Adult Children

Many women expect the empty nest. They anticipate quieter homes, fewer family obligations, and more independence. What they do not expect is the emotional shift that sometimes occurs when adult children begin living fully independent lives.

By the time we reach our 60s, we expect to be seasoned. We’ve survived marriages, careers, childbirth, aging parents, and perhaps even divorce. We know who we are. So why does a little distance from an adult child knock the wind out of us?

There is a wonderful kind of privilege that comes with working hard for the last three or four decades… Savings are finally growing, the debt and/or mortgage is being paid down, and finally it feels like we can breathe just a little and enjoy life!

Are you trying to improve your relationship with your daughter-in-law? Do you want to create a better understanding and reduce tension? If these are a few of the questions that frequently enter your mind, then read on for some answers…

There is a particular kind of ache that comes with watching your adult child struggle. It’s quieter than the worries of early motherhood, but often heavier. At this stage of life, you may have imagined something different – more ease, more connection…

You can love fiercely, sacrifice willingly, pray faithfully, and show up again and again only to find yourself standing in a place you never imagined. A place where your relationship with your adult child feels strained, distant, fractured, or painfully complicated…

I was in my 60s when my relationship with my adult daughter finally broke completely. The details don’t matter as much as this truth: I spent the first six months believing my life was over. How could it not be?

I’m sitting in my therapist’s office, crying into a tissue that’s basically disintegrated, and he asks me a question that stops me cold: “Whose anxiety are you actually managing right now?” I start to…

They don’t tell you about this part of motherhood in the parenting books. They don’t prepare you for the Christmas when your adult child doesn’t call. When the addiction has its hooks in so deep you don’t recognize them anymore…

There’s a moment in every mother’s journey when she realizes that the way she’s been showing up is no longer serving anyone – not her children, and certainly not herself…