Breaking Up is Hard to Do

No one tells you, when you are up to your eyeballs in dirty diapers as a new parent, that the hardest days are yet to come. You think, as you drag yourself bleary-eyed from one middle-of-the-night feeding to the next, that it's going to get easier. It would be bad for business to let on that these extremely hard days will one day feel like the good old days. Instead, we believe it will get better. It has to. 

And in some ways, it does. Your child gets old enough to feed themselves, clothe themselves -- heck, they even start contributing to the household by doing chores. You start to get comfortable, thinking you must have this parenting thing down pat. But, honestly -- the bigger your kids get, the bigger their problems get (and the more expensive). The older your kids get, the more your role as a parent shifts as they face problems. 

Or, at least, it should. 

Not everyone thinks this way, and some parents continue to insert themselves and attempt to fix their adult children's problems. Just recently, one of our children went through a break-up. I am going to keep this as vague as humanly possible to protect all parties involved. Suffice it to say that after several months of what we all thought was a positive, mutually respectful relationship, things ended. Badly. 

I was there for my child as this all unraveled. I listened, asked questions, and offered some advice when asked. The aftermath of a break-up is messy -- stuff has to be returned; social media profiles have to be updated; friend groups have to be re-established. Upcoming events have to be re-planned. Not to mention, walking your child through heartache is just plain hard. 

At no point did it occur to me to call or text the person my child just broke up with. Not once. 

Imagine my surprise, when my child told me that their ex's mother was messaging them, telling them to please talk to her child, to forgive them. Guys, literally the words, "If you love Jesus like you say you do, you would forgive" actually came out of this woman's mouth err, phone. 

Even still, I didn't intervene. Again, I was there for my child; I simply listened and offered advice on how to handle the messages. At no point did it occur to me to intervene...yet. 

My child handled all this terribly sad and messy situation beautifully. Maybe not perfectly, but again, without disclosing details, my kid did great. 

A few days later, the other mom messaged my kid AGAIN. More of the same, weaponizing religion to shame my child into taking back someone who greatly hurt them. When my child reached out to me, distressed again by this behavior, I finally took it upon myself to address this Mom-to-Mom. I asked her to leave my child alone and to stay out of our kids' business.  I didn't get a reply, but the messages stopped, which was my end goal anyway. 

Here's the thing -- you are not doing your kid any favors when you fight their battles for them. When you over-function, you allow others to under-function. When you plow the path ahead of your child, you are preventing them from learning and growing the way they should. 

And this is so hard as parents. You want to make things better for your kids, you want to handle their problems just like you did when they were little. But, as I often tell my children, "I'm not raising kids. I'm raising adults." I would not be doing a good job if my children can't handle the adult problems that inevitably rise up in life. Of course, we can guide our children when they come to us for advice. But, here's the rub -- you can't take it personally if they don't follow your advice. 

There will come a point in your parenting life when you watch your adult child make the equivalent decision of jumping off a cliff, and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it. It will make you wish for sleepless nights and dirty diapers, trust. 

But, all we can do is walk alongside our adult children, holding the lantern for them as they figure out their own way. Bonus points if you leave Jesus-guilt out of it.