In my role as a family coach for wealthy families, one of the common issues that arises is the parents’ desire to be “fair” with their children and grandchildren. (I put “fair” in quotation marks because it really is an unusual term that is defined differently by many people and is almost totally based on perception.)

For whatever reason, and I really don’t know exactly where it comes from, fairness is an extremely important issue in our culture that drives many decisions within families. Take, for instance, this past week’s events over Christmas — parents (regardless of their financial status) are quite concerned about giving the equivalent financial value (or perceived value) in gifts to their family members.

There are many challenges related to parents or grandparents trying to be fair with their family members. Let me cite a few:

The “givers” have their own perception of what is (or should be) fair. Most people have a hard time accurately or concisely describing what “fair” is, but they sure have a strong sense of it intuitively. Often it is described in terms of being “equal”, but when pressed about specifics or circumstantial differences, the concept of equal usually fades into the background.

The “receivers” usually have a different view of fairness from the givers (and from other receivers).Most of the family members with whom I work are genuinely grateful for any gift they are (or will be) receiving. The adult children and their spouses do not appear to be greedy, unthankful or have a sense of entitlement. They understand that the “givers” have the right to do whatever they want with their possessions. Nonetheless, when probing deeper, they often express a different viewpoint of what would be “fair” in how the gifts are distributed across the family — often not to their own benefit but out of concern for one of their siblings or in-law’s.

What is “fair” changes over time (pretty easily and often). Let’s take the recent volatility in the financial markets and real estate values. Suppose, in May 2008, some parents gave one of their children $100,000 in a blue chip stock; they gave their second child a house in Atlanta worth $100,000; and they gave their third child $100,000 in cash to use as they wished. Let’s assume each child wanted and agreed to the form of the gift they received (this isn’t always true, you know). So not only were the gifts “fair”, they were exactly equal in monetary value in May 2008 (which is an unusual occurance). But fast forward to May of 2009. The blue chip stock lost 40% of its value, so it is now only worth $60,000. The home in Atlanta lost 50% of its value and can’t really be sold for virtually any price. And the $100,000 in cash is worth $102,000 after they earned 2% on it in a money market account. Are the gifts fair now? Should the parents do some additional giving to make the monetary values equal?

When do you want fairness to exist? When do the givers want things to be fair. Now? Next year? When the business sells? When everyone has completed college? When dad dies and his life insurance proceeds create cash to equalize the gifts given? When both parents die and everything will be “equaled up”? “When” is an important question to answer — for a number of reasons. First, you have the most control over events closest to the present. So “now” seems to be a pretty good option. However, you may not have the liquid assets to make everything fair now, so “now” doesn’t work for many families. Secondly, the further out the “when” is, leaves more variables to chance and the likelihood of fairness not being achieved. Is it “fair” to your second child to wait until the business sells (say in 5 years) to make things fair, and they get divorced and become a single parent needing cash flow two years from now? Or is it “fair” to the eldest child who is running the business (and buying it from you) to wait to realize their inheritance when they sell the business (potentially) in twenty years? I can run a lot of scenarios that create problems.

So what do you do? Give up on the ideal of “fairness”. Maybe, but probably not. I try to help families (usually the senior couple or single parent) clarify what being “fair” means to them, to the best of their ability currently. Secondly, answering the question “when” is critical — and it differs significantly across families. Finally, I encourage family members to think more in terms of values, rather than fairness. Since fairness is a moving target across time and is perceived differently by almost everyone involved — I find making decisions based on what is important to you as a better guideline.

Is education for the next generation important to you? Then figure out a way to fund that. Is affordable housing important? Then figure out a way to help younger family members achieve this goal. Travel? Stay-at-home moms for your grandchildren? A financial safety net? Guaranteed health insurance? Whatever is important to you — pursue that as a gift.

You will eventually have to make some decisions about what you view as being “fair” — assuming you have more than one child. Do you try to equalize your gifts to your children? Or do you try to equalize them at the grandchild level (one of your children has two kids; his sister has three kids; and the youngest has one of his own and three stepchildren)? It’s not easy. But, hey, that is what I am here for — to help you think and talk through the issues, so you can come to a decision you can live with.

Remember, you don’t have to have a lot of money or “stuff” for this to be an issue. Dividing up the household furniture and belongings raises the same issues. Whatever you do, don’t let one of your kids or grandkids (who does have a greed or entitlement issue) “guilt” you into making decisions you don’t want to.

Until then, have a great and safe New Year’s celebration.

A “new tradition” is sort of an oxymoron.  By definition,  (”a long-established, inherited way of thinking or acting”), a tradition is some action that you have been doing for a while.  But I believe it is both possible and helpful to intentionally create new traditions for your family.

We need to recognize that families go through a variety of life stages, with different needs at each stage.  And the demands and parameters of daily life vary significantly.  Think about what life is like when you:

• Are in college, or a single young adult.
• Are newly married, early in your career, without children.
• Have 2-3 children, ages birth to four years old.
• Have 3 children, ages six to twelve, and both parents are working outside of the home.
• Are parents of preteens and high school students.
• Have some children in college and some at home.
• Have daughters-in-law’s and sons-in-law, with some of your children living in other parts of the country.
• Have become empty-nesters, and eventually grandparents.

It is hard to imagine a family tradition that could survive and be really appropriate for family members across all of these life stages (with the possible exception of special foods served at holiday meals).  That is why most family traditions die over time — they no longer “fit” with where the family is currently. So it really seems necessary for families to create (or revise) family traditions over time, if the family is going to continue to have traditions they celebrate.

We may want to review why having traditions is important?  What is the big deal?  On the one hand, I could argue, they really aren’t that big of a deal — they aren’t directly related to the survival of anyone or the family.  On the other hand, I believe traditions are important for a number of reasons.

Traditions:

• Create a sense of togetherness among family members.
• Provide a context by which family memories are made and can be recalled (”remember when you were little, we used to … “)
• Become an avenue through which you can teach important values (e.g. going as a family on a service project together).
• Give a sense of stability and predictability to a family, which children both need and desire.
• Generate positive emotional energy within a family through a sense of anticipation of the event, and also gratitude for the energy expended to make the event occur.
• Develop a pathway of transferring family history, values and stories across generations (”When I was growing up, our family . . . “)

Let me give you some examples of traditions we have created within our family over the years.

Opening Christmas presents.  When our children were little, we devised a strategy to manage the pressure of them wanting to open Christmas presents (which were already under the tree) on Christmas eve.  Rather than facing constant and repeated questions (”Can’t we just …), we came upon the plan of me [dad] giving the family a present to open on Christmas eve.  Every year it was a game that we could play together that evening.  So it accomplished a number of goals:  a) decreased the demands to open presents;  b) provided a family activity for us to do together; and c) helped us develop quite a storehouse of games to be used throughout the year!

Giving gifts to charities and educating the family about the charity.  Several years ago, when my siblings and our families gathered together to exchange gifts at my parents’ home, we decided that we didn’t need to give each other small, and sometimes not very meaningful gifts, just out of habit. We were having our own families, didn’t need the extra expense, and the time and energy to shop for one another (even after we had reduced it to drawing names to just give one present) didn’t seem worth it.  So we agreed to start a new gift giving tradition.  That each year one sibling and our spouse would choose a charity; we would provide information about the organization and the services they provided, and then the siblings gave money to that charity instead of buying gifts.  (This was a time-limited tradition which went away as our families grew larger and we no longer meet together to exchange gifts across the extended family.)

A new holiday meal.  In deference to my friend, Dr. Gary Chapman, and his book The Five Love Languages, I would propose that there is a separate love language for teenage boys — food.  (Anyone else who has had three teenage boys knows what I mean.)  This is especially true for our middle son, Joel.   A number of years ago, when Joel was in high school, he proposed that we start a new tradition, a Christmas eve meal of barbeque meatballs, fries, salad, and brownies for dessert.  His brothers, sister, and dad all thought this sounded like a good idea — and in exchange for help in making the meal, mom agreed to the new tradition, which we enjoy to the present.

A family story-telling event.  When we moved into our home over fourteen years ago, we started a tradition focused on our new, large fireplace.  We call it “The First Fire”.  Every year, as the weather gets colder, we pick a night to build our first fire in the fireplace.  We start it without newspaper (only using really small pieces of wood) and try to start it with just one match.  After the fire is going, we turn out all the lights, sit around the fire and eat some wintry munchies (popcorn, hot cider, hot chocolate, make s’mores).  And then we tell family stories.  Kathy and I tell stories about our families when we were growing up, and even stories that our parents told us about their childhood.  And then we tell stories about each child, when they were little.  (The siblings all chime in with their own memories and stories of one another.)  It really is a delightful time.  We will have to see if the tradition continues or how it may morph into a new form, since our children are all at college or out on their own now.

There are other traditions I could share (Fourth of July celebrations, vacation sites we went to repeatedly for years, birthday traditions, New Year’s traditions), but that is enough for now.

As we approach the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, when most families gather together, I would encourage you to think about your current (or possibly past) traditions that you want to keep going or rekindle.  And also think about possible new traditions that you may want to start.

Here are a couple of lessons we have learned in starting new traditions:

1. There needs to be a leader, someone who leads out and take charge.  Just throwing out an idea (”Maybe we should . . .”  or “What do you think about .  .  . “), doesn’t make it happen.
2. Having more than one family member involved and committed raises the probability of getting started.   Trying to start a family tradition by yourself doesn’t usually work.  There needs to be “buy in” from one or two others (depending on the size of your family) to sustain the energy needed to overcome inertia, and to “get it done”.
3. Don’t wait for everyone for to get excited about the idea in order to start. Having unanimous agreement or excitement is probably an unrealistic expectation (especially if you have teenagers!)  It is okay for someone to not really be that excited about the idea initially.  But usually, if it is a decent idea and implemented adequately, family members “come along” and often later admit they enjoyed the time.

Whatever you do together as a family over the coming weeks, do it and enjoy one another!

May God bless you and your time together over the holidays.

OK, first things first.  I am a busy person.  Currently, too busy.  (I am writing this as I sit on a plane flying to Chicago for a business meeting.)  So this is one of those entries where I call on the “psychologist’s privilege” of being able to expound on principles that I do not have implemented in my life yet.  The principles are true.  I’m just not consistently applying them.  (Ask my wife)

Busyness and the holidays seem to go hand-in-hand.  There is the “normal” busyness of life - work, family, home responsibilities, extended family, friends, leisure activities, and community involvement.  Then we add another layer of activities for the six weeks or so from Thanksgiving thru the New Year’s.

What is “busyness”, really?  How does it differ from just being active or doing things?

Lets look at some of the characteristics that seem to accompany a sense of being busy, and I think that will give us some insight. 

Busyness seems to go with:

• Feeling Rushed
• Having a lot to do in a short period of time.
• A general sense of pressure, even compression.
• Tenseness.
• Irritability (more for some than others).
• Things to do.
• Places to go.
• People to meet (to finish the phrase).
• Short time frames.  Activites scheduled in close succession.
• Being late (or worrying about being late).

Sounds like a fun way to live, doesn’t it?  So why do we do it ourselves?  Why (and how) do we let ourselves become so busy, even frantic, during this time of year?

I think there are 3 basic factors that lead to our busyness.

1. Opportunities. Lots of them.  There are a lot of extra things going on during the Christmas season.  School Christmas concerts.  Work-related Christmas parties.  Christmas shopping.  Kids’ basketball, volleyball, hockey, and indoor practices and games.  Extra choir practices.  Christmas pageants at church.  Ski trips and Christmas vacations.  Watching traditional Christmas movies.  Visiting relatives (both sides).  So, bottom line, there are more activities to do.
2. Expectations.  There are two primary sets of expectations: a) our own (for ourselves), and b) others’ (for us).  Both sets seem to crank up during this time of year.  As I have stated in the past, the easiest way to track expectations is through the “should’s” we hear (either in our head, or out of the mouths of others.)  “I really should go to…” or “You can’t miss…”  Expectations, generally speaking, are neither good nor bad; right nor wrong.  But some of them really are not reality-bsed - you really can’t do everything.  So you have to make choices.  The problem is: some choices lead to not meeting someone’s expectations.
3. The Experience(s) of Not Meeting Expectations.  When we don’t meet the expectations of others’, there is the risk of them having a negative reaction: hurt, disappointment, frustration, anger. [Note: they don’t have to react in those ways.  They have a choice.  They could also respond with graciousness, understanding and acceptance.]  When we don’t meet our own expectations, we tend to feel guilty, worry about “what others will think”, and sometimes beat ourselves up mentally.

Since most of us don’t like either of these experiences (others reacting negatively to us not meeting their expectations, and being hard on ourselves), we make the other choice - we try to do as much as we can to meet everyone’s (at least perceived) expections.  The result?  Busyness.

The Antidotes to Busyness.

So, is there any solution?  Or are we doomed to live frantic lives for the last six weeks of every calendar year?

I don’t think we are going to seriously reduce the number of possible activities available during this time of year, so give that option up.

One option comes from the disciple of management.  When a person or organization has limited resources, they have to prioritize. Anyone who has been in “tight” financial circumstances knows that difficult choices have to be made.  You can’t buy or do this.  We will pay this bill first and this other bill next week.  The same is true for our time and energy - when there is more to do than we have time or energy, we have to prioritize.  We pick those activities (hopefully) which are most important to us (based on our values), and decide we can’t do others.

The concept of margin also seems applicable.  Our busyness transforms into frantic and blood-pressure raising stress when we leave no margin for errror in our scheduling and planning.  When we plan to go to three Christmas parties on one Friday night, from 7 to 8:15 p.m. (30 minutes travel); 8:45 to 10 p.m. (30 minutes travel) and then 10:30 to midnight (this is obviously the schedule of a younger person!), most likely we are setting ourselves up for a stressful evening, if we really expect to keep that timeframe.  Most of us need to leave more room in our schedules for unexpected traffic, not being able to find the presents at the store as quickly as we thought, etc.

The idea of giving up comes to mind.  (I bet that phrase caught some of your attention.)  Not “giving up” in totality.  but giving up some of our expectations.  For some of us who are really social, the thought of missing a party is close to the pain of a kidney stone.  But, at some point, we need to say: “It’s not worth it.”  The busyness, the stress, the resulting irritability, the tension in my relationship with my family outweighs the fun I may have at going to three Christmas parties this weekend.  We may also need to give up some of our expectations for others - it is okay if they can’t make it to Susie’s Christmas concert (even though she has a one line solo in one song); our friendship won’t end if they can’t make it to my party; the world won’t come to an end if we open Christmas presents with the grandchildren the week after Christmas.

Finally,  pause and enjoy the moment. Instead of rushing from store to store in panic, take a minute and enjoy the cool winter sunshine, listen to the high school choir singing in the mall, stop and enjoy a glass of hot cider.  One of my biggest challenges is the tendency to be thinking ahead to the next event or activity and not fully enjoy the one I am currently attending.  When you are at a party, stop looking around to see who is there, and focus on the person you are talking to right now.  Enjoy them.  Listen to their story and laugh together.

Ok, so I have now lectured myself in addition to writing this to you.  I promise to work on these antidotes in the coming weeks (I have to start now by saying no to some of the opportunities I have before me). How about you?