Episode 75: The Joys of Challenges of Parenting Young Adults
How is your summer going so far? For me, June has been packed with family vacation, girl’s camp, and a last-minute (and less than 24-hour) trip to Utah to watch my daughter, Kate, open her mission call. (She will be serving in Atlanta, GA, Spanish-speaking, and will begin her MTC experience on September 16.) She waited for that call for over three months because it was initially delayed by the medical team, so it has been an unexpected journey for her. She will tell the whole story here on the podcast soon.
We will be finishing out the month by taking my daughter, Elise, back to Kennewick, WA to visit her mission. She returned home a few months ago, and she is excited to take my husband and I to see some of the people and places she grew to love.
All of that to say, June has been a fun and exciting whirlwind, which has made it hard to keep up with weekly podcast episodes. I chose to embrace the time with my family rather than worrying about publishing new content. July will be much calmer for me, but I may still opt for bi-weekly episodes instead of every week. Stay tuned for that.
But, today, I want to talk about a topic that has been brewing in my mind for a while. It is something I am in the process of learning, which means I definitely don’t have it all figured out yet. It is something people don’t talk about much, so it caught me a little by surprise and threw me for a bit of a loop.
Curious yet?
We are going to talk about… (drumroll, please) …the joys and challenges of parenting young adults.
When I was getting ready to launch my oldest into the world at age 18, I was under the impression that, once I helped my kids get to college and/or begin their missionary service, my job was essentially done, and I could relax. There is some truth to that because parenting adults is very hands-off in comparison to parenting children and teens. But we did not send our kids out into the world and then check out. We are still parents, after all. That did not change with a graduation or a mission call.
What I find so challenging about this stage of life is that I do not want to be an overbearing parent. I want my kids to know they are capable of making decisions and building the life they want to live. I want them to own their paths and have confidence in their choices. But I still want to guide them. And, if I can see a train wreck on the horizon, my instinct is to help them avoid it.
The balance between helping adult children and allowing them to learn from their own choices and mistakes is one that I am constantly re-evaluating. What is helpful, anyway? That might vary from person to person, and I do not always get it perfect. Sometimes, I catch myself overstepping what I see as healthy boundaries, and I have to apologize and step back into line. It is a dance I am still learning. But, today, I want to share with you a few things I have learned in the trenches of working with my own young adult children over the past six years. Hopefully, they will be helpful to you, too.
After my oldest son got home from his mission, he went to college at BYU. He had five roommates, most of which were also return missionaries who had been living on their own, some in foreign countries, for at least two years.
Once, my son asked one of his roommates who fell into that category for a ride to the airport in Salt Lake. His roommate agreed to take him, but said, “I will just turn off my phone so my parents cannot track it. Otherwise, they will call and ask why I am in SLC instead of studying.”
Apparently, these parents often called him when he was not where they thought he should be. They threatened to withdraw financial support if he did not study at certain times or do things exactly as they wanted him to. They micromanaged his life from another state, even though he had been on his own for at least long enough to serve a mission at that point.
My son, in recounting this experience with his roommate to me, thanked me for giving him space to figure things out on his own. “I would not handle that well,” he admitted.
A vast majority of young adults I know would not do well with that type of parental micromanaging. And, by the time our kids are young adults, they know what we think about everything under the sun. They may or may not choose to implement the things we have taught them, but they know what we think. If they choose a different path than the one we would have chosen for them, that doesn’t mean we didn’t teach them. Sometimes, they must learn from their own experience. And sometimes, that experience might come from making big fat mistakes.
Some things call for intervention, but most do not. The trick is in knowing when to step in and when to step back and let them learn from their own experience and mistakes.
It’s hard to watch your kids make mistakes when they are in your home. It’s even harder after they are grown because you have absolutely zero say about what they do or don’t do. And, often, the consequences of adult decision are far-reaching.
But, even if we could “control” a situation, (which is actually impossible when we are dealing with another human), would that really be the best way to handle it?
We want our kids to feel capable of making decisions and navigating challenges, even if those challenges result from poor decisions. Poor decisions can be really effective teachers because the consequences can be so severe. But, when we intervene in a young adult’s decisions, what we communicate is: “I don’t trust you. I don’t think you can do this.”
Sometimes, that is necessary. I would argue that, most of the time, it could have far-reaching negative consequences that may range from deep anxiety about making decisions (because how can I decide on my own?) to a strained parent/child relationship (because I need more autonomy than my parents allow), and everything in between. So, we need to be careful and prayerful about how and when we intervene in our adult children’s lives.
I will admit that this is sometimes a tricky line to walk, and I have definitely caught myself crossing the line and having to apologize. Recently, I realized that, every Sunday, when my son came for dinner, I found myself asking him the same questions: How did that test go? Did you get all of those assignments turned in on time? Do you need to go see the TA to get additional help? Have you applied for any internships this week? You really need to think about your future and how you’re going to get a job after graduation.
While my intentions were good (I wanted him to succeed), I knew I sounded like a broken record. I always used the limited amount of time I spent with him each week to remind him of all the things he was not doing as well as I thought he should. Then, I heard Sister Tamara Runia’s General Conference entitled, “Seeing God’s Family Through the Overview Lens.” She said: “Shortly after Elder Neal A. Maxwell passed away, a reporter asked his son what he'd miss most. He said dinners at his parents’ house because he always left feeling like his dad believed in him.”
She then went on to say, “On rare occasions we may feel prompted to correct, but most often let’s tell our loved ones in spoken and unspoken ways the messages they long to hear: ‘Our family feels whole and complete because you are in it.’ ‘You will be loved for the rest of your life—no matter what.’”
After hearing that talk, I realized I wanted my interactions with my son to be more positive. So, I apologized to him for making it my responsibility to see that he did well in college. I told him he had all the skills to succeed if he applied himself, and I would be there to cheer him on and support him. But, I would no longer dwell on the daily things I felt he needed to do in order to succeed.
He was grateful for my apology, and even told me that he could really use the occasional reminder. But what I really want for him is to understand that he knows what he needs to do to succeed, and is perfectly capable of doing it. Then, he will be empowered to own his path and choose success rather than rely on me to prod, push, and pull him along the path to get there. Or, to use a scriptural term, to act rather than being acted upon.
Letting go is not easy, and I still offer the occasional reminder to help keep him on track. But I have discovered that want my kids to know that I believe in them a whole lot more than I want them to rely on me for their success (or lack thereof). Because if I believe in them, that gives them permission to believe in themselves. And belief in oneself is a necessary pre-requisite to lasting success.
That is lesson number one: I must let go of control and let my kids write their own story.
Lesson number two piggybacks off of lesson number one: when our children make mistakes, parental support goes a long way to help them recover. This principle applies to children of all ages, but especially teens and young adults.
Chances are, when our grown children make a mistake, they already know they have made a mistake. They don’t need parents getting upset or reminding them that they should not have taken the path that led to that mistake. They need love. They need to know they have a safe place to fall. They need cheerleaders and coaches, not judges.
That doesn’t mean we need to agree with everything they do. And, I know that some of the mistakes young adults make have far-reaching consequences. I know exactly what that is like because we’ve been there.
But, again, they need love and support from their parents. I’m not going to tell you what that support should look like because every situation is different. Sometimes, the line between supporting adult children and condoning sin feels very thin. And, sometimes, grown children threaten to cut ties with parents who refuse to unconditionally accept every one of their lifestyle choices. I know some give unfair ultimatums like, “It’s me or the church, but you can’t have both.”
And, to those parents I would say: stay by the tree. Eat of the fruit with a smile on your face, like Sister Runia taught in the Oct. 2023 Conference talk I already mentioned. Continue to reach out in love, and pray to know how to do that, because the Lord has great interest in our family relationships. But don’t abandon your covenants in the meantime. We don’t know how the Lord will work in the lives of our grown children. Who knows but they will return and repent, like I talked about in the last episode? But, if we leave the tree to stand with them, will they know where to come when they, like the ancient prodigal, come to themselves?
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland addressed that question in his April 2003 General Conference talk entitled A Prayer for the Children. He said: “If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream…we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored, unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household. It won’t help anyone if we go over the edge with them, explaining through the roar of the falls all the way down that we really did know the Church was true and that the keys of the priesthood really were lodged there but we just didn’t want to stifle anyone’s freedom to think otherwise. No, we can hardly expect the children to get to shore safely if the parents don’t seem to know where to anchor their own boat.”
He then went on to say: “Some children will make choices that break their parents’ hearts. Moms and dads can do everything right and yet have children who stray. Moral agency still obtains. But even in such painful hours it will be comforting for you to know that your children knew of your abiding faith in Christ, in His true Church, in the keys of the priesthood and in those who hold them. It will be comforting then for you to know that if your children choose to leave the straight and narrow way, they leave it very conscious that their parents were firmly in it. Furthermore, they will be much more likely to return to that path when they come to themselves and recall the loving example and gentle teachings you offered them there.”
While none of my kids have chosen to step away from the Church, several of my siblings have, and I have many wonderful friends who are currently navigating this difficult scenario with their kids. It seems increasingly rare for an entire family to remain active in the Church after the children are grown. Each person has their own reasons for leaving, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this challenge. But, again, I believe it is vital for parents to preserve their relationships with their children if they can, even when they do not agree with their chosen paths. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to influence our children for good if we do not have a relationship with them.
But, if faced with an unfair ultimatum such as, “It’s me or the Church,” please choose to stay. Choose to pray for the Lord to reach the hearts of the children who may no longer be willing to listen to you, which leads to my next lesson: The Lord can still teach our children long after they leave our homes.
When I was getting ready to send one of my kids off on a mission, I feared I had not taught him enough – that, maybe, the lessons I had been trying to teach had not yet sunk into his heart. At the heart of my worry was the fear that he was not ready to navigate the treacherous world on his own.
As I was praying about this one day, I clearly heard these words in my mind: “You have done a great job. Now, let me take it from here.”
I have pondered those words many times since then. They taught me that I am not raising my children alone – that the Lord is my partner in motherhood, and will continue to teach my children long after they leave the safety of my care.
It brought me an incredible amount of peace to know that I was not releasing my son to the wolves. I was releasing him to a patient teacher who had his eternal welfare in mind. And, while my efforts to prepare him were imperfect, the Lord would be able to fill in the gaps in a way I could not, and within the timeline that would be best for my child.
This does not just apply to missionaries – I believe it applies to all of us. Because, no matter where we are in life, or what choices we have made, the Lord will continue to reach out to us. He will continually try to bring us back to His fold. That process may take a while. His still, small voice may not get through at first. And, when it does, the path might be steep and lined with thorns. But, as we pray for our wayward children, trusting them in His tender care, the Master Teacher will eventually reach them with a personalized lesson that will pierce the darkness and confusion, bringing the Light of His everlasting love.
As Elder Neal L. Andersen taught: “Perhaps you have been saddened as you have seen someone you love, who at one time spoke sincerely of his or her faith in Jesus Christ, bore witness of the Book of Mormon, and eagerly helped build the kingdom of God, suddenly move away, at least for now, from his or her beliefs and toward the sidelines of the Church. My counsel to you is don’t despair! All is well. For with God, nothing is impossible.” (source)
What hopeful words! All is well. For with God, nothing is impossible. Not even the thing that currently feels impossible. But the miracle of healing will happen in God’s way and according to His timeline. So, again, hold on. Stay by the tree. Eat of the fruit with a smile on your face. And, like Lehi, invite those you love to do the same, trusting in God’s love and perfect timeline when they decline your invitation. Nothing is impossible with God.
There are many other lessons I am learning as I transition into my role as a mom of young adults, but we will save them for another day. For now, I will repeat my three takeaways, which are:
1. I must let go of control and let my kids write their own story
2. When our grown kids make mistakes, parental support goes a long way to help them recover
3. The Lord will continue to teach our kids long after they have left our homes
4. Nothing is impossible with God
