As parents of young kids, my wife and I appreciate help from our parents and in-laws. But help comes in two forms: there's the helpful kind and the unhelpful kind. I've come to see that the way to get -- and give -- the helpful kind is to 1. Pick your battles and 2. Let go of the need to control everything.

Picking battles is an art that my wife cares nothing for. "We own a dryer," she said flatly to her dad, who bought us a boutique clothesline -- who knew? -- and a clothespin bag, handmade in Australia. He's a prolific gift-giver who enjoys the challenge of buying things without asking if they're needed. Sometimes he'll hit the nail on the head with a practical gift, like the DeWalt power tool set that's in near-constant use for our never-ending home renovation. Other times, he'll miss the nail entirely, and the gift will end up in our closet -- where it's starting to look like we run a black-market Carhartt shop. But this is how he shows affection.

My in-laws are not local, which means most battles don't need immediate picking. We're not around enough for these battles to become outright warfare. I can handle, for example, two minutes of white knuckles while my mother-in-law holds a video to my baby's face of a woman whisper-singing something in a language none of us knows -- is that . . . Icelandic? -- because she's only in town for a few more days.

She's also helpful: I can leave the boys with her and go do work. No guilt, just "Get outta here, we got this." They're not big on cooking, so my in-laws will often buy dinner for all of us, which is a treat.

My parents and I also benefit from natural barriers, like the commute. We live in Roslindale, and they live 30 minutes away in Lexington. We see them once a week because my mom watches one of our boys. When we pick him up, my dad makes us a drink, my mom makes some food, we eat together, and they shuffle us out the door.

These are all examples of tangible support, and that's just what the doctor ordered -- not just any doctor, the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. He recently issued an advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents, saying, in short, we're not doing great. In the New York Times, Murthy wrote, "Parents who feel pushed to the brink deserve more than platitudes. They need tangible support."

Watching the kids is the turkey of grandparenting support -- the main course. Everything else? It's gravy. And unsolicited advice? That's like the weird oyster stuffing no one asked for.

We want you around, grandparents! But we also want your respect, and just as you did things differently than your parents, please accept that we're going to do things a little differently, too. And when we want advice on something, we'll ask you.

I spoke with Dr. Christine Crawford, an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center, and she said the best help grandparents can give doesn't involve advice. Crawford says grandparents often undervalue the importance of just being present. "They feel like they have to be doing something, providing instruction, providing guidance, but for a lot of parents, especially parents of young kids, they just want someone to validate their experience, to listen to them and support them."

Something I appreciate about the support my mom has offered: She initiated the conversation, and she was specific: I can watch one child one day a week. She doesn't enjoy having both when she's solo, and I understand: alone, my boys are cuddly bunnies, together, they are rabid wolverines.

It's not just on grandparents: My generation can be pretty dang precious about parenting. Parenting in the Information Age is like floating alone on a paddleboard in the middle of the ocean, battling sharks with dangerous names like TikTok and Meta and High Fructose Corn Syrup. But can we put our fears aside and let grandparents grandparent? Crawford says, "I think that there are parents who are not giving their parents the benefit of the doubt, not giving them an opportunity to show what they would do as a grandparent."

We have a decision to make: understand that our kids are resilient humans, communicate our expectations, and accept help from our parents who want to help, or refuse help and keep our kids from really experiencing our own parents.

My first son was about a year old when my dad, without asking me or my wife, gave him his first haircut. Some readers might consider this "tangible support" a jailable offense, and I felt that pang: Wait a minute! Wasn't this our moment?

And then I remembered that my grandmother used to cut my hair. Wasn't that special? And my son did need a trim. What a wonderful bonding moment for these two. Involving my parents in my kids' lives, especially these emotional firsts, helps me let go of control. It's counterintuitive; we want to hoard these moments, keep them forever. But the more we share, the closer we become with our kids and our parents. Someday, my dad will be gone, and "the first haircut story" will be just another memory, better because it's shared.