When I was a girl and I asked my mother what she wanted for Christmas, she would say, “World Peace. And barring that, I’d like you kids to get along with each other for a full day.” I was one of nine children and, at the time, I thought she was kidding.

Now, nearly a half century later, I’ve come around to my wise mother’s point of view. World peace is still a great option, if feasible. But, barring that, what if we had a normal family dinner with all five of us around the table and we all liked and respected each other for maybe an hour?

Our family has shrunk in recent years down to just my husband, our 16-year-old son, Tom, and me. So we decided to downsize. We sold our 100-year-old monstrosity to an innocent young couple with lots of energy and moved to a townhouse. No sooner had we gotten settled in our new digs when our shrunken family started expanding. My wise, now elderly, mother is making plans for an extended visit with us while our adult daughter, who has been living on her own in Connecticut for the past two years, just got a new job in New Jersey. She’s baaaaack!

Actually, it’s quite nice to have a bonafide adult child in the house. She pitches in, she stops at the supermarket on her way home from work, she drives her brother to his events. When I remember back to the sibling turmoil during her college years, I am grateful that she has grown up so nicely. It was touch and go there for awhile.

When she came home from college after her first semester, my husband and I were shocked by the transformation of our once courteous and considerate daughter into this thing that treated our house like a dorm room and wanted to live the nocturnal life of a college student in a household where everyone else had to get up for work or school in the morning. She actually yelled at her brother for holding band practice at 4 in the afternoon while she was napping! It’s certainly better this time around.

When she came home from college, however, we solved a lot of stress with a family meeting where we hashed out all of our concerns. I reluctantly ceded control by easing the curfew on weekends, but asserted my need to get a good night’s sleep during the week. That worked for us.

We also had to hash out bathroom privileges in a house that only had one tub (now we have two, so it’s easier!). In my mind, there was nothing worse than Annie getting ready to go out in the evening at about 10:30 p.m. as I was heading to bed. The shower, the hair dryer, all of that, drove me crazy. So we agreed that if she was going to go out, she would get herself ready at an earlier hour — a good compromise that worked for both of us.

Now, at our homestead, Tom doesn’t yet have automobile privileges, but there can also be tension when college students return home and try to wrestle back control of the automobile that a younger sibling now thinks of as his or her own. This might take the wisdom of Solomon on your part, or at the very least a grid sheet that maps out appropriate car time for everyone.

Things are pleasant at the Gottlieb house this Christmas. We joyfully await the arrival of Grandma. And we’ve warned Daniel that if he gets it in his head to move home, he’d better bring a sleeping bag.

Meanwhile, since we are a feisty group, we Gottliebs are still striving to achieve world peace and an occasional family dinner that doesn’t end in raised voices. It is just so easy to slip back in to bad habits.

Enjoy your students as they, too, come baaaaack to you! Merry Christmas!

By Tracy Gottlieb, Ph.D.

Dean of Freshman Studies and Special Academic Programs