WHAT IS YOUR PARENTAL AGENDA?

Parenting is hard.

There I said it.

Anyone that's parented in any compacity understands that. Here's where it gets tricky for me....

Parenting adult children.

We all want what's best for our kids. I have 3 grown kids of my own. My oldest 2 are twins. One boy, one girl, age 24. The struggle for me is knowing when to let them fall/fail/flop. Remember when our kids were learning to walk, how eventually we just had to let them tumble. I naively believed that once kids turned 18 we happily set them free and somehow the "raising" stops, our job is done and from that point forward we get to strictly be a cheerleader and the "friend" phase begins. Oh how wrong I was!

My twins are struggling in my eyes. One hasn't left his father's house yet, and the other is essentially couch surfing with a newborn and her partner in tow. I'm hard on them because of this. I want more for both the twins. I beleive they are 100% capable of doing more than they are. I want to see them fulfilled. I want them to take "life by the horns" (as my mother says) and break every barrier. Here's the problem with the last 4 sentences....

They all start with "I".

That tells me I'm running my own agenda, and when I realized that, it was a bit of a sharp pill to swallow. Maybe they are fulfilled where they are in life. Maybe they don't want to do more in this moment. Maybe taking life by the horns isn't in their list of to - do's. It kills me to sit back and do nothing. The question now becomes how or where is the boundary for this? Can I push them to do better? Should I push them to do better? Is it my place to determine what's better? Or do I just let them learn on their own?

I'll say it again...

Parenting is hard.

Have any of you had to check yourself lately with your own adult children?