My understanding/belief of parent and adult child relationships. (person, children, brother)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In case anyone is worried over their adult children/parent relationships, I offer this opinion.
Although I know some of you will have religious beliefs which probably go against most of what I am suggesting, just hear me out and see if it will help.
I believe that children are given to you to bring up in the proper way until they are able to survive in the world on their own. Once they are adults, then they are personalities in their own right and you will not necessarily choose to be friends with them or they with you. Just like your neighbour who lives down the street or opposite, you dont have to be friends - although it may help in times of need, if you are.
Similarly, adult children who dont like their parents, I would say is not a big deal. Your belief system might be telling you that you should love them and continue to try to get along with them in spite of your differences. Guilt might force the issue but I think it does not help anyone if people are forced to get along when the natural order of things is that they are not compatible.
In case anyone is worried over their adult children/parent relationships, I offer this opinion.
Although I know some of you will have religious beliefs which probably go against most of what I am suggesting, just hear me out and see if it will help.
I believe that children are given to you to bring up in the proper way until they are able to survive in the world on their own. Once they are adults, then they are personalities in their own right and you will not necessarily choose to be friends with them or they with you. Just like your neighbour who lives down the street or opposite, you dont have to be friends - although it may help in times of need, if you are.
Similarly, adult children who dont like their parents, I would say is not a big deal. Your belief system might be telling you that you should love them and continue to try to get along with them in spite of your differences. Guilt might force the issue but I think it does not help anyone if people are forced to get along when the natural order of things is that they are not compatible.
So, tell me what you think.
This would be a very big deal to me and I would want to know why? Has nothing to do with love. You should love your children unconditionally, but if my kids didn't "like" me, that would be devastating to a point. It's hard for me to fathom because I think me and my adult kids get along pretty well.
In my experience, parents of disabled children are very protective and find it difficult to let go. Many times I resented this powerfully and felt I wasn't allowed to grow up, yet I recognised that everything my mother did or thought came from love. I didn't often understand her methods, but I never questioned her motives.
If asked I would have said 'I love Your Majesty according to my bond, no more and no less.' We didn't always communicate that well or honestly. Many things were left unsaid to keep the peace, or because understanding and acquiescence were assumed rather than achieved through discussion. To this day I still have trouble articulating my feelings for fear of upsetting someone, or worse, acknowledging truths I'd rather not admit even to myself.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
26,700 posts, read 41,758,476 times
Reputation: 41381
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobityboo
In case anyone is worried over their adult children/parent relationships, I offer this opinion.
Although I know some of you will have religious beliefs which probably go against most of what I am suggesting, just hear me out and see if it will help.
I believe that children are given to you to bring up in the proper way until they are able to survive in the world on their own. Once they are adults, then they are personalities in their own right and you will not necessarily choose to be friends with them or they with you. Just like your neighbour who lives down the street or opposite, you dont have to be friends - although it may help in times of need, if you are.
Similarly, adult children who dont like their parents, I would say is not a big deal. Your belief system might be telling you that you should love them and continue to try to get along with them in spite of your differences. Guilt might force the issue but I think it does not help anyone if people are forced to get along when the natural order of things is that they are not compatible.
So, tell me what you think.
I agree completely and this is how my life has gone.
I love my mother as my mother but I don't like her. What I mean by that, she is not like a friend I enjoy spending time with and often seek to spend my time with. Now if she is sick or in trouble I will help her if possible because I feel obligation to her since she was my mother and she did the best job she knew how.
We are just too different as people to have anything above a call once a week for a few minutes relationship. She said this often when I grew up, "I'm your mother, not your damn friend!" Now I remind her of this when she gets mad because I'm not a carbon copy Christian conservative like she is. If you have a great friendship with your parents, good for you. Just not possible in my circumstances.
My dad, he is dead but he was dead to me long before he physically left the Earth.
My parents are nice people who continue to be good to me. It would be weird not to have them in my life - we have such a bond. They also still act like my parents at appropriate times - no one else can do that.
That being said, from the beginning, they were of the belief that their kids were separate people and they were not to meddle in their personal affairs or choices. Our lives were our own and that includes we choosing to separate from our parents. They had a job to do to do well, that was their commitment.
I always heard that from "growns ups" when I was younger - "I don't need a mother anymore but I like having one."
I think you should avoid toxic people no matter the relationship.
I think that the relationships of adult children and their parents have to morph into a mutually respectful, adult to adult relationship, or they become dysfunctional and sometimes toxic.
That has been the biggest issue with my relationship with my mother. With my dad - he and I liked each other, as a daddy and his baby girl, and as an older man and a grown woman. As I got older, my dad became less a daddy figure and more of a friend - and we interacted that way. I never pulled any "baby" stunts or expected special, enabling treatment, and he never pulled the Dad card on me either. It was good.
My mom? Totally different story. In fact, when I tried to explain to her that I was an adult woman and that she was too and that I need to interact with her adult to adult, you would have thought I had told her that I believed I was a reincarnated Viking princess who was planning to offer her up as a human sacrifice or something. She actually recoiled and said, "Well, I will NEVER interact with you in that manner. I am the mother and you are the daughter and don't you ever forget it."
Yeah - I never forgot that she said that, but I also refused to allow myself to be bullied around like she had bullied her kids around since the day we were born. So yes, our relationship has been much more problematic.
As Dissenter said, I love my mom but I don't like her very much. Ironically, my dad is now dead and my two brothers live far away so I am the one left here to take care of my elderly, disabled, ornery, cantankerous, and still disrespectful mother.
I think you're right. You can't choose who your family is & what are the odds that they are going to be people you would wish to be friends with? There's no one in my family I would choose to be friends with.
In case anyone is worried over their adult children/parent relationships, I offer this opinion.
Although I know some of you will have religious beliefs which probably go against most of what I am suggesting, just hear me out and see if it will help.
I believe that children are given to you to bring up in the proper way until they are able to survive in the world on their own. Once they are adults, then they are personalities in their own right and you will not necessarily choose to be friends with them or they with you. Just like your neighbour who lives down the street or opposite, you dont have to be friends - although it may help in times of need, if you are.
Similarly, adult children who dont like their parents, I would say is not a big deal. Your belief system might be telling you that you should love them and continue to try to get along with them in spite of your differences. Guilt might force the issue but I think it does not help anyone if people are forced to get along when the natural order of things is that they are not compatible.
So, tell me what you think.
If you have loved and nurtured a child from birth, and given him or her your continued care and concern, you can't just turn off the feeling you have for that child when they grow up. I love my grown children very much, surely as much as I did when they were tiny. Luckily for me, they still love me. I am a lucky mom indeed.
In terms of being friends, I think the relationship is deeper than that. I think what you mean, is parents and children might choose not to hang out too much. I don't hang out with my kids, but we see each other often, and we seem to enjoy ourselves when we do. Parent child relationships are different than being friends with them. Certainly, we want to be friendly to each other. But there should still be a lot of love between us.
My parents are closer to me than anyone else. We don't always agree on everything, but we get along fine and I communicate with them because I want to- not because I feel obligated.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
