There are many challenges with learning to let go of your adult children. One that I have come to recognize readily but not handle well is balancing their need for freedom with your need for control. Now, I'd like to think that I'm not a TOTAL control freak but there are certain standards that I like to live by. I like to have my house fairly picked up and ready for company, if not completely like a model home. I like to have a clean kitchen and clean bathrooms. I definitely like for people to pick up after themselves and to put away any messes they make while preparing food/drink.
My kids, on the other hand, have less strict standards. And now they pay rent (at least the older two do). So, they feel that they should have a right to decide when they want to clean up stuff and not have to do "chores", which they were required to do pre-rent. They feel that their rent has kind of purchased them out of a lot of the stuff they had to do before. I am trying to be understanding of this so we have negotiated something that I feel is doable.
They all use the same bathroom...one that I don't. Therefore, my husband and I thought it only fair that they should be responsible for keeping it up. We figured out that each one of them would be responsible for cleaning it one week a month. There are three of them, so it would be cleaned 3 out of 4 weeks every month. Not bad really and my contention is that if it's being cleaned that often, it should be a quick job for them. They felt this was fair. However, we've come to find that, without reminding or nagging, it isn't happening. I don't want to nag...really, I don't.
However, I don't want a complete pigsty of a bathroom either. What to do, what to do?
Same holds true of when they do laundry or make a meal...if I don't tell them to pick it up and put it away or clean up after themselves, then it just stays hanging around in the kitchen or family room indefinitely. I have tested this out. After 3-4 days, I cannot stand it anymore and finally say something...and my attitude probably really sucks when I do. Ugh. This can't be productive.
I wonder how I can save my sanity, get them to do what they've agreed to do and not have to nag anymore. I have tried the "family meeting"...not the answer. Any suggestions out there?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Why This and Why Now?
A very good friend and I were sharing over the Internet the other day. Actually, she was providing me with a bit of friend-therapy as I was feeling hopeless about where my life is going these days.
You see, I'm struggling through a part of my mothering experience where I'm having to let go of my adult children emotionally while still having them around physically.
Shortly after the New Year, my oldest son and I found ourselves in almost constant conflict. I realize now it was growing pains and that it needed to happen so that he would move on into his independent 22-year old adult male life. After a particularly painful argument, I ended up telling him that he needed to leave my house. I know now that I only wanted him to be scared enough that he would pay attention to the rules that I had in my household and be more respectful of my wishes. I really didn't think that he'd go. But he did.
I was inconsolable. He wasn't speaking to me and I didn't know where he'd end up. Turns out it was a pretty positive experience as he found out that he was able to secure a place to live on his own, obtain roommates, and support himself. With all those experiences, our relationship revived (albeit in a different way) and morphed into something more comfortable for both of us.
Soon, my 19-year-old son was asking to join his brother outside the house. This I was not prepared for or encouraging. However, I couldn't help but remember when I was 19 and approached my parents to move out on my own. They shot me down in flames, told me that I would never be able to make it work and that the door "only swings one way"...so there was no going back if I found out it was more than I was ready for. With all these things in mind, I realized that I had to let him try out living on his own. Within 2 months, I found my house of 5 reduced to a house of 3, with only my 13-year-old daughter left.
This is how 2009 began as a year of many changes, many learning experiences, many emotional tugs and pulls and a transition that is still taking place for me. I am trying to make sense of who I am in this changing atmosphere and my friend suggested that blogging about it might be both a release and an enlightenment. I hope it becomes both those things, but I also hope that I will find that what I'm going through is not unique and that there will be others out there who will share survival techniques, tactics, and anecdotes with me that will help me move through this passage to a place where I can truly say "Que sera, sera....whatever will be, will be..."
You see, I'm struggling through a part of my mothering experience where I'm having to let go of my adult children emotionally while still having them around physically.
Shortly after the New Year, my oldest son and I found ourselves in almost constant conflict. I realize now it was growing pains and that it needed to happen so that he would move on into his independent 22-year old adult male life. After a particularly painful argument, I ended up telling him that he needed to leave my house. I know now that I only wanted him to be scared enough that he would pay attention to the rules that I had in my household and be more respectful of my wishes. I really didn't think that he'd go. But he did.
I was inconsolable. He wasn't speaking to me and I didn't know where he'd end up. Turns out it was a pretty positive experience as he found out that he was able to secure a place to live on his own, obtain roommates, and support himself. With all those experiences, our relationship revived (albeit in a different way) and morphed into something more comfortable for both of us.
Soon, my 19-year-old son was asking to join his brother outside the house. This I was not prepared for or encouraging. However, I couldn't help but remember when I was 19 and approached my parents to move out on my own. They shot me down in flames, told me that I would never be able to make it work and that the door "only swings one way"...so there was no going back if I found out it was more than I was ready for. With all these things in mind, I realized that I had to let him try out living on his own. Within 2 months, I found my house of 5 reduced to a house of 3, with only my 13-year-old daughter left.
This is how 2009 began as a year of many changes, many learning experiences, many emotional tugs and pulls and a transition that is still taking place for me. I am trying to make sense of who I am in this changing atmosphere and my friend suggested that blogging about it might be both a release and an enlightenment. I hope it becomes both those things, but I also hope that I will find that what I'm going through is not unique and that there will be others out there who will share survival techniques, tactics, and anecdotes with me that will help me move through this passage to a place where I can truly say "Que sera, sera....whatever will be, will be..."
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