Enabling... Helicopter?

[ahhjeez]

My 19 year old has been doing his own laundry for years. I'll occasionally take his stuff out of the dryer for him and fold it. He's always so grateful when I do that so I'm happy to. Meals I cook. If he's hungry before or after he'll make his own stuff or if I'm not home, but if I'm cooking it's a family meal. I've been showing him how to cook lately so that he knows how to do more than microwave stuff. LOL. He's very pleasant and grateful so it's always a pleasure for me to do these things for him. He'll also help out around the house when asked. If he was entitled or rude to me I think it would be a different story.

 

[CareTooMuch]

The problem is when he doesn't sleep well, which is often, or when he's up set at something else, he is disrespectful. He hasn't really wanted to interact healthily for a few years. I blame electronics for 70% of the this but have no way of stopping it other than than making him leave the house

 

[Copabanana]

making him leave the house

This is the problem in a nutshell. Our only leverage is distance, boundaries. This is a catch 22.

Because often the only boundaries they respect are very, very firm ones: like jail, restraining orders, no contact, limited contact, letters of trespass, etc.

And we (at first) do not want them far away, or at least we are ambivalent about it. We want to, or feel the need to guide and support them. We feel we have some kind of legitimate role in changing them.

At least I was that way.

So the issue is more an issue for us: working through this understanding of our role as a parent of a now adult, and our own capacity to let go. In my experience this is no picnic.

What I see now is this:

I have no role what so ever in changing or molding or guiding my adult son. That my efforts to do so have led to nought. They have made me ill. And have compromised my life force, my energy, my sense of myself, my health, and my integrity.

The huge and stinky elephant in the living room is we come to this place because of our great love for our children, and more common than not deep pain in our prior lives; that is some sort of rejection, loss or even abuse as children, or domestic abuse.

These wounds make us highly vulnerable in dealing with this whole issue of tolerating this change from a mother of a developing child to a mother of an adult, separate from us, no longer dependent.

Our kids, many of them, are reluctant to grow up, to emancipate, to accept responsibility, and to detach from us. Thus even before serious problems begin, there is a huge resistance to this whole endeavor.

Thus even before the conflict begins in earnest, and the fighting, boundary transgression, etc--there is a huge accident waiting to happen. Our own baggage, and their resistance to becoming adults.

That is how it has been for me.

So there we are. There I was. The recognition over and over again that the only way to move on, was to have him move out and away. (This took many many times.)

Now is the most away we have ever been. Honestly. I do not think I have it in me to do this again. Any give will have to come from him. And I mean there will have to be a serious endeavor to change on his part. I will no longer do all of the changing. Accommodate myself and life to his issues, his problems, his needs, his addictions, his peculiarities. Etc.

This has taken real growth on my part. It has not been an easy process.

It does not mean I will not do my part in reconciliation and reparation. But I won't dance alone. He's got to learn his part. And that requires becoming a responsible, productive and socially appropriate adult, to his capacity. I will no longer accept a relationship with anybody less. And it is not my responsibility to help him with this, any longer.

I have suffered too much. I will no longer do it. More than this. It was never my appropriate role.

 

[CareTooMuch]

Copa, you are pretty much stating what I've been going through, the only difference being that we don't have any previous family drama. Other than younger ds having controlled adhd growing up, we had a very happy family life until this cropped up. We've always felt lucky and blessed that our problems were minimal compared to most, so this is a very new feeling..

 

[New Leaf]

I am at work so this will be short. No one deserves to be disrespected in their own home, due to lack of sleep or whatever.
Unacceptable.
Everybody is allowed their moods, but disrespect? Uh, no.
When my son is grumpy due to lack of sleep or food, (typical teen stuff) I check him when he is heading towards disrespect. Because I am his parent, and I won’t put up with it.
He will usually come and apologize when he feels better.
My two crossed lines many times. It was hurtful and awful, and I let them have it. When they wouldn’t stop, out they went.
Maybe I am harsh and old fashioned, but I can’t imagine trying that with my Mom or Dad.
It does not get better when disrespect is the norm, and that sounds like what’s happening. Not wanting to interact for years? Ugh. I am sorry, that’s just not okay.
I started feeling this way with my adult kids, I wouldn’t allow a stranger to mistreat me, why should my own grown children be disrespectful.
(((Hugs)))
Leafy

 

[Copabanana]

We've always felt lucky and blessed that our problems were minimal

Hi Care.

This is how I felt. My son's upbringing and our relationship, in particular, were a joy.

Although he was adopted, and suffered in his early life, based upon our life together, I did not see any of this coming. I see through the rear view lens that this was denial. People do not escape the consequence of their past. When we hit developmental stages or crises, we are forced back to deal with our weakest links. That is what happened to me. To my son.

In my own case there were very real things that came to bear, chickens came home to roost from my life and his, that were extrinsic to our relationship. But due to my vulnerability from my past, I could not deal with this well or even appropriately. I felt like my past was repeating itself. When, if I had been more rooted in the here and now I would not have reacted as defensively and angrily or personally. All of those things I did, in spades.

If you are different from me, in that you had no past difficulties, in your past, or your child had no past suffering, in some ways, I think, this makes it HARD in another way.

They say for example that children who are in their late teens and early twenties whose parents divorce, have a harder, not easier time, than younger children. Because their expectations, let alone fantasies were of lifelong stability. It is like paradise lost. Same thing for people who believe their marriages are stable and secure, even near perfection, and then, their mates leave them. Shattered confidence. Shattered dreams are very hard.

Anyway. We have each other. Which is no small thing. Thank you all very much for being here. With your support I am gradually facing more of my true life. For this I am very grateful.

 

[CareTooMuch]

You are so right Copa, it is awesome to have this forum to vent and support each other. New Leaf, I think I overstated our lack of communication. The thing is, we had a great relationship before he went to college, I think the immense amount of freedom was too much for him, and his drug and alcohol use ramped up. After we made him come home that November I think he resented patenting and lack of the total freedom he had. His getting in legal trouble and the loss of communication with my parents has made it hard for me to keep it together.

 

[RN0441]

These (adult) kids just want to do what they want, when they want, how they want and don't want anyone telling them how or what to to do in OUR home.

That is bull. We can't let that be okay. Sometimes it doesn't matter how tough we are now or HOW we brought them up. They are the way they are. Period.

I chuckle to myself when people say they were so tough on their kids and they made them work, had curfews, chores, demanded respect etc. We did that too. It does not always work unfortunately.

Most of us here have one kid that just didn't go down the normal road and others that are wonderful. It really is not our parenting.

We are here because in this very moment we don't know what the *&%@ is going on or how to deal with it!

I was a great mother and my son had a happy home life and he just went south anyway!