In my last post, I wrote about the importance of allowing children to experience ordinary hardship.
But what happens when the child is no longer a child?
This is something I encounter with surprising frequency in my practice.
A young adult has finished high school or college but is having difficulty launching into adult life. Maybe they’re struggling to find a career, uncertain about what to do next, or simply not assuming the responsibilities we normally associate with adulthood.
The parents understandably want to help.
So they pay the rent.
They make the car payment.
They cover the insurance.
They provide spending money.
They solve problems.
When one path doesn’t work out, they suggest another degree or another educational program.
And sometimes, without anyone consciously intending it, adolescence gets extended for another few years.
Then a few more.
What began as helping has become overfunctioning.
This can be extraordinarily difficult for parents to recognize because the individual acts of assistance seem loving and reasonable.
Why would I let my son struggle to pay his rent when I can easily pay it?
Why make him take a job he doesn’t particularly want when he could go back to school and find something better?
Why should he drive an old car when I can afford to provide a reliable one?
Taken individually, none of those decisions necessarily seems problematic.
The problem is what can happen when they become a pattern.
Every adult responsibility the parent assumes is one the young adult doesn’t have to master.
Every consequence that is removed is one less opportunity to learn how to recover.
Every financial obligation someone else pays postpones the necessity of earning enough money to support oneself.
And every problem immediately solved by a parent can quietly reinforce the belief:
I need someone else to help me manage my life.
But there is another part of this dynamic that I think is equally important.
Sometimes the young adult isn’t incapable of moving toward independence.
They simply have very little reason to.
Think about the arrangement from their perspective.
Becoming independent may mean working full-time at a job they don’t particularly enjoy. It may mean getting up early, answering to a boss, paying rent, budgeting, driving a less expensive car, giving up discretionary spending, doing their own laundry, buying their own groceries, and discovering that much of adulthood consists of doing things we’d rather not do.
Remaining dependent may mean that many of those things are taken care of by someone else.
So why would we expect a person to voluntarily exchange a relatively comfortable life for a considerably more demanding one when there is no compelling reason to do so?
We sometimes talk about these young adults as though they simply need to become more motivated.
But human beings are responsive to incentives.
If dependence is comfortable and independence is difficult, while there are few meaningful consequences for remaining dependent, the family may inadvertently be rewarding the very behavior it wants to change.
The motivation to become independent often develops partly because independence becomes necessary.
You need a job because you need income.
You learn to budget because the money runs out if you don’t.
You tolerate an imperfect boss because you have rent due on the first.
You learn to solve problems because nobody immediately appears to solve them for you.
Necessity has educated human beings for a very long time.
When parents continually remove necessity, they may also remove one of the most powerful forces pushing a young adult toward competence.
There is another part of this that can be even harder to acknowledge.
Sometimes continuing to take care of an adult child meets an emotional need in the parent as well.
Being needed can feel good.
It can preserve closeness.
It can maintain a familiar relationship at a point in life when that relationship naturally needs to change.
A parent may consciously want an adult child to become independent while unconsciously continuing to create conditions that make independence unnecessary.
This can produce an incredibly frustrating dynamic.
The parent worries that the adult child isn’t becoming responsible, motivated, or independent—and responds to that worry by doing even more for them.
The adult child may complain about feeling stuck while continuing to accept an arrangement that makes staying stuck relatively comfortable.
And eventually everyone becomes frustrated.
The adult child feels incapable of moving forward—or sees little reason to.
The parent feels exhausted, resentful, and increasingly frightened about the future.
And both may wonder why nothing seems to change.
Helping an adult child isn’t inherently unhealthy. Families help one another. There are times when financial assistance, temporary housing, education, or other support makes tremendous sense.
The important question is:
Is my help moving this person toward independence, or making continued dependence easier?
Sometimes the most loving thing a parent can do is tolerate watching an adult child struggle.
Let them take the job that isn’t ideal.
Let them drive the car they can afford.
Let them live in the apartment their own income provides.
Let them make a mistake.
Let them discover that adulthood comes with obligations whether we feel motivated to meet them or not.
And let them experience the satisfaction that eventually comes from realizing:
I can actually do this.
Because eventually every parent faces a difficult reality.
You won’t always be here to take care of your children.
One of the greatest gifts you can give them while you are here is the confidence that they can take care of themselves.
The best to you.
