Ever Onward

Look at me like he can’t believe I exist

when i look at my dog and exclaim “kisses you!” and she comes over so I can give her a kiss on the face

when i look at my dog and exclaim “kisses me?” and her tail goes ballistic as she smooches my face ecstatically 

A healthy adult relationship with your parents means mutual respect, mutual trust and healthy boundaries. 

Once you reach adulthood, your parents need to accept that you are an adult now, and that their days of disciplining you and having control over your life are over. They should transition from an “authority figure and guardian” role to more of an “adult mentor” role. This transition won’t necessarily happen right at the moment you turn 18, but as you reach your early 20s and beyond, your parents need to be relinquishing control and accepting that you are an adult with a right to make your own choices and keep things private from them if you choose. In a healthy relationship, parents don’t see you moving away and becoming independent as a threat or an insult to them - they see it as proof that they did a good job raising you, and they are happy to see you succeeding on your own. 

In a healthy adult relationship, parents still offer advice and guidance, but that advice is clearly given from a perspective of “I love you and want to help you do well on your own”, rather than “you’re not capable of surviving without me and you need to do what I say”. If you’re struggling with your living situation, a healthy parent might say something like “just remember that you can always come back here and stay with us if you need to while you figure out your next move”, while an unhealthy parent might say something like “see, I told you that you weren’t capable of making it on your own, I’m moving you back home and I’m not letting you live on your own again until I decide you’re capable of it”. Parents can and should speak up if they feel that their adult kids are making unsafe or unwise decisions, but healthy parents know their limits - if they see that your partner is abusing you, for instance, they should express their concerns, but if they simply disapprove of your job, that’s an instance where they should probably understand that their input is not necessary. Healthy parents should not punish you for not taking their advice; screaming at you or giving you the silent treatment if you don’t listen to them is manipulation, and it’s not healthy. 

Healthy parents also respect boundaries. They don’t demand access to your bank accounts or a key to your apartment, and they don’t insist that you install location-tracking apps on your phone. They don’t go over your head to contact your job, your partner or your friends to get information about you (except in extraordinary circumstances, like if you are genuinely missing or in danger), and they understand that there will always be aspects of your life that you just don’t feel the need to share with them. When they are at your apartment or house, they respect that it is your home and not theirs - they do not show up unannounced to check on you, and they do not go through your personal belongings without permission. Healthy parents do not see boundaries or a desire for privacy as an insult against them - they understand that they just don’t need to know things like what brand of condoms you keep in your nightstand or whether or not you have a yeast infection right now, and they understand that you just need to keep some information to yourself. 

In healthy relationships between parents and adult children, there is also a shift in how you solve conflicts - you need to be able to have mature discussions about things you disagree on, and find ways to either resolve the issue, or reach an understanding that you need to agree to disagree. Your parents need to understand that “you aren’t allowed to disagree with us, ever, because we’re the parents and we say so” is no longer a legitimate argument, and you need to remember that you no longer get a pass on saying hurtful things to your parents like you might have when you were a teenager. You both need to get a sense of which issues are worth arguing over and which issues you are better off just letting go of. If there are lingering issues from your childhood and adolescence, those need to be resolved in a healthy way - if your parents were overly harsh and critical, they need to understand that that’s not okay, and if you were cruel to your parents as a teenager, you also need to understand that that’s not okay. Ideally, major fights or arguments between you and your parents should be quite rare once you’re an adult, and you both need to figure out how to walk away when things are getting heated.  Healthy parents also respect your partner, and take your romantic relationships seriously. If they are concerned about possible abuse in the relationship, they should speak up, but otherwise they should be making a genuine effort to try to connect with your partner and to support you in the relationship. If they don’t like your partner, that’s something that they need to deal with for themselves - it’s not acceptable for them to be rude or hostile to your partner, or for them to constantly express their disapproval and urge you to end the relationship. Likewise, if you have children of your own, it’s not okay for them to undermine you as a parent. They can be a loving and doting grandparent who is highly involved in your child’s life if you’re comfortable with that, but they need to be deferring to you on important decisions about the child and not undermining your authority as a parent. If you have decided that your child is going to be raised in a certain religion (or lack thereof) and that your child is going to be raised with certain values, it’s not okay for your parents to go behind your back and defy you on that. 

It is the circle of the bears cause of ursa major and ursa minor, and the circle without bears cause ya'know opposite part of the sky.

And the update

I've been collecting the best Jorts tweets and waiting until the moment he showed up on my dash to post them. So here you are, the curated best of the past, oh, day or so: