Hola, My Fierce Friend,
The holidays are fast approaching, and so is that extended time with our families. As a mother of a young adult who moved out this year, it is the first time all of those preparatory activities, like making cookies and putting up the Christmas tree, were done without her. Though bittersweet to see her grow up, I know that she must move out and live on her own.
What I love about being a mental health therapist is my clients help to teach me. A lot of times in therapy, you learn about yourself through other people’s eyes, through other people’s lenses. And I know it might sound strange, but it gives you the ability to see those little things that you’re doing in your own personal life that you didn’t realize you were doing.
I was working with a client recently that was younger, early twenties, and she was telling me about her experience with her own family, with her own parents, and feeling kind of trapped within that box and feeling like she has to revert back to her old self when she’s around her parents, even though she’s trying to grow, she’s trying to evolve, she’s trying to be a new version of herself.
It helped me to sit back and reflect. Where am I doing that for my own daughter? Am I holding back other people’s growth around me? Am I not seeing my adult daughter for who she is trying to be? Am I holding her back from who she wants to be because I see her with a different set of lenses, a different set of glasses?
Many women my age are traversing empty nesting or having an adult child that is, as my daughter would say, a baby adult. The reality is they are baby adulting. When you have adult children, it’s almost like you’re relearning the relationship. You’re relearning how to be with one another. You’re relearning how to work with one another.
We have this tiny little baby in our hands and we give all this love and compassion and then they move into the toddler age and they’re fighting you because they don’t want to eat the Cheerios, they want the little puffs instead. Then you move into elementary school and they’re still so sweet and cute and having all these great thoughts and expressions. Then they move into middle school—my goodness. Middle school is its own can of worms. My mom would always tell me they lose their brains when they hit middle school and then you can’t enjoy them until they’re older. I wanted to enjoy every stage of their life in the best way that I could. I would have to say that middle school is pretty darn difficult.
But what they don’t tell you is that stage when you have that high schooler getting ready to make some really difficult decisions in their lives and how you as the parent have to adjust to who they want to be. Yes, you saw them as this baby and you dreamed about all the things they could be. But your dream for them and their dream for them might not be the same. Each person lives out their journey.
It reminds me of the butterfly in the chrysalis. It’s pushing, it’s struggling, it’s wiggling through. But if it does not have that struggle, it can’t be the butterfly that it needs to be. Its wings don’t generate the level of strength that it needs to fly.
You are no longer the mom of that baby or the toddler or the middle schooler or the high schooler. You’re the parent of a young adult. And young adults have to blaze their own trails. We love, we support, we encourage, but we also allow people to live out their own consequences and we don’t take responsibility for their actions. We have to self-regulate as parents. We have to hear what our young adult children are saying so that they can be the best versions of themselves.
If you were like me and you left home at a young age, then you know you have to leave that nest. You have to separate yourself as a young adult to become all of who you need to be. Not without love and support, but with the ability to know that you can fly. Did you pour into all the love, all the encouragement, all the unconditional positive regard?
One of the things that I’ve had to learn as a parent, as a therapist and a parent, is if they don’t ask you for your opinion, don’t offer it. Let them grow. Let them soar. Let them fall. We talk so much about wanting our kids to be resourceful. We want them to fall within a safe environment so that they can gently be brought back up. That’s our role as parents and our role in helping our young adults into this new phase of life.
I’m making this video to encourage moms, especially moms with daughters, where they’re having some friction right now as young adults because mom still wants to control. I know I did. Let them go, let them breathe, let them learn from their mistakes. I know it might be hard to watch, but it’s necessary. Their growth means your success as a parent. So let them. Let them be who they need to be. Step back and watch the progress.
My hope is that this helps. A note for you as I grow through my own understanding of being a parent to a young adult, but also a parent who is loving and accepting and can now be the friend and not the disciplinarian. It’s a shift. It’s a change. You can do it. It’s a heart development strategy.
Emotionally Strong, Fiercely Confident,
Marcie Rey Landreth, LCSW