Parenting Adult Children Can Be Agony
Remember when you first held your newborn? The love that flooded your heart in that incredibly intense moment is wordless to describe. It washes over you and fills your whole being. That love sustains me as a parent. Love is the guide through all the childhood decisions, the effort to raise my boys “right,” and the on-going truly enormous amount of self-sacrifice of being a mother.
Younger Children
My two boys are in their 30s. I look back on their younger days with affection. Hugs, love and laughter warmed our home. Yes, there were difficult times. School, grades, neighborhood bullies, cliques at school, sports, fighting… the list can go on and on.
But the home was at the center, and everything had a way of working out. After they left the warm cocoon of our home, I was shocked to experience parent agony. Not from the empty nest, but from the life decisions they made.
Parenting Adults Is Different
With adult children, the same bottomless love still floods your heart, but the delivery needs to be different. There’s a dance going on in your parent heart.
Do you go ahead with hugging, making good food, listening, and giving all your insight and direction on what to do? Do you do action steps they should do, just to make it easier for them? Do you completely back off and watch them go down the wrong path that will hurt their life and future?
This agonizing dance is a struggle of how to support and show love. It’s very easy to overstep. You ask too much, you express opinions too much, you interfere too much, and the message from them is, “back off.” So, you pull back and watch as they make their choices. Some are terrible, and you suffer through them as if you made them yourself.
Agonizing Over Adult Children’s Choices
One parent shared with me how her son and fiancé drove over to her home to tell her they wanted a baby, NOW. They didn’t want to wait until they got married and settled down with financial resources in place. They said, “Life is short and now is the time for a family.”
In that moment, the parent expressed her thoughts openly about the difficulty of that choice that could await them, then worked hard to be neutral and to support them with love through their choice. She could see her son was not ready for this lifelong commitment and the challenges of parenting.
The road since that day has been difficult. Their little girl, her dear granddaughter, is growing up with parents who are divorced. She bounces between homes and parents as her lifestyle. This parent feels ongoing agony of her son’s choices.
Separation Is the First Step
The other day I spoke to a father who has a beautiful adult daughter. She has never settled into a career that would support her well. Waitressing and odd jobs were her career choices. Recently, she packed up and moved to another state.
The work she had set up there didn’t come through, her new living conditions were below expectations, and her finances suffered. This dad tried to stay connected, encourage and listen to his daughter on phone calls.
The return calls are few and far between and texts or voice mails go unanswered. He is consistently left wondering if she is okay, has enough money for food, and what exactly is happening right now with her. He feels the agony.
Blaming Can Be Like a Gut Punch
My first-born son is an adult now with a family of his own. A few times in social situations he’s delivered a verbal gut punch, bluntly describing what he thinks were my parenting mistakes. He blames those mistakes for how he messed up some events in his life.
We have different memories about those same parenting events of our past. I put time and thought into those parenting decisions! The agony caused by his reflection on my mistakes burns deep within me. Because he’s a parent now, I know he will understand this truth as time goes on, there is no perfect parent. We all do our best with what we know.
Parenting Regrets
When I was in my 20s, my mom said to me, “I wish I wouldn’t have had children.” Boy, that gut punch HURT and took me forever to understand. She had six kids, and we all loved her, actively taking time out of our lives to show love to her.
Now I understand what she meant. In hindsight, I know at the time she was struggling with our adult choices that were very different from what she would do. My mom was going through the painful agony of parenting her adult kids.
Deep Emotions of Parenting Adult Children
If you can relate to this, you’re not alone. This stage of parenting adult children comes with powerful emotions of helplessness, fear, and worry. Some of us are going through the absolute agony of being abandoned by adult kids. We may or may not know why.
We look at other families who have thriving, successful adult children and wonder if we have been a failure in some way. What did we lack in parenting them when they were little? How could we have done better?
The truth is that we have messed up at times. We are parenting as human beings. We aren’t perfect, and neither are other parents and families. I believe that we do the best that we can, with who we are. We can’t give out more than what we have or know.
Two Phases of Surrender
The key to surviving the agony is summed up in one word, surrender. Now, as our children are adults, let go and surrender control of their situational choices and outcomes. For me, there are two phases of surrender.
The first is, when asked, I do my best to express my opinion in a non-threatening, non-judgmental, clear way. Then I surrender within myself, and to them, their choices, and outcomes. Once I’ve given them another viewpoint to consider, I can step back.
They are in this world for their own purpose. They are adults who need to make choices that sometimes work well and sometimes flop so badly that profound lessons are imbedded for them to learn. It’s their journey, and they need to live it.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What about you? How have you found to continue with care and love when parenting adult children brings agony? We could all learn from your story, so please share.
Tags Adult Children
Hmmm. Isn’t this a bit of “catastropizing” as I describe it to my family law clients? They often use the word “nightmare” as they go through divorce. I often respond gently, but
truthfully, ‘If you’re not planning a child’s funeral, you’re not experiencing nightmare.”
While I appreciate your insight, you use the word “agony” or “agonizing” a dozen times.
I get it–that’s the key word in your essay, but I agree with a couple of the respondents that some of the problems you cited are really just the kids not living up the parents’ version of
good, right or best choices. So the kid moves out of state, bumps around in various jobs instead of impressive-sounding careers, hooks up with the wrong partner, has kids too young. So? Agonizing can be when your daughter won’t leave the abusive boyfriend; when your son descends into the nightmare of serious drug addiction. The good news (although painful) is that TODAY there are programs and resources EVERYWHERE and they eventually find their way to them, often saying, “Wow, I had to hit rock bottom before I got into rehab.” And no, you don’t need to be an A+ parent or even a B- parent. You just have to be good enough often enough.
Catherine, I agree. It is important for parents to reassess their role. Not all adult children want to be close with their parents. Some prefer separation. It doesn’t mean they don’t love their parents. It means they want to define their own lives. My daughter went through a divorce with a verbally abusive, self-centered husband. She is sorting out her life with her child. It is hard seeing that she doesn’t live as well as she did financially before, but she is living a healthier life emotionally.
It is also hard for parents who don’t have their own identity and who are co-dependent with their adult children. So much for role reversal.
Maybe we need programs for parents who had a rough time letting go of their adult children.
You know, THAT’S a great idea. My generation left upon finishing high school. That was that! We sank and sputtered and swam and emerged like kittens in the rain. 35 years later, I sobbed with grief when my son broke up with a girlfriend I adored. I had to
do a google search for comfort on that.
Catherine, at 75, and I make a point to say that, we bought the Aviance commercial. We could do it all. Birth a baby, have a dinner party a few days later, deliver a dissertation in labor, and just suck it all in. We gave our children wings, and behave like they are home. Many still contribute financially to ensure our adult children continue the life style that our generation afforded. After years of marriage, I filed for divorce. My ex-attorney spouse remarried immediately to a woman 20 years his junior. No surprise as it was quite confirmational. We all lived in the same apartment complex for a while. I still laugh at that. She dumped him and he has all the bills. He still works in his late 70s. Grateful not to be living in the million dollar mansion he acquired. My bungalow is just perfect. I’ve traveled, taken flying lessons, been all over the world.
My role is to be available if and when they need me. And to live my very best life.
It IS agonizing. No other word would fit. It’s good that it’s easier for you though
Some examples given certainly are agonizing. Others, in my opinion, are things
we can choose to step back a bit on, shake our heads and mutter, and let go of.
And by the way, I did not comment on my life, so you have no idea if it’s easier for me.
Catherine, you bring out a point so many of us forget in this rush to the drama culture we have created. It isn’t agonizing, it is painful. Life has painful aspects. It also has some important lessons in that pain. Somehow we have lost perspective along the way. I think our parents had perspective. Maybe we didn’t get that gene, or maybe we need to reframe all of this. Continually.
What is your child became addicted to drugs. And every time they left the house you thought they were going to die. And the woman who introduced them to the drugs actually did die of an overdose. Would that be agonizing enough for you or did they just not live up to my expectations and what they thought their life would be? Please. Seriously.
Look, I wrote THAT would be agonizing, not some of the other examples, for which I
offered perspective–not judgment.
There’s a diverse spectrum of situations parents go through with adult children. Your viewpoint brought balance to this article, enriching the discussion for us all. What some parents find agonizing might be viewed by others as an everyday struggle. Others (some have responded to this article) experience the pain of adult children in deeply distressing situations, such as abuse or addiction. Thankfully there are valuable programs and resources, not only for the adult child as they navigate life, but also for parents.
Your article was well-written and we probably agree more than disagree,
especially the part about what is “agony” or “everyday struggle.” Quite a
spectrum and everyone’s backstory can contribute to their response.
Appreciate this topic and find it helpful to navigate and deal with difficult emotions that surface when not always agreeing with my adult children’s choices.
I have one narcissistic selfish egotistical 25-year-old son who I don’t talk to now because all he did was suck the life out of me and gave me nothing but grief. I have a daughter who made such bad choices. She’s in and out of drug rehab and has mental illness that she’s refusing to deal with so she’s always in trouble, has stolen for me when I tried to help her. Thank God, I have my older son who is 28 and is a doll and appreciates me and tells me that I’m a good mom otherwise I would always be second-guess my parenting. He confirms that I did the best job I could they’re the ones that are damaged and making the poor choices and looking for someone to blame everything on and be a victim. I know at some point they will both realize the mistakes they made caused their life to be very difficult and they will miss not having a mother. By then it will be too late, I’m 63,won’t be here when they realize their mistakes and for them to be able to say they were sorry.
Stephanie, my heart goes out to you with all you have endured. Being the mother person can be exhausting. It’s like it is never enough anyway we swing it. I do believe having one’s one wonderful life is the way to go.
I’ve stepped back a lot.
How I wish my only issue with my kids was what job they had, or if they had kids too early, or if they were divorced. I have one that went to prison and is in the sex industry. Another won’t speak to anyone in his family. Another has a great job, is kind, but in a rocky marriage. The 4th is in the military and has PTSD and abuses alcohol. They were all raised in a loving environment with 2 parents that never abused drugs or alcohol and gave them all the usual opportunities in life. They had supportive grandparents. Do I wish I never had kids? You bet.
In this discussion, I have not heard anyone mention the powerful role social conditioning plays in influencing the young, like entertainment predictably making parents look stupid, fathers clueless, or the old useless. If you live in a society that has lost its values, bearings, and respect for the other, everything reflects that and there’s only so much you can do as a parent to mitigate it. This kind of brainwashing runs deep and is difficult to recognize and mete out unless you have some level of awareness.
Thank you for sharing your journey Maureen. I remind myself that the story isn’t over, and continue to pray for the best possible outcome for my kids. I hope you can do this and I also hope you are surrounded with love and support of other friends and family.
Good thoughts! In this difficult stage now, but moving forward. *Waitressing is not a bad job choice and might work very well for some people as a lifetime job. I was pressured to “get a real job” and hated the sitting, the tedious lagging hours, being off work the same (crowded) days as everyone else, and having to make time to work out after all that sitting.
Not to mention it can be lucrative. One friend had a master’s degree in social work but made better money waiting tables on weekends at a nice date-night restaurant.
You’ve made such a good point. Waitressing and similar jobs work out well for people and are jobs that can provide for the adult child and their family! I think this dad has come to appreciate this over time.
My husband was also pressured into getting “a real job” by his parents, but that never suited him. He made other choices much to the dismay of his mom. The article acknowledges and supports moms like his, struggling with the varied emotions that rise up over parenting adult kids.