Adult child abuse: “My forever baby” -ideology and overprotectiveness

This post was published from a draft mode, FYI

Your job, as a parent, is to raise children into adults, not to keep your kids as pets. Remember, your kids aren’t your pets. They have a life you gave them, and it doesn’t belong to you. You GAVE THEM life, and it SHOULD be no strings attached… Apron strings or umbilical cords. Obviously, they’ll need you for the first couple of decades, and for the rest of your life, too, but you don’t get to need them to need you. The less they need you, the better job you’ve done. Their overt attachment to you is a sign you screwed up.

It’s never about you. When you are a parent, it is never about you. You’ve created yourself a life’s work. Although your child isn’t your boss, you are his or her servant. Everything you are belongs to that child or those children, apart from the parts of you that belong to your True Emotion Mirror(s), who also belong to your child for as long as they need you. You don’t get to choose to be only a little parent, you’ll be all the way parent. The good news is, that at this stage, your own parents can go fuck themselves. 😀 😉 (I’m just counting on you being somebody’s forever baby, too. 😉 )

It is a thankless job, parenting if you make your child feel dependent on you. The only time a child thanks you, is when they feel they don’t need you as an adult… And you let them not need you. That’s when you’ve given them all that they need to be happy; independence and competence.

Teens don’t trust a parent who tries to force them to not grow up

A healthy young human being wants to grow up. They are not afraid of being an adult, taking responsibility of themselves, and tackling the challenges of adult life. A healthy adult child-parent relationship is not an extended childhood, but parents who cannot relate to their child as an adult will often TRY and force the adult child back into the role of an adolescent, to cling onto “happier times”.

It is natural for parents to feel apprehensive about giving their children liberties, obviously. Still, if you are over-protective, your kids, even good kids, will start keeping secrets if they know your knowledge of things will stop them from moving at their natural pace – or significantly slower. The trouble is, not all children mature at the same rate. Some kids feel the need to keep up with their peers, even though they’re not ready, but on the other hand, some kids feel they’re forced to act like a child when they don’t feel like one anymore. And it is a recipe for disaster if mom and dad insists the child MUST feel like a child, regardless, simply because the parents feel more comfortable with that idea than the thought of their child growing up.

This is something you MUST resolve with yourself very early on, otherwise, you’ll still have independence fights with your 40-year-old teenager. And no, adulthood is not submission to the role you had in mind for your kid, but growing into an INDEPENDENT (your opinion doesn’t overrule his or hers) adult.

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