Adult Children:
This is a stage where you will necessarily muse over whether your child will ever really be an adult and what that actually even means. The answer is no. Your child will always be your child.
New Avenues for Living Through Your Child
You may grieve over the fact that your child has moved out, even started a family of their own, but keep in mind that your child can now provide many new ways of supplying you!
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Vicarious Joys of Social Media
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Spouses and In-Laws: Allies or Enemies?
Depending on your luck of the draw and your child's willingness to heed your wishes when it comes to choosing their life partners, your child's life partner and their family may a more or less welcome addition to your life:
- Spouses are a normal, if pesky, occurrence over the course of a child's lifetime
- If well chosen, they and their families can be helpful allies in keeping your child on the right track
- Watch out for families who inculcate misguided beliefs of "independence" into your child and turn them against you!
- Make sure your child knows that their only real family is yours, the child's birth family; others are temporary accessories
- Your child's divorce is a good opportunity to remind them of your wisdom in this area of life
Help! My Child is Making Baseless Accusations!
Adult children sometimes have false ideas planted in their heads by their partners, friends or therapists. They may accuse you of somehow being to blame for their depressions, suicidal tendencies, inability to progress in life, social phobias, lack of self confidence and a plethora of other conditions that have nothing to do with you.
We can only recommend that you consign these accusations back to the realm of imagination, which is where they spring from.
We can only recommend that you consign these accusations back to the realm of imagination, which is where they spring from.
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See also
Weaponised Helplessness
Old age has its benefits. You may already have surmised this from your earlier experiences with using illness to your advantage. Once your body begins failing you, you have a whole new set of factors that you can play out against your child to ensure that they remain tightly bound to you.
- Physical weakness not only means that your child must do your heavy carrying for you, it also gets you plenty of pity points
- Symptoms can come and go, so it clearly is not your fault that they tend to come when you need something from your child, and leave when you want to turn your attention elsewhere
- There is no greater means of putting pressure on your loved ones than when you are death's door - all your wishes will be granted
- Nobody can be angry for long at a poor, old, weak parent; you will have so much more leeway now
- Dementia opens a lot of doors in terms of selective remembering and convenient forgetting!