In my last two posts, I’ve written about allowing children to experience ordinary hardship and about what can happen when parents continue overfunctioning for their children well into adulthood.
There is another part of this conversation that is much more difficult.
Once a pattern of dependence has existed for years, changing it may initially make things worse.
This is something I often have to explain to parents.
If you’ve been paying your adult child’s rent, car payment, insurance, credit cards, or other expenses, I generally don’t think the answer is to become angry one afternoon and announce that everything stops tomorrow.
There needs to be a thoughtful transition.
Expectations need to be clear. Timelines may need to be established. Substantive arrangements may need to be negotiated about which resources will continue temporarily, which will be reduced, and which will eventually end.
But at some point, something actually has to change.
And that’s where it gets difficult.
Because your adult child may struggle.
They may lose a job.
They may have to live in an apartment you wouldn’t choose for them.
They may drive an unreliable car.
They may run out of money.
They may make a series of poor decisions that leaves them in a considerably worse position.
They may become angry with you.
And there may be moments when every parental instinct tells you:
I have to fix this.
This is precisely where changing the pattern becomes so emotionally difficult.
For years, the parent may have prevented these consequences by stepping in. When the consequences finally arrive, they can feel like evidence that withdrawing support was a terrible mistake.
But that’s not necessarily what they mean.
Sometimes things get worse before they get better.
An adult who hasn’t had to manage significant responsibility may not suddenly become highly competent simply because the safety net is being withdrawn. There may be failures. There may be poor judgment. There may be painful lessons that most people learned years earlier under less consequential circumstances.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the costs of waiting too long.
Learning how to manage money at 19 when the consequences are relatively small is very different from learning at 29 or 39.
Learning that you can’t repeatedly quit jobs because you’re frustrated is easier when someone else isn’t depending on your income.
Learning to tolerate disappointment, plan ahead, delay gratification, recover from mistakes, and live within your means becomes considerably more consequential when you’re learning those lessons for the first time as a fully grown adult.
But continuing to prevent those lessons doesn’t solve the problem.
It postpones it.
And postponement can create an illusion of success.
The rent is paid.
The car payment is current.
There is food in the refrigerator.
The crisis has been avoided.
Everything looks okay.
But if everything remains okay only because the parent continues supplying the money, solving the problems, and absorbing the consequences, the adult child hasn’t necessarily become more capable.
They’ve simply remained protected.
That’s why parents in this situation eventually have to ask themselves a very uncomfortable question:
What happens to my child when I’m no longer here?
Because eventually that day comes.
If a 30-year-old cannot support himself, solve ordinary problems, tolerate hardship, or recover from failure, continuing to do those things for him for another 20 years doesn’t prepare him for the future.
It may simply create a 50-year-old with the same problem.
There are circumstances where parents absolutely should intervene. Serious illness, disability, genuine emergencies, and other extraordinary situations require judgment and compassion. This isn’t an argument for abandoning someone who truly cannot care for themselves.
It’s an argument for recognizing the difference between helping someone through hardship and continually preventing them from experiencing it.
Once dependence has become deeply established, changing the arrangement can be painful for everyone.
Parents may experience tremendous guilt and anxiety.
Adult children may experience anger, fear, resentment, and genuine hardship.
There is risk involved.
But there is also risk in doing nothing.
And sometimes the greater risk is maintaining an arrangement that virtually guarantees the adult child never has to develop the capacities necessary to live independently.
At some point, love has to include allowing someone to experience the consequences of adulthood.
Even when watching it happen is painful.
Especially when rescuing them would simply start the cycle all over again.
The goal isn’t to make your adult child’s life harder.
It’s to stop making independence unnecessary.
The best to you.