Navigating a New Post Parenting Role

I am reading a book which offers  advice to parents of grown children who are looking to establish adult relationships with their offspring. The gist of the first few chapters is that it is time to stop parenting! Much like an athlete who is playing past his prime, it's time to take yourself out of the game and move on to other things. While you will always be your children's parent (noun) the parenting (verb) part of your relationship with them is now over. You can certainly be there to advise, counsel and support, but it is time for everyone to live their own lives. 

This is much harder to accomplish than it would seem. After spending more than two decades nurturing, teaching, protecting and disciplining them, it takes a strong will to step back, admire your "handiwork" and not want to tweak it just a bit more...not want to rescue them when they fail or protect them from being hurt. We do a disservice to ourselves and our offspring by not letting them manage their own lives, make their own mistakes and learn from them. The path to responsible adulthood is fraught with pitfalls and problems and to reach the summit they must negotiate them alone.

The book also discusses the issues of our twenty and thirty something children who have "failed to launch" either returning to the parental home or in some cases never leaving it! This is something that is somewhat distinctive to Generation Y. The book's author, Jane Adams, PH.D  believes this might have something to do with a belief that is unique to the Millennials's Baby Boomer parents.  The generation which spawned these Gen Y'ers have a very strong concern that their children grow up to be personally fulfilled. Have we been so concerned about providing happiness for our children, that they have not truly learned how to find it for themselves? Were we perhaps wrong to tell them that they could grow up to become anything they desired if they tried hard enough? 

Parenting is a slippery slope from the moment your infant son or daughter is placed in your arms. Like most things in life you do your best; hope a little; pray a little and await the outcome. Realizing it's time to declare your work on this "project" complete may be the hardest step in the life of a parent, but a vital one if your children are to become functioning , happy, responsible adults and you are to move on to the next phase of your life; the one which was suspended when your first little bundle of joy came into your life. Relearning to be something other than mom or dad will be as much a challenge for you as learning to be a parent was a few decades ago.

Be Well!