. So in
(18:43):
this day and age text threads, what's yours called, Sarah?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
We have a couple. Actually I don't think the one
with my parents and my sister. I don't think that
one has a name. And after this episode, I am
going to give it a name and it's going to
have some play on the word heart, so that's going
to be fun. And then we have the Bbe Poppy
Bragg thread. My husband named it, which because basically it
was like us sending his parents like pictures of the
(19:07):
kids doing good things. So we're like, let's just call
it what it is. And then we have Los Primos
for all of the younger cousins, of which I count
as one because been in that family for a while.
So yeah, they're great. I mean, they really are so
lovely for filling in the gaps. And the more you talk,
the more you have to talk about, which I think
is kind of why what you just said works, Like
the more you see someone, the more you are going
(19:29):
to naturally be keeping up with everything, and the more
you want to see them. And I think these types
of text threads are so awesome for filling in those
kinds of gaps. I talk to my parents via text
basically every single day. I do not think that would
be the case pre messaging, well.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Because phone calls are challenging and some people do like so,
I know my husband calls his mom frequently when he's driving.
But if you're not driving around a lot, or you're
not a big phone person, which I have to admit
I am not a big phone person. I actually hate
talking on the I mean, so it's like texting is
a way to do it without it having to be
(20:07):
at a set time where you're not doing other things,
or at least you shouldn't be doing other things. I'm
not a big fan of talking while driving either, but yeah,
it just allows for more of a back and forth
in a way that I think works for a lot
of people. I mean, people love to complain about technology,
but texting is amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I love texting and group texts.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Group texts, yeah, and yeah, you can do like this
funny named WhatsApp group or whatever to make it a
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Are you in any funny name text groups? Laura, I
feel like I haven't heard of any, and I have
a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
There's maybe some mysterious ones.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Oh okay, we'll talk after, we'll talk, after.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We'll talk after well, we're gonna take one more quick
ad break and then we will be back with more
unextended family management. We're back talking extended family management. Our
(21:08):
next principle for this is that it doesn't have to
be the whole family the whole all the time. Obviously,
it's wonderful if you could get everyone together, and sometimes
that sort of happens even if you're not expecting it.
We a whirl. My entire extended family was at my
niece's PhD graduation party, and I hadn't actually known that
was going to happen, so it was kind of fun.
(21:29):
It was like, WHOA, we just had an entire family reunion.
But if you have one particular relative that you are
particularly close to, you could kind of move that one
into more of a friend category. I guess I would
put it and treat that relationship in that way that
it's sort of separate from extended family members or if
you have like one kid who's particularly close with one cousin, again,
(21:52):
that can be managed to sort of a get together
with friends. I know Ruth has a cousin who is
exactly her age that we have gotten those girls together
for longer periods of time, like the whole family. It
wouldn't work for them to come visit for a week
at different points, but sometimes one person can be more
mobile totally.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Actually, as we were recording, in my mind started wandering,
I'm like, I should take Genevieve for Miriam's birthday because
they're like close in age, and that would be like
taking one kid. It would serve two purposes to build
that relationship because those who are close in age, and
then also to be a natural solo trip with one
of my kids. So who knows, maybe I will add
a third.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
At a third trip. Happy to see you whenever you
could could come up here, Sarah. The other sort of
one more big principle here is no expectations, I guess
is what we decided to call this one. So families
have wildly different ideas of how much they should help
(22:57):
or give to each other, and that could be both
in terms of time and in terms of money or
gifts or things like that, and so just on the
small scale, one of the things people mentioned with extended
family is like, especially if grandparents like to give gifts
to grandchildren or even to you, you might maintain a
(23:19):
list of things that you would really like to have,
and so you can direct that generosity in a way
that is helpful. Like, Okay, yes it's fun to have
lots of plastic toys, and the kids would like that too,
But if you bought us a zoo membership, we could
use that all year, that would be really fun to
have or for you, right that lots of times people
(23:41):
want to give you things, and as an adult, you
may buy whatever you want. So it's uncle, jeez, what
on earth am I gonna tell people to give me?
But so maintain a list of things that are sort
of small and fun and that you could buy yourself,
but you don't not going to like actively be buying
for yourself, and you can share that with people. But
for bigger things, this is the most challenging thing because
(24:04):
some people were hoping maybe that parents grandparents would like
babysit constantly, and then the grandparents aren't necessarily interested in that,
or it could go the other way that maybe the
grandparents thought they would be there all the time, but
because you both work, you really need sort of a
professional childcare situation. You can't just have Grandma come over
(24:26):
three afternoons a week and have that be the thing, right,
or if it is, you're not there right when she's
coming over three afternoons a week.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You want someone to do housework and you don't want
to tell Grandma.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Don't if you're to tell grandma to go vacuum your floors,
whereas you can have an employee, you know, to do that,
and so it can go both ways with that, right Sarah.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, I think the safest thing is that you're grateful
for help that is offered, but generally like letting them
live their lives and decide what they want to give.
That's been our policy. And another sort of adjacent thing
is that if you're helping out a family member, I
always think it's better to give rather than lend, just
(25:07):
because I've not personally really experienced this, but I've heard
of a lot of messy situations involving borrowing or even
giving with very specific expectations of how a gift could
or should be used. It's probably better if you're really
ready to give to someone, just give it with no
strings attached. Maybe some advice, but we can't make adults
do things.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, which if you are in a situation like that,
So again, yeah, being on the same page with your
partner about how much you are willing to help out
other people. I mean, obviously there's a situation where you
are being helped. I mean, I'm gonta know a lot
of people's parents may have helped people when they were
young with doing stuff, and that's wonderful. But again if
they can't, no expectations or they don't want to, no expectations.
(25:49):
And then the same with you for others. Because we
know a lot of our listeners have great jobs, probably
good financial situations. You may be the people in your
extended family who have have more of the ability to
do that. But sometimes it's been done with something very specific,
like you pay a person's rent for three months, right
that you do that as opposed to giving a chunk
(26:13):
of cash, because again, if you give a chunk of cash,
you have to be prepared for whatever they're going to
decide is to be.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Used with it. That's true. I guess if you have
a specific thing, then offer to give it directly, and
then there you go.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But the widely varying amount of involvement that extended family
have is one reason I think, you know, if I'm
gonna get up on my soapbox here, people shouldn't feel
guilty about paid childcare. We both know people who, for instance,
have grandparents who come over every Saturday afternoon and take
the kids through to Saturday evening or something and so
(26:44):
the parents can go out, or even that they take
the kids every weekend at their house or something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And everybody loves that story, right, everyone like, oh, how sweet?
How sweet?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Isn't that awesome that you have that? Like that your
grandparents have the kids like two weekends a month and
you guys go travel or whatever it is. If people
want to do that, that is amazing. But I think
you can't expect that from anyone. I mean, obviously, people
may have just retired, they have their own lives, they
want to travel. You know, some people don't want to
commit to that sort of thing, but it is the
(27:17):
exact same thing to hire someone to do that for you, right,
And so if you would feel guilty about having a sitter,
on Saturday afternoon into evening, so you and your partner
can go do something. The people whose grandparents are doing
that don't feel guilty about it, and so I think
we need to operate from that perspective.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I guess detractors might say something like, well, the grandmother
parents are cultivating a loving relationship, but that is not
to say your kid can't cultivate a true relationship with
a caregiver, especially one that's in their lives multiple years.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean I don't think this is
an either or situation or not. Yeah. I mean again,
like people have something about paying for help that it
seems okay when extended family just.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Actually say something for women paying for help.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Because women paying for help.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Okay, yeah, you're like, no one minds, but like it's
it's yeah, it's we know what it is.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
So again, if you don't have that with extended family,
then you should not feel guilty about approximating it with
the village of people who you have brought in to
help you do what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yes, And then I think we have to go through
the thinking ahead piece because that was a great thought experiment. Okay,
you share it, all right.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
So, well, here's this. I mean, you know, everyone has
their experience with how they're managing their extended family now,
and you probably have young kids, and you see what
you know between your parents and your in laws and
extended cousins, and think about, Okay, well, sometime you will
be somebody's sort of extended family from the perspective of
being your kid's parents and in laws when they are
(29:01):
adults and they have their own families. How would you
like to manage that relationship then? Like, if you've envisioned
yourself as like the family matriarch twenty thirty years in
the future, what do you think you'll be doing to
have a good relationship with your adult children? Sarah? What
did you come up with?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well, first, I just have to say like, hello to
my adult children listening to this. They've gone into the
cloud and asked AI to find this episode, and hey,
I fed it to their digital devices, and I said
that it didn't directly into their brains.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Sarah, what are you talking about digital device?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
You're right, You're right directly into their brain. It said that.
I said that I definitely want my kids to want
to hang out with me. Josh and I have talked
about like doing some sort of thing where we spend
a certain number of weeks each year very near where
our kids live. We have no idea if that's all
going to be in the same place, if it's going
to already be near off, if it's going to be
another continent, but we're like dedicated to like, okay, three
(29:54):
weeks here or three weeks here or whatever it is.
And we do also love the idea of like either
like serially renting places for us all to get together,
or even owning. Like I don't love owning any real estate,
but if I was gonna own any like having a
little ski cabin that everyone wanted to come hang out
in with us, even if I was too old to
ski anymore, who cares? Come hang out and I'll sip
(30:16):
hot cocoa by the fire and you can tell me
about all the slopes you went to. I could totally
imagine loving that. So yeah, if you're listening to this
in twenty fifty and that's happening.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Great, Yeah, I definitely I was same with it. Like
the idea of owning a second property like the first
one is such a headache. I can't even imagine maintaining
a second one. But the reason to have, say a
beach compound is because then people will come to you
(30:49):
for a low cost vacation that has an upside beyond
just seeing you. Right, And so much as I love
my part of Pennsylvania, it is not somewhere that people
generally visit as a vacation destination.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, you know, there's gonna be a lot of climate
change jokes that people are making in their head right
now that it will be a beach conpound.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, maybe it'll be right up to my door. The
ocean will have gotten all the way here by twenty fifty,
let's hope not, but you know it, or there may
be no snow. But hey, if we're doing this skiing,
just having the condo in Colorado that people would come
and stay at, and that would be a reason to
(31:30):
get the extended family to gather and have them come
see you. I could totally see wanting to do that,
So that's on my mind as an idea. I also
do love the idea of having a non peak time
celebration that people come see you. So yeah, like having
a labor day, Labor day like we do up labor
Probably not because if kids start school the Tuesday after
(31:53):
unless everyone's very close, that wouldn't necessarily work. But something
like the weekend after Christmas, or on how far people
are away from each other, or like everyone comes and
sees you on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend or something
like that, and having a get together then, because then
they can celebrate on their own, they can celebrate with friends,
(32:13):
they can celebrate with their My kids could go to
their in laws and I'd still see them, and I
could make it easier for them to do all of that.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I love it. All right, you're already planning the calendar
thirty years ahead. It's awesome. And I was going to
say something like, well, not everyone will always be in school,
but the number of kids you have in different ages, Yeah,
someone's like always going to be in school always, like
your older kids kids are going to be in school
by the time your younger kids are out of school.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Wow, could happen? Could happen? We just don't know how
these things or yeah, the idea of like would we
ever be able to get all five at once for something?
I mean I hope so, like I mean for maybe
each of their weddings or something like that, but we
were even thinking of that with Like, I think we
will be able to do Christmas travel this year with
(32:58):
Jasper home, amazing, But I know that next summer he's
already got something that he's most likely going to be
out of the country for a big chunk of time,
and so it's like summer travel would not really be
an option with him. And so yeah, it's all ah,
they do grow up. It's in flux. It's in flux.
(33:18):
Much of life will be in flux for forever. But
that is life. So you learn to celebrate whatever you
can do and the relationships that you can maintain with people.
And I certainly hope to maintain a relationship with my
adult kids. So all right, moving on to the question
do you want to read it? You want me to
read it? Sure?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I can read it? Okay, this person wrote, I can
work remotely at least some of the time. I'd love
to go somewhere more interesting for longer periods of time
and feel like work flexibility would allow it. But since
we have kids that are both working, we tend to
stay where we are for regular childcare, camps, et cetera.
Any ideas.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, so this is so much more doable now than
it has ever been in the past to go work
somewhere else, as people have arrangements where you generally have
to be in the office three days a week and
be at home two days a week, but it's usually
not every single week that has to happen, so you
might even if you have to like swipe in one
hundred and forty times a year or whatever it is,
(34:14):
you might do that five times a week a couple times,
and then have a couple of weeks where you might
be able to work fully remotely if you wanted. So,
you might think about camps for next summer with an
idea toward making this be possible now. Obviously, if your
kids are old enough to go to overnight camp coordinating
so there at least a couple of weeks where everyone
is gone would allow you to go somewhere more interesting
(34:36):
to work during that time. But even if not, you
could sign them up for daycare in a place that
you wanted to go. So let's say you are somewhere
in the Midwest and you've thought, oh, it'd be fun
to live in California for a while. Well, you could
go rent an apartment in San Diego, for six weeks
(34:57):
or something next summer, and then and you find day
camps that are near your condo in San Diego for
your kids, and you obviously do not have to live
somewhere in most cases. I mean maybe if it's run
by the school district and there's a residency requirement, but
for a lot of private day camps, that wouldn't be
the case. And so you'd go to this place and
(35:18):
you could plan on maybe a week or two you're
not working, but the others you are, and you enroll
your kids in a day camp there, and then you
can still have adventures in the evening and on the
weekends and make that work.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yes, this is like a fancy Miami people kind of
a thing, and I have to admit whenever I hear it,
I'm like so jealous because it does not work with
my profession. I cannot really work remotely. And that's fine.
But when they come in and like, yeah, we're about
to head to Colorado. My husband and I are both
going to work from our little condo and our kids
are going to go to day camp there, I'm like,
oh my gosh, you're escaping the heat. You're getting a
(35:53):
total change of scenery. It's going to feel kind of
like vacation. I mean, yes, you're working, but of course
they're taking time off too, if they can even like
rent out their home or something like that, although I
think many of them just choose to airbnb somewhere for
a while. And yeah, I mean, if you are able
to do that, young kids should not stop you, because
there are a decent number of camp programs. You could also,
(36:14):
if you're planning well enough in advance, like hire a
college student to be like a summer I've heard of
one friend that they never had nanni's except for summer nanny's.
So that is a thing that you could do. And
of course that person could travel with you wherever you
chose to be.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Or I mean if you had visited that place to
do like interviews with someone, I mean, you could hire
someone who is there right like they wouldn't even have
to live with you. If you were maybe thinking to
Colorado for the summer, like Colorado also has people who
want jobs, and so you could figure out a way
to make that happen. Or yeah, maybe it's getting back
to the extended family management. Maybe you have a niece
(36:48):
or nephew who would think that would be a cool
job for this summer if they wanted to go someplace
that you were as well. And then they could take
care of the kids from eight to four and then
they can go have their teen beach experience after that
and on the weekends and stuff. So lots of options
to consider, all right. So, Sarah, Love of the week,
what do you have this week?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Choosing fun seasonal nail colors? So I went and took
two of my kids to get their nails done yesterday
so they could have cute nails for kids.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You're not specifying which two kids?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh yeah, okay. It was Annablee and Genevie No Judgment
said like can I go to I'm like you can.
He's like, yeah, no, I'm not going to, but I'm
like sure. And I got bright yellow on my feet,
and I'm like, this is so summary and fun. And
I tend to keep my fingernails like a relatively nailish
adjacent color, but my feet are no holds barred, and
(37:39):
I try to do something seasonal and ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So I thought bright yellow, bright yellow, love it, love it.
Probably I think I just had this memory. I think
when I was a kid once I painted my toenails black.
I had like black to and people like thought it
was like injured myself.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Well, Genevieve goes, should I get pink? White or black?
And Adabell and I were like, not black.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Unless you want to add or like a million questions
like oh are you okay? What happened?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
What is your love of the week.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
My love of the week is the Flower Bakery and
Coffee shop in Boston. So I was in Boston week
before we were recording this with Jasper for college orientation,
and there was a Flower location right across from my
hotel and I was like, Oh, that looks cute. I'll
(38:26):
stop by there. And then I went and I was like, oh,
my goodness, I will be back. Ridiculous variety of baked
goods and coffee options. It was all incredibly good. So
I am excited about these various Boston institutions that I'm
going to be getting to know over the next four years,
and that is definitely one of them.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
That is so exciting. It really is a great city. Yes,
you're lucky.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
I am all right, Well, this has been best at
both worlds. We've been talking extended family management, how to
celebrate and perhaps deal with depending on the situation. Your
extended fan. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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