Let me offer another suggestion. We never "pressured" our son (an only) to achieve. We did encourage him, and we allowed him the freedom to explore career options, standing by him when he reversed course and started over. What we never did, as I think about it, was to offer encouragement (or even interest) in his romantic or social life. We did enjoy meeting his friends, and actually lived closely enough to him for a time that we would be welcomed into his social circle from time to time. But we were silent - all his life - on encouraging or even discussing the prospect of married and family life, even though I think we were conscientious about modeling such a life for him. Now he is approaching 40. He has a partner, and they are engaged, but realistically the odds against our having grandchildren are pretty great by now, and our opportunity to be involved and active grandparents even more remote because of our age. Don't get me wrong, all of this is out of our hands, just as being limited to one child was out of our hands. But we had no vocabulary for discussing or encouraging the rewards of family life. I look at our friends with single and unattached adult children and see that there are many others like us. We're not pining away in misery. We have active and service-oriented lives, but we have no extended family, and at some point, we will belong nowhere. We rode a tide of cultural silence on family, and we will be left on its shore.

Let me offer another suggestion. We never "pressured" our son (an only) to achieve. We did encourage him, and we allowed him the freedom to explore career options, standing by him when he reversed course and started over. What we never did, as I think about it, was to offer encouragement (or even interest) in his romantic or social life. We did enjoy meeting his friends, and actually lived closely enough to him for a time that we would be welcomed into his social circle from time to time. But we were silent - all his life - on encouraging or even discussing the prospect of married and family life, even though I think we were conscientious about modeling such a life for him. Now he is approaching 40. He has a partner, and they are engaged, but realistically the odds against our having grandchildren are pretty great by now, and our opportunity to be involved and active grandparents even more remote because of our age. Don't get me wrong, all of this is out of our hands, just as being limited to one child was out of our hands. But we had no vocabulary for discussing or encouraging the rewards of family life. I look at our friends with single and unattached adult children and see that there are many others like us. We're not pining away in misery. We have active and service-oriented lives, but we have no extended family, and at some point, we will belong nowhere. We rode a tide of cultural silence on family, and we will be left on its shore.

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