Intimate Connection Paves the Path to Independence
As parents of high school grads know well, that diploma doesnât mean young adults have learned all they need to know to enter the wider world. Whether moving on to college or heading directly into the workforce, adult children continue to require loving guidance, and an empty nest doesnât mean the job is done. Rather, it signals a new stage of parenting -- one thatâs widely undertreated, incomplete, and imbalanced, but full of surprising and uniquely touching opportunities for deepening our relationships with our kids as we parent them into adulthood.
Conventional wisdom on parenting newly-adult kids (18+) emphasizes boundaries and exhortations on the importance of parents âletting go,â so that just-launched offspring discover independence. Focused on avoiding the pitfalls of helicopter and snowplow parents who micromanage or remove obstacles in their kidsâ paths to a fault, much of the literature reasonably warns against stifling or controlling young people.
These are understandable cautions; after all, as even The Wall Street Journal reports, âBaby boomers are far more immersed with their own grown children than their parents were with themâ (13 Jan, 2019). Indeed, Karen Fingerman, a professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin found that âparents in the early 2000s offered about twice as much counsel and practical support (which could be anything from babysitting grandkids, running their grown kidsâ errands or reviewing their rĂŠsumĂŠs) as parents did in the 1980s.â To this, I would point out, however, that thereâs nothing objectively better or worse about the relative merits of either generationâs degree of âimmersion.â What we should be addressing is the quality of parental involvement after kids hit legal age.
ITâS PERSONAL
My own observations as both a parent and an educator teach me that too much emotional distance can sometimes rob young adults of the intimate connection to trusted family that they need to effectively transition to independence. In fact, I would argue that the âholy grailâ of independence has been traded out too often -- albeit inadvertently -- for estrangement and alienation, to the unnecessary and avoidable detriment of the very kids their well-intentioned parents aimed to serve by stepping back.
Impersonal contact can also occur as a result of parental discomfort facing what some people feel as the âawkwardâ areas of human development that accompany late-teens and early-adults. Emerging identity naturally takes that age group into territory that traditional cultural conventions consider taboo in âpolite company,â namely: sex, drugs, politics, and money. But allowing space for young people to make their own discoveries and decisions is not the same as getting a free pass to bag out of what may be uncomfortable parenting responsibilities altogether. Suicide rates among youth aged 15-24 increased by 50% over the last decade in the US (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention), signaling the intensifying urgency to reconsider how we cultivate meaningful connection and sustaining ties that bind youth to the love in their lives.
SEX
TMI? Get over it; young people need candor without judgment, and avoiding the topic has real health consequences, both physical and emotional. Whether or not they decide to become sexually active, as humans, young people are certainly sexual beings and need understanding to navigate effectively in integrity with themselves. The availability since 2006 of the HPV vaccine for kids as young as nine-years-old has offered the benefit of parents and kids matter-of-factly discussing sex as a health issue even before reaching double digits. Protecting a young personâs privacy on this front must be absolute. They also set the boundaries, but donât necessarily wait for them to raise the topic and definitely donât be squeamish when they come knocking for advice. The pervasive messages and misinformation on social media stoke fears and insecurities, increasing the necessity for sound, accurate, and trustworthy information. Consent is the watchword, and sons need protective guidance as much as daughters do.
& GENDER
In fact, when it comes to the separate but related issue of gender, the younger population is way ahead of most of those of us currently parenting. Awareness and understanding about gender as a spectrum that transcends binary categories is vital and literally life-saving. GLSEN and Gender Spectrum are two leading national organizations that have accomplished progress across the country toward creating greater understanding and safety for students in increasingly gender-inclusive schools. Young adults are more advanced in their comprehension and conduct, so nowâs the time to catch up, Mom and Dad!
DRUGS
News headlines abound with dire statistics about the heroin epidemic in the US, but the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that the broad social acceptability of alcohol in typical households continues to make booze the nationâs gateway drug. Their data document that âphysiologic vulnerability to substance use is aggravated by environmental factors, including the availability, promotion, and modeling of substance use behaviorsâ (AAPpubs, 2/2019). For example, children who initiate drinking before age 14 are five times more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder compared with those who initiate at age 19. A similar pattern is seen with both marijuana and the misuse of prescription opioid medication. Indeed, delayed substance use initiation into adulthood is associated with a substantially reduced risk of ever developing a substance use disorder, underscoring the importance of prevention and early intervention strategies designed to delay initiation and reduce substance use in this group. Nonetheless, the peak ages of substance use initiation occur during adolescence and early adulthood, and programs designed for adolescents and young adults are almost entirely absent.
The good news is that parents have it entirely within their control to limit their childrenâs exposure to alcohol in the first place by abstaining themselves and making home a substance-free zone. Sound extreme? Itâs actually one of the fastest growing and most popular trends on college campuses across the US. Whether out of religious piety, personal preference, military duty, or because theyâre recovering addicts, increasing numbers of entering freshman are competing for housing in substance-free dorms. Given the rising surge of a substance-free reality for university students, why not start the same at home?
MONEY
On the financial front, young adults are usually still dependent, but many of them feel irksomely so. Of course, itâs possible to help without making them feel on the dole. Most healthcare plans allow parents to carry their children on their plans until the age of 26, but that doesnât mean that the young adults themselves canât contribute toward their share of the costs. Similarly with auto insurance and cell phone plans; gradually, they can contribute increasing amounts toward their portion of those key programs. Doing so educates them to real world expenses, but thereâs no reason to lord over them any sense of feeling beholden. Donât make them ask, donât make them âgrateful.â Engage them as partners, discussing details of available options. Model money as a river rather than a pot of gold to be won. Encourage them as agents who can make and manage the flow of money, not as custodians of fixed sums, which can feed a shortage mentality. Encourage them to earn, save, donate, invest, and spend wisely. And if that doesnât work out, restrategize with them rather than shame them, so that they can recover a footing and work their way back to solvency. Co-banking is a great way to start kids out while theyâre still at home, displaying all accounts in a online single window, and the practice paves the way to skilled credit, debit, checking, and savings management that can become increasingly independent.
POLITICS
In this era of heightened political division, itâs especially important to model citizenship, curiosity, tolerance, reason, fairness, and commitment to due process. Spouting opinions does nothing to quiet the din of distortion on social media that surrounds our childrenâs generation; we owe it to them to demonstrate an allegiance to facts and a genuine interest in how they see the world and what they value. Ask rather than pontificate, and by all means get that absentee voter ballot in the mail on deadline!
CLOSING ABOUT CLOSE-ING
Engaging our adult children at such deep levels in the very areas of life that people often feel most private about actually equips them with the self-knowledge and confidence to take fully independent strides into the world -- and into connection with others as well. Parenting is love, and love is personal. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote that âit is a process...that breaks down human isolation.â The wellbeing of our young adult children depends on the willingness of their parents to engage in this inimitably intimate process because, she notes, âwe can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.â
Elizabeth Messinger is a former journalist with NPR and The Economist of London. Through her educational consultancy, Mind in Motion, she guides children of all ages to think for themselves, and she teaches Humanities at an independent school in Stamford, CT. She raised her son in Bedford, where together they ran the Toddler Room at the Presbyterian Church for nearly a decade. She continues to parent from NY as he attends college in California.
