Failed again

Yesterday—good Lord, was it only yesterday?—I had a totally pointless fight with Son 1. I don't even know if "fight" is the right word. All I know is that—ironically for someone who talks and writes as much as I do—sometimes I really suck at explaining what I mean. (As a point of comparison, consider, "I never could teach my sons to do their math homework.")

If you are reading this and you have any suggestions for how I can fix it, please leave me a note in the comments. 

Background

It all started ... well no, it started long before that. Years ago, when the boys were first graduating from college and starting out on their own, they authorized me to have access to their bank accounts. From time to time they needed little boosts of cash while they were getting their footing in the real world, and it was easier for me simply to transfer funds than to write a check, mail it, wait for it to arrive, and wait for them to deposit it.

But it turns out that an arrangement like this is a lot easier to set up than it is to discontinue. The only way to cancel it is for the owner of the account (this means, respectively, either Son 1 or Son 2) to walk into the bank and ask for a new account number. (Actually two new numbers, one for checking and one for savings.) Then as the bank sets up the new accounts and transfers over all the history from old to new, the account owner has to say, "Oh yeah, one more thing: don't put my Dad on the new accounts." This is cumbersome. Also it's a nuisance in case (for example) the account owner has set up Direct Deposit for his paycheck, because now he has to re-set it with the new account number. Then he has to wait for the bank to issue new ATM cards, and all that. It's a pain. And since at this point Son 1 and Son 2 each live somewhere else, we haven't gotten around to dealing with it.

It's weird. If Father had ever had access to one of my bank accounts (which he never did, once I was in college), I would have been eager to shut off that access as soon as I possibly could. I suppose in some sense it is a vote of confidence that the boys have been so blasé about the issue.

The fight

Yesterday morning, Son 1's checking account overdrafted. The bank's computer automatically sent out an email, saying "You are overdrawn!" Because I'm listed on the account, I got a copy of the email. So the first thing I see in the morning is an email telling me I'm overdrawn.

This happens from time to time—not often, but this isn't the first time ever or even this year. The very first time it happened, I panicked. This time, I started to panic and then reminded myself to check if the email was really addressed to Son 1, which of course it was. So I sent a hasty and ill-considered email to Son 1 suggesting a few ways he could avoid this from happening in the future. He replied with a text message in all caps telling me not to overreact every single time this happens, and not to send him alarmist emails with news that he's already taken care of. Then I got a second note a minute later explaining how it happened—something about the timing of this and that, I forget exactly—and reassuring me that he has it all under control. So butt out! I said a few more ill-considered things, and then we both simmered down and dropped it.

The issues

Here's what I think we were fighting about. Notice that—like with so many of my arguments with Wife—I think we were arguing about different things. In other words, I suck at explaining what I'm trying to say.

As noted above, I welcome any suggestions you have for making this better.

For Son 1:

So far as I understand him, I think that for Son 1 this argument is about whether he has his life on track. Is he really holding down a good job? Is he making enough money? Is he really adulting, or is he just cosplaying as an adult? Those kinds of questions. Heaven knows, those are the kinds of questions that would have mattered most to me back when I was in my 20's, and Son 1 turns 29 later this year. It is totally understandable that he would take my ex­pos­tu­lation as a reflection on those questions, and resent the hell out of it. 

So whenever I make a comment about his overdrafts, he replies by explaining that it's all about timing. In the grand scheme of things, year over year, he's making anough money. It's just that this once there was a timing error where a check got paid before some income was credited, or something else. But it's not a chronic problem. Overall he's doing fine.

And I totally believe that part.

For me:

The funny part—well, if you can call any of this "funny"—is that those topics aren't my issues! Son 1 has been steadily employed for six years now. He makes more money than I did at his age. (Yes, there has been a lot of inflation between then and now. But even adjusting for inflation, he makes more at 28 than I did at 29 or 30.) I'm not worried about that part.

Well then what am I worried about, and what else am I trying to say?

1. I'm worried that he overdrafts his checking account from time to time. It's at rare intervals, but I wish it were never.
2. And I want to explain to him that there are simple ways to avoid it.

The problem is that the only time I ever say anything is when I'm upset, and so he can't hear me. 

Why am I worried about his overdrafts?

Several reasons: 

1. Partly I'm just the kind of person who worries about things like that. 
2. Partly I remember that in the early years of my marriage to Wife, we overdrafted our checking from time to time, and it was the first indication I had of what proved in the end to be her massive and unchecked financial irresponsibility. Those overdrafts were like little peaks of ice sticking up from the surface of the water, warning about larger icebergs submerged away from view. (You all remember that Wife lives with Son 1 these days, right?)
3. And partly I know that his credit score is going to be affected by how many times he has overdrafted his checking account regardless whether there was a perfectly good explanation behind it. Explanations work on human beings; but credit scores are calculated by algorithms. More and more they are calculated by computers with no human input at all. So the fact that Son 1 has perfectly good explanations in each case won't matter a tinker's dam, because the algorithms won't care.

It is possible that Son 1 doesn't care about his credit score, or at any rate that he has decided not to care, because he assumes he will be permanently priced out of buying a house by the crazy housing market. I wish he didn't think that. I know that Mother has offered to help either boy get into a house if and when he wants to. (She's not rich, but over the years she bene­fitted from her parents' sound investments and the explosion of the real estate market; so almost despite herself, she's now in a comfortable financial condition.) And of course I would help. It's also true that I never thought I'd be able to afford a house until all of a sudden one year Wife and I bought one.

OK then, how can he avoid overdrafts?

It's almost embarrassing to answer this question, because the answers are all so simple. Of course that means that when I throw the suggestions at him in a hot temper I sound really indignant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this doesn't help.

There are three things he could do. In order, from the smallest change to the largest, they go like this:

1. Keep a checkbook! Right now, the way Son 1 knows whether he can afford something is to query his balance at the bank. If someone is late cashing a check, that might give him a faulty reading. If he kept a checkbook, he would know at any time how much room he really had in his account. That would help.
2. Talk to his bank to set up his savings account as an automatic overdraft protection. That's what he does anyway when there's an overdraft—he transfers money from savings. Why not let the bank's computer do it for him? Yes, it takes a phone call to the bank. But no more than that.
3. Get a credit card. (Right now, Son 1 pays for everything with his ATM card.) Then he could time when he paid for purchases so that he was sure he had the money. Yes, some people get in trouble with credit cards—(*cough* Wife! *cough*)—because they treat the cards as free money. But as long as he doesn't do that, he should be fine. I have one credit card and I pay it off in full at the end of each billing period, and for me it simplifies my accounts enormously. He could do the same thing.   

Is there anything else?

Well, yes. If he really doesn't want to do any of these other things, I wish that Son 1 would at the very least take me off his accounts so that I won't get the notifications when he overdrafts. Of course, that's a little bit like taking the battery out of your smoke alarm. It would be better to make sure your house doesn't catch fire. But if he doesn't want to take any of these other steps, he certainly doesn't need me to have access to his accounts any more because, yes, I do in fact believe that he has a good job and the rest of it. But this point, too, I think gets lost in the shouting.

Let me know how you think I can make this better.

Thanks!