ADULT CHILDREN

It is common for mothers to experience a sense of loss and discomfort when their children become young adults and venture out on their own life’s journey.   This is most especially true when it is the last child to leave home leaving an empty nest.   The idea of their separation may come with mixed emotions.   We know that this is a natural stage of life and we hope that we have given them what they need to go forward successfully.   We may feel some sadness with the idea of not having as much time together and even anxiety about what life will bring for us.  At the same time, after years of dedicating ourselves to caring for our children and raising them to adulthood, we now have space and time in our own lives to do more of what we may wish to.

Mothers are so invested in their children throughout their lives and it seems when the time comes for them to leave we mothers often are not prepared for the transition.   Separation of mother and child, at any time in life, isn’t very comfortable for most of us.   When we reflect back over our children’s lives we can see those times when we worried that they wouldn’t be okay away from us and we can also see that they actually were.   Healthy separation of child and mother, at the appropriate time,  is necessary if a child is to develop their own confidence and discover their own place in the world.

It’s not easy to let our children go out into the world.   It is in our very nature to want to protect them, to want them to only experience good things and not suffer, and so we react to our separation from them with a degree of trepidation.

I remember when my oldest son was nine and he made his first trip to summer camp at a wonderful church camp not far from where we lived.  The memory of him kissing me goodbye with tears trickling down his little cheeks I am sure will be with me always.  Absolutely certain that I was abandoning my child, and questioning if I should just call the whole camp adventure off, the director assured me that it would not take long before he would not be crying and instead he would be enjoying himself.  Driving away I cried as the image of him and the camp director sitting together on the camp step grew ever smaller in my rare view mirror.  It was a long week for me as I had never been separated from him for that long before.   

When I returned to pick him up he was so excited to tell me all the wonderful stories of his camp days and to introduce me to his new friends.  I was happy for him and for me.  After a few hours of being home, I found him sitting looking a little sad.   He explained that he was missing his camp friends.   I hugged him and assured him that he could certainly go to camp the next summer if he wanted.   He returned to summer camp every year after that and reunited with his camp friends.   Later, as a teen, he became a camp counsellor spending his summers at the camp helping other young children feel comfortable being away from home.    One of the boys he met on his first week at camp, and looked forward to spending time with each summer,  became one of his best friends and the best man at his wedding.   None of this would have happened had I allowed the emotional angst I felt that first day to dictate my choice to leave him at camp or not.

There were many situations over the decades of raising three sons when I experienced the anxiety and fear of letting them go out into the world without my protection.  Each time they did, I wrestled with the discomfort of not knowing how things would be for them, and at the same time, I knew it was their journey into adulthood.   They are grown men now, fathering their own children, managing their careers, and nurturing relationships.  I have made peace with the idea that I will always experience discomfort when I believe they are struggling.  

My role is not to take care of my adult children.  They are not asking to be taken care of.   They are managing their own lives and there are several relationships that they must nurture.  Their relationship with me is only one of those relationships.  I constantly remind myself that our relationship now is one of adult-to-adult.  Just as I wish for them to respect me as an individual with my own life, separate and apart from theirs,  I also need to respect that for them.  I need to trust that if they need my help they will ask for it.

The challenges of our adult children, while bothersome for us, must be incorporated into the relationship we have with them in a way that honors their autonomy and at the same time allows us to be kind to ourselves.    We can not make the world absolutely right for them and at the same time, we can hold a space of love that feels welcoming and respectful.   Children grow up and take their place in the world.    We must recognize that just as their lives are changing and evolving so too are ours.  It’s okay for us to let go of our need to make all things right for them and recognize that we are not in control of anything except our own actions.

If we continue throughout our lifespan constantly giving our children our unsolicited advice, we can cause ourselves and them unnecessary stress.   It’s not uncommon for us mothers to act out our fears by interfering with our adult children’s lives only to wish afterward we had not.   

Often we get some sense of relief once we have said what we think needs to be said.   That gnawing feeling of being afraid for them goes away.   They may, or may not, be interested in what we have to share.  Somehow, though we feel better because we have done so.   We say something like, “I can’t help it.   It’s a mother thing”.    It certainly does feel that way.   Actually, it’s a fear thing.   As mothers, our need to protect our children is deeply rooted, and when we imagine that harm may come to them we react.    We react because we are afraid.   Even though we feel once we have allowed ourselves to say what we feel needs to be said does not mean we have necessarily done the best thing.   The relief is realized because we have managed to, at least at the moment, subdue the uncomfortable sense of fear that we are experiencing.

There may be times when our concerns for our adult children warrant input.  In order for us to discern our appropriate actions we need to work with our own emotions and our own fears first.    It takes patience and the willingness to sit in discomfort while we look within ourselves for the truth before we interfere in their adult lives.  

“Am I about to act out of the discomfort of my own fears, or can I say I have carefully examined my options and I am confident my input will truly be beneficial”.

Children learn more from what they observe in our actions than from anything we consciously set out to teach them.   As we age, this is no different and perhaps it is even more so.  We have the opportunity to live in a way that demonstrates our confidence in ourselves and in them,  living our lives to the fullest, still learning and becoming, and respectfully letting them do the same.