Dear Ann Landers,
ur daughter is twenty-six years old. She chose business school over college and is now number one secretary to the presi-dent of a large firm. We are pleased that Terry still lives with us and doesn't want an apartment of her own like so many girls these days, but I feel we are being taken advantage of. "Terry has no savings account. She buys very expensive clothes, has her own car, takes vacations in Europe, and doesn't give us one cent for room and board. She pays the telephone bill, mainly because the long-distance calls are hers. I do her laundry, keep her room clean, fix her a big breakfast every morning and dinner whenever she wants it. "Our home is paid for and Terry knows we are not hard up for money, but it would be awfully nice to have a little extra coming in. My husband says not to 'rock the boat' or she might move. What do you say? If you believe she should pay-how much? Thanks for your help, Ann.-A Pitts-burgh Mom." I replied, "

Dear Mom,
Terry should give you 20 percent of her paycheck. If she thinks she can get lodging, breakfast, laundry, and maid-service else-where for less-let her try it. "The fact that you are not hard up for money is no excuse for your daughter's selfishness. Share this letter with your husband, and I hope to-gether you will muster up the courage to talk to Terry promptly." When sons and daughters marry, things change considerably. Even though parents have a tendency to forever think of their children as "children," they should be granted a totally different status when they establish a family unit of their own. Should Mom be forever and always the Number One woman in Sonny's life? Does he owe her that? No, he does not. A wise and loving mother will-ingly relinquishes that place to her daughter-in-law. She remembers how she felt about her husband's mother when she married. By the same token, a kind and thoughtful daughter-in-law will be considerate of her husband's mother so she will not feel displaced or abandoned. Life's cycles have an ironic way of evening up the score. The woman who finds herself with a mother-in-law problem might do well to think ahead a few years when her son will marry and she will become the mother-in-law. Getting down to specifics, what do married children owe their parents in terms of time and attention? According to my readers, this is a major prob-lem among marrieds in their thirties and forties. Here are some questions from this week's mail bag: From Lubbock, Texas: "My mother telephones me at least four times a day. She wants to know if the children ate a good breakfast, who wore what at a party last night, what am I fixing for supper, has my husband's boss said anything about a raise . . . ?" From Nashville, Tennessee: "My husband's mother asks me every two weeks if I am pregnant yet. She keeps reminding me that I'm not getting any younger and she would give anything to have a grandchild. The woman is getting on my nerves." From Richmond, Virginia: "My husband's parents are in their mid-seventies. He spends at least five hours every Saturday driving them to the supermarket, the dentist, the doc-tor, the pharmacy, the optometrist, the greenhouse, the dry cleaners, and so on. My in-laws have two daughters who live in town but they never bother them. My husband is the one they run ragged. Does he owe them this kind of service?" From San Diego, California: "My mother is sixty-four, a widow, attractive and well read. When we have guests for an evening, she is hurt if she isn't included. I love her dearly, but Mom has strong opinions and I have the feeling our friends resent her. Am I obligated to include her because she is my mother?" There are no hard and fast rules to cover every situation but here are some suggestions that can be tailored to fit a great many: Countless people are victims of not only in-laws but friends who have black-cord fever-also known as telephonitis. The best protection against these types is to develop a technique for getting off the phone after a reason-able period of time-or sooner, if you wish. The victim should have prepared sentences handy and read them when the need arises. Sample: "Sorry, dear. I have a million things to do this morning and I must hang up now. We'll talk again soon." People have no right to complain about being trapped or taken advantage of if they don't have the gumption to assert themselves. I tell them repeat-edly, "No one can exploit you without your permission." This includes re-fusing to answer "nun-uvyer-bizniz" type questions. Sample comeback: "Now why in the world would you be interested in that?" No woman owes her in-laws grandchildren. Any person who presumes to put pressure on a woman to "give us a grandchild" should be put in her place. Running errands and chauffeuring aged parents can be time- and energy-consuming, but it may be essential when no alternatives exist. If there are other children (or nieces and nephews) who might help out, they certainly should be asked to do so. Where time is more valuable than money, a paid driver may relieve a lot of tension in an emergency. Including parents in social activities is not essential and parents should not expect it. No apologies or excuses are necessary. Perhaps the most anxiety-producing problem is one that hits in the late forties or early fifties-about the same time some adults are going through the mid-life crisis. What to do with Mama when Papa dies. Or, if Mama goes first, what should be done with Papa? Circumstances alter cases. Some mamas wouldn't live with their children on a bet. The same goes for some papas. Many factors should be considered at the outset; first: How would Grandma or Grandpa fit in with the family? Is she or he too bossy? Would there be trouble in the kitchen? Would the children feel that too many people are telling them what to do? Finances are another major consideration. Does the surviving parent have sufficient money to maintain his or her own place? The issue of health is also important. Is Mama or Papa well enough to live alone? The answers to these questions should be carefully reviewed when attempting to reach a de-cision. Strictly from a standpoint of morality and decency-do you owe your parents a place in your home if he or she would like to move in? I say, "No." If they need housing or care, it goes without saying, you should pro-vide it, but you do not owe them a place under your roof if it would create dissension and conflict in your family. The ideal solution is to keep the surviving parent in his or her own home or apartment if it is economically feasible. When money is a problem, all the children should ante up and share the cost. (Often this is easier said than done.) Endless family fights have resulted because brother George or sister Mabel say they can't help out with the old folks because they have kids in college. Yet they manage to go to Florida or Arizona every winter, belong to the country club, and drive new cars. The most serious crisis arises when Mama and Papa become ill or too old to take care of themselves. Nursing homes are expensive and many old peo-ple don't want to go there. What then? Some heroic women have taken in a parent or an in-law (or both) at tremendous personal sacrifice. This can be the most physically exhausting and emotionally draining job in the world, since old folks tend to be senile, incontinent, ill-tempered and in need of constant watching. I implore daughters and daughters-in-law not to feel guilty if they are unable to do it. The woman who cfoes make this sacrifice, in my opinion, deserves a place at God's right hand come reckoning time. In the final analysis none of us goes through life debt-free. We all owe something to somebody. But the most noble motivation for giving is not prompted by a sense of duty. It flows freely from unselfish love. Parents: Possessive and Strict Parents' difficulties in adjusting to their teenagers' "adolescent turmoil" is a fact of life. This difficulty reflects the many changes, up, down and sideways that the parent must adjust to in the teenager. The difficulty is made greater by the fact that many parents have blocked out memories of their own teen-age years because of the emotional pain of that period. The struggles of the teenage years are centered around resolving his excessive attachments to his family, finding a sense of who he is, as well as dealing with his emerging sex-ual feelings and impulses. The physical changes'of the teenager are visible and develop at a relatively consistent rate toward physical adulthood. The emotional changes are less clear-cut, and tend to go backward and forward as the child strains toward emotional adulthood. Parents as a rule have a difficult time understanding when and where the teenager develops inner conflicts and is pulled backward. The parents' understanding and ability to respond properly to these different fluctuations are important in offering the teenager a family climate in which he can move toward adulthood with greater ease. Parents who have resolved their own problems regarding the ties to their parents and who handle their own sex lives satisfactorily will be better able to tolerate their teenager's struggles and help him in his effort to grow up and move into the adult world. Some of the characteristics of the teenager that parents find difficult to tol-erate are rebelliousness, self-centeredness, moodiness and rapid changes in the teenager's view of who he values and admires. These characteristics make it difficult for a parent to be supportive at a time when the teenager needs as much support as he can get. While it is difficult to recommend a specific list of guidelines for being an effective parent for all teenagers, we will try to describe policies that reflect understanding of the important elements of the teenage period. It is important to remember that every child is an individual who grows both physicaHy and emotionally at a different rate. Each family environment reflects different styles as influenced by parental experiences, religious and ethnic background, as well as family size, quality of the marriage and whether the child is the first-born, boy or girl, and other factors too numerous to men-tion. We will discuss the two main tasks of adolescence and the needs expressed by the child, as well as the parental reactions. The two main tasks to be mastered are (1) emerging sexual feelings and impulses without excessive inhibitions or lack of self-control, and (2) break-ing away from the old-style attachment to the family. These developmental tasks affect one another and cannot be separated. We will address them sepa-rately in order to discuss the issues more clearly. The period of development prior to adolescence is called the latency pe-riod. The child of this age period is usually at relative peace with himself and family. He is a "good kid," dependent on and needful of both parents. From this peaceful state there is a gradual and increasing intensity of swings be-tween the youngster showing signs of greater self-reliance and a return to the previous child-like attachments. At this point, the teenager begins to deny the importance of the standards and values imposed by the parents and adheres to his peer group views and pressures. The further the peer group point of view is from the parents' posi-tions, the greater the stress. The teenager's break from the family leads to a confused and confusing situation for both the parents and the teenager. This is partly due to the fact that while the teenager is becoming a "physical" adult, he is still dependent on the parents for clothing, bed and board. He is given more responsibility for making decisions about staying out later, selecting his own clothes, driving a car, working part-time, etc. At the same time, parents become anxious about the teenager's unpredictable be-havior. Concern about unpredictable behavior shows itself in the exaggerated way parents react to the issue of what time the teenager is supposed to return from a party or a date. The fear that forbidden behavior is taking place is a common source of anxiety, as if no forbidden behavior can take place before the agreed time for the teenager to return home. Anxiety about the teenager's ability to stay out of trouble can lead to excessive and irrational "rules and regulations." This inconsistency leads to further confusion in the teenager's mind about what is expected of him. The teenager's mood swings are at first very difficult for the parents to ad-just to. This is especially true because the heightened sensitivity of the teen-ager makes communication between parent and child more difficult. The par-ents need to be more supportive of the movements away from them. They must be tolerant of the child's lapses into "babyish" behavior and not make him feel ashamed. These changes in the teenager have a potential for stirring up other anxie-ties in the parents. If the parents recognize these anxieties they will be able to be more supportive in helping the teenager deal with growing up. Parental anxieties about the changing teenager are present in fill parents to some degree. They represent remnants of previous ties to their own parents that have not been completely resolved. The teenager's breaking of ties to the parents has a potential for rekindling the feelings of anxiety around the par-ents breaking away from their own parents during their adolescence. If these unresolved anxieties are strong, they may hinder the parents' effectiveness in helping their teenager move ahead. Sometimes the term "possessiveness" is used to describe this lack of freedom in the parent in supporting the teen-ager's separation from the family. Some degree of possessiveness is present in all relationships where people care about one another. The appearance of possessiveness is seen in most child-parent relationships when the child is starting to change, but the changes at first are not recognized by the parent. It appears that the parent is holding on to the child. In these situations, as soon as the parent recognizes that change is taking place, the parent should loosen the reins. The signs of real possessiveness are those that inhibit the child's natural growth. Because of the parents' anxiety about the child breaking away, they need to diminish the sense of confidence that the child has in himself and insist that he is not ready to break away. Sometimes the parent conveys to the child that the parent needs him to remain close, producing a sense of guilt in the child for his desire to grow up and leave. Another form of possessiveness is seen in parents who refuse to allow their teenagers to pick their own friends. Such possessiveness is usually associated with overindulgence and the underlying feeling that "no boy is good enough for my daughter" or "my child should be going with a better class of people." This kind of behavior may be rationalized by the parent as "caring," but, actually, it inhibits the normal distancing that must take place between parent and teenager during this developmental phase. The child must find satis-factions in relationships outside of the home to meet the real needs of grow-ing up. The teenager needs positive support in breaking away from parental ties to be free to enter the outside world. If this permission is not granted, the child will experience guilt about his wishes to change and move on. A lack of confidence will produce a clinging kind of attachment in some children and an excessive rebelliousness in others as they feel conflicted about the restric-tiveness of their environment. The issues of excessive strictness or parental possessiveness are not the critical points for the parent-teenager relationships. It is more important to accentuate the teenager's need for guidance, limit-setting and consistency from the parent to help the teenager deal with the inner confusion and un-certainty which the teenager struggles with during this period. The teenager will openly complain about the rules and regulations and appear to be de-manding free reins, but at a deeper level, he feels more secure with firm, friendly guidance. The understanding of this paradox is the crucial issue for the parent. credit: Leon Diamond, M.D., Director, Graduate Education, Department of Psychiatry, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois. STARVED FOR AFFECTION