Parenting the Adult Child

Tara/ May 2, 2021/ OLD STUFF

Not long ago, on an uneventful weekday evening, the kids and I were filling our plates for dinner, when my adult daughter said “I have something to tell you, and I’ve been keeping it from you for three years.”

Now, I don’t feel like it’s my place to tell you what she said, but I will tell you this: I would have been less surprised if she had told me she was gay.

It wasn’t even what she told me exactly, that created an immediate lump in my throat, it was that she had been keeping it from me for so long. What she revealed was something I had directly asked her about many times during those three years. That’s what hurt.

To say I was caught off guard, is an understatement. And it took me days to process. She tried to explain that “kids just don’t tell their parents these things.” She said it would have been weird to tell me – and when she finally told me, it was because she finally felt close enough to me to tell me.

Hadn’t we always been close enough for a conversation like that?

Maybe kids just don’t actually tell their parents everything – not even when the parent tries hard to be nonjudgmental, understanding and kind in response. I was perplexed. I recently saw the same scenario play out on a Netflix show – the daughter lied to her mother about the same thing. So, maybe my daughter is right?

Either way, I was wrong to think that our relationship was different. And it made me rethink a few things – mostly my parenting style and my choice to divorce. It started the process of analyzing the parent/child relationship, when the child is actually another adult. It’s different – and I realized it has challenges I had not yet considered – challenges that I wasn’t prepared for. I can’t make her tell me the truth; I can’t punish her for lying; I can’t ground her or take away her phone. And if I had started to cry like I wanted to, that would have seemed inappropriate too. After all, she doesn’t have to tell me everything.

I just thought she did.

I thought we were friends. All of her “other friends” knew about it. They got to share the emotions of the situation when it happened. They got to help her work through the good and bad of life’s complications. And it felt like I had been denied an important mothering opportunity. Now, all I can think about are my own feelings – and how hurt I am. How did my child hurt my feelings so badly? I didn’t know that could happen. Now, even from my own child, I suddenly feel the need to protect myself.

I was taken aback by my daughter’s lack of transparency, but much more by my sensitivity about it. And it became immediately apparent that I had been relying too heavily on my kids for friendship. The unfortunate predicament of the pandemic, combined with the severe shift of friendship in my own life, made me turn to my kids to fill that void – and it was a bad idea. It’s just that when the kids are so awesome, it becomes hard not to want to spend all my time with them – and to be friends with them.

After a few days, and just when I thought I was coming to terms with the change in dynamics of the relationship with my adult daughter, she dropped another bomb on me – similar in nature and again that she had been keeping it from me for some time. On the one hand, I’m thinking “is this a joke?” On the other, I’m not surprised. The first reveal left me wondering what else she hasn’t told me. Now, I just assume there’s still more I don’t know about her.

I loved the baby stage of motherhood – and I mourned the loss of it for a long time – until I realized that as babies grow, they become really cool children and teenagers. I had learned to soak up all the stages of their childhoods with all they had to offer. And now, I’m just confused. I’m the mother of another adult, and I don’t know what to do with that.

My daughter said she told me her secrets because she felt closer to me, but it had the opposite effect for me. I felt further from her. And that felt like shit. She’s not my baby anymore, that is clear, but if she’s not my friend either, then what is she? What am I to her? If I can’t mother her and I can’t be her best friend, where does that leave our relationship?

I have tried to create an open dialogue with my kids about everything: politics, sex, drugs, mental illness, sexual orientation, relationships and religion. You name it, we’ve talked about it. This is why I was so shocked by what my daughter hadn’t told me. I began to recall every difficult conversation we had over the years, and when I did a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation of the number of opportunities she had to tell me her secrets, the count was around 756,000.

When a child of divorce begins to do things that appear to be out of the ordinary, or rebellious in nature, everyone tends to blame the divorce. Initially, I did the same thing – mostly due to the fact that the divorce happened near the timeline of when my daughter’s lie started. The confusing part for me was that one of the reasons I chose divorce in the first place, was to create an environment of open communication in my home. When I was married, it seemed to be difficult for the kids to be honest with me about certain things. They thought I would tell their dad if they told me something they didn’t want him to know. And I was concerned. I was concerned that even in a life or death situation, they would be afraid to talk to me. It’s true there was an unwritten, expected allegiance that I had to tell their dad everything – but I had hoped the divorce would solve that problem.

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It’s been several weeks now, since my adult daughter’s shocking revelations, and I can say that things are different now. I have come full circle in understanding our relationship.

My daughter and I have had the opportunity to reset our relationship. It has surprisingly become more joyous than ever, after rearranging assumptions and apprehensions.

We are in an uncharted territory as mother and daughter, but we are discovering a new kind of relationship – one that is better than friendship and better than the mother/child relationship combined. We’re finding that it’s even more special now that we’re both adults, because there is no power struggle and no expectation.

I see her differently now. I see her more as an individual. And my love for her hasn’t changed, but the way I see myself has changed. More importantly, what I need from her has changed. I don’t expect her, or her siblings, to fill my friendship void. And I don’t expect her to tell me everything; I won’t spill my guts to her like I used to either.

I see our relationship for what it is: a beautiful bond based on unconditional love; a mutual joy that is stronger than any friendship could ever be; and a simple, loving relationship that stretches beyond the limits of any other relationship. It’s naturally beautiful and naturally strong.

Parenting our adult children is yet another stage in motherhood – and it is one more fantastic step of the journey. Yes, I can still nurture my adult daughter and guide her – because well, I can’t help myself. But then I can step back and revel in her independence and in my admiration of the woman she has become. It is easier in some ways. In others, it will always be hard to be a mother.

Because when she’s heartbroken and alone in another city, I still want to go to her, pick her up and rock her to sleep – the way I wanted to when she cried in her crib as a baby. Back then, I knew I needed to let her learn to comfort herself – just as I do now – and it’s just as hard. When I know she’s crying herself to sleep, even though I can’t hear her, it still tears me apart.

My daughter may be an adult, but she will always be my baby.