{"id":1788,"date":"2012-10-16T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T00:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=1788"},"modified":"2012-10-17T09:48:38","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T13:48:38","slug":"im-harming-myself-to-help-my-adult-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=1788","title":{"rendered":"I’m harming myself to help my adult child"},"content":{"rendered":"

Therese,<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do I stop sending support to my very adult son?\u00a0 He has been in and out of trouble, financially and other ways, like drugs, all of his life.\u00a0 Just when I think he\u2019s got it all together something happens again.\u00a0 The thing is, I can\u2019t afford it, and to help him, I can\u2019t pay own my bills.\u00a0 He\u2019s 16 in a grown man’s body!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paraphrased, this is the conversation I had with a friend recently.<\/p>\n

It is also a question that I have grappled with in the past, and still do.\u00a0 I see how the world, economically, changed from the time I was young, and now.\u00a0 It seemed to be a given then, that a young person could get an education, work hard, and have a reasonable expectation of meeting, or beating, their parents\u2019 standard of living.\u00a0 That is no longer the case.<\/p>\n

It was also the standard, in the western world I live in, that the young person leave the house somewhere between 18 and 21 years of age, and never come back, except in the event of some catastrophe.\u00a0 That is no longer the case either.\u00a0 This change, in my opinion, while forced by some fairly dramatic economic changes, has not been entirely a bad thing.\u00a0 Having lived in Asia, where the model is to actively engage multiple generations in the raising of the children, and the sharing of the wisdom of each generation, CWG\u2019s suggestion that this was the way, rang true with me.<\/p>\n

I was not about to move my entire family in with me, however!\u00a0 So, how to work within the current economy, and not enable?\u00a0 How to productively engage the multi-generation model? \u00a0 I found my own way to have the East and West models meet.\u00a0 We live in the same neighborhood!\u00a0 My mother, my daughter and husband, and her sons and my husband and me.\u00a0 Boundaries were set at the beginning, and have always been respected.<\/p>\n

I have two children, both of whom have seemed to require help.\u00a0 One lives near, one lives far, so it isn\u2019t nearness that is an issue.\u00a0 But giving to them did begin to feel like a burden, and I started to give without joy.\u00a0 So, in the past few years, I began to ask myself the questions I thought I should be asking about the situation of helping them.<\/p>\n

Questions like:<\/p>\n

What am I getting out of this situation?
\nIs this help really helping in the long run?
\nAm I imposing my vision of what their life must look like, and not honoring their vision?
\nIs this help or control?
\nWhat might their souls be wishing to experience…as well as my own?<\/p>\n

Hard questions to honestly answer.<\/p>\n

While I am truly giving to them out of love, if I am to be very honest, I am also giving out of fear.\u00a0 Sometimes I fear that they will be angry with me.\u00a0 Sometimes I fear what the consequences might look like if I don\u2019t help them.\u00a0\u00a0 There are, of course, other fears.\u00a0 There are other things, I realize, that I am getting out of this type of giving, that are not beneficial to all, and possibly not to anyone, in the long run scenario.<\/p>\n

I also realize I am imposing my vision of what their lives should look like.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want them to not be able to pay the bills, I don\u2019t want them evicted from their homes, I do want them to have the things I had, and I do want them to always have full a full belly and feel secure.\u00a0 But…is this what their soul is really wishing to experience?\u00a0 As \u201cThe Only Thing That Matters\u201d articulates quite well, the soul knows where it really wants to go, but it has absolutely no preference as to how we get there.\u00a0 The long road or the short road makes no difference.\u00a0 So, am I helping create the long road by removing the opportunities to take the short road?\u00a0 Am I saying that the short road must not seem difficult for it to be the road that works best?\u00a0 For that matter, am I removing my own opportunity to experience that more difficult path that is, none the less, the one I must ultimately traverse?<\/p>\n

Looking at my relationship with money was another thing I had to do.\u00a0 Being an American, I\u2019ll bet you can figure out at least some of where I had to go in that conversation with myself!\u00a0 Not the least of which was asking myself exactly what my definition of abundance really is.<\/p>\n

Back to my friend, who specifically said that he is harming his own welfare in order to help his son.\u00a0 CWG says that all benefits must be mutual.\u00a0 Stated in another way, it says that to betray oneself, in order to not betray another, is still betrayal, and it is betrayal of the highest order.\u00a0 And it is giving our children the wrong message.<\/p>\n

I was not willing to cold turkey remove the help, but I have cut back considerably, and help in very specific areas, like healthcare for the grandkids.\u00a0 (Yes, healthcare, even with insurance, is expensive for way too many, but that is a different subject!)\u00a0 It was difficult to change some of my behaviors, to be sure, though.\u00a0 It hasn\u2019t been all fun, but, guess what!\u00a0 it has been quite beneficial for all of us.<\/p>\n

The oxymoron here, is that, we are told that life isn\u2019t about us, yet it is all about us!\u00a0 So, if life isn\u2019t about you, and it is also all about you…where are you really?\u00a0 How do we justify denying anyone anything, even if it is hurting ourselves?
\nNeale answered that very clearly in a recent retreat I attended.\u00a0 We forget that there really is just one of us in the room.\u00a0 When I take care of me, I take care of you.<\/p>\n

My advice, then, to myself and to others, would be to ask the questions and be honest with our answers.\u00a0 Then…be brave enough to take care of ourselves.\u00a0 When we do that, we will also be taking care of our children well enough to allow them to do what seems to be failure, knowing we are allowing their opportunities to present themselves…and modeling how to find one’s own answers.\u00a0 This may be very difficult to witness on occasion, but allowing the process to unfold, and not preempt it because it doesn\u2019t feel good, will also empower us to know when help will be truly beneficial, to all, if offered.<\/p>\n

Therese<\/p>\n

(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net<\/a>, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span>, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Therese, How do I stop sending support to my very adult son?\u00a0 He has been in and out of trouble, financially and other ways, like drugs, all of his life.\u00a0 Just when I think he\u2019s got it all together something happens again.\u00a0 The thing is, I can\u2019t afford it, and to help him, I can\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[171],"tags":[301,300,52],"class_list":["post-1788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","tag-life-is-about-you","tag-life-isnt-about-you","tag-the-global-conversation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}