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As a parent, our job is to prepare you to be an adult, and our involvement should gradually decrease over time.
As babies, you have no capacity for self-determination. You literally can't decide where you are or what you do. You're luggage that can scream.
As you get older you become capable of more, and as parents, we should be giving you more responsibility over the choices you make.
Here in the U.S., from a legal point of view, your parents are responsible for you up to the age 18. Regardless of how much freedom you're allowed before 18, your parents are on the hook for any damages.
At 18, that changes. Now you're legally an adult, and you are responsible for all your choices. However, your brain development is incomplete, and you haven't developed the ability to fully comprehend the future consequences of your actions.
From 18 to about 27, you should be making your own decisions, but your parents should be available for advice or rescue when you make a mistake. The idea is for you to make mistakes, but have the support to be able to learn from them.
From there, parents should continue to step back. Advice can always be given, but it is up to the child whether to take it, and as parents we have no say in what advice children follow.
Personally, I'll always be available to help any of my kids in any way I can. However, at this point my job is not to actually intervene until asked. I can, however, initiate the conversation when necessary.
Thanks for your well written input and perspective. I was sent away from an early age (13) for education. I went through the cycle of emotions, and while I had a guardian nearby, I gradually learned to be independent and now wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world.
After that, college and moving out seemed like a easy, natural thing to do. Now I sometimes meet people in their mid 40s who have literally no life skills to speak of, can't manage finances or keep a home tidy, and are looking at marriage as a 'get out of jail free' card for the rest of their lives. I treasure my independence, but can't understand why people would prefer to be so cloistered and coddled. No, scratch that, it's obviously 'so much easier'.
I've definitely met people who were not raised to be independent of their parents. It sadly seems to often be the rule rather than the exception.
And then telling your child that everything they do that wasn't YOUR idea is making them a fuckup and that you just are trying to help them does wonders.
Then gasping when the child tells you to drop fucking dead and goes no contact and moves 3k miles away.
Note: this was all mostly unrelated to the comment aside from what you wrote triggered these thoughts.
Yeah.
Generally my wife and I keep the, "oh crap is this going to be a shitshow" conversations between ourselves.
The only way the kids get a reaction beyond a raised eyebrow and an amused smile is if the fuck up in question is going to push the limits of my ability to fix.
If it goes beyond $1000, they might get a "what the fuck?!?" out of me, but it's more in the nature of a momentary loss of control and is really just what my body does while my brain is trying to figure out how to cover it. However, if they fucked up, they already know it. If they fucked up by ignoring my advice, they know that too. There's no need to rehash it.
Generally, the biggest problem I have is they want to be independent, so they tend to try to keep their problems to themselves until they grow too big to deal with.
If you ask my mom, she'd say I do the same thing.