<p>In an answer to ucbalumnus’ question -post #2- regarding my son’s job: it’s actually a very good job, with a reputable firm and making good money. He gets a nice salary, plus overtime, since he works really long hours. </p>
<p>I think the problem is as anxiousmom described it: he’s no longer in a school schedule of 30 weeks, plus summers off. For him: boom! He had to take the job right after graduation or forfeit. Now he’s far from friends and family and has to start all over. </p>
<p>That’s the dilemma: I can’t do anything (as much as I wish I could) and he’s not trying. In reality, there’s nothing I can bo but listen. I just have to remember that’s what’s best anyway.</p>
<p>colorado_mom, I’d love to visit, and DS would love that too (because I’d take him out to nice restaurants). But that doesn’t solve my concern: how to get him out of his apartment when he’s not working, eat better, enjoy life. </p>
<p>And visiting wouldn’t help my fear that I think my kids are already too dependent on me. Sax, this is how “they deal with it”…… they’d say bring it on. Do more for me. Fix my food, get me dressed, write my letters. See, they are not egging to do these things on their own and why should they if I would do it for them?</p>
<p>These days, I give them plenty of unsolicited advice, but stopped everything else. But still, they haven’t picked up where I left off. I’m sitting on my hands, but when do kids take charge? Even though my middle son has a good, well paying job, I still worry. I worry that I did too much for them when they were younger and they never learned how to do things for themselves. They never learned how to fail and get up again.</p>
<p>limabeans, my first thought was to visit, and ask son to invite 5 work colleagues to come over for dinner. It does sound like he doesn’t know how to break out of lonely cycle. I assume you’ve suggested joining a sports team, or any group that interests him. Perhaps an on-line dating site?</p>
<p>I think many young people have friends and never analyzed how they got close and started doing things together. They do not realize the work that is involved in making new friends.</p>
<p>Just saw that your son isn’t eating well. Suggest a cooking class, even if you have to find one.</p>
<p>limabeans,
You are a good and caring mom. Don’t beat yourself up. We don’t just turn off the worry button when they become young adults. Redirecting your son to other resources that can be of help to him is perhaps helpful, but he may always be a bit more reliant on your for guidance and a social measuring stick. YOu can control the degree.</p>
<p>I asked my mother when when D was born, when you stop worrying so much and she told me NEVER… It is a life sentence. She raised 5 kids and I think that’s why she eventually took the geographic cure. I think she was right. She was worrying about us until she died at age 90. Hugs. I worry a lot too. It’s part of life.</p>
<p>I have 2 girls, 24 and 20. I have come to the conclusion that all I get is bad news, I don’t get the good news when things get better. D2 was very proud of herself for not calling me few nights ago at 1am when she found out what her BF did. She said she really refrained herself from calling me. At first I said, “You know you could always call me.” But I changed my mind after I heard it was 1 am. She was very upset on the phone, sobbing to be more specific. I asked her if she had anyone to talk to (like her friends). She said, “Yes, but they don’t listen as well as you.” I wanted to punch the boy after I heard the whole story. As she is my second one, I know this will pass and there will be another boy in the picture very soon.</p>
<p>Love that “they don’t listen as well as you” - yes that is our job to be good listeners for our children, that is how we support them (no matter how old they are).</p>
<p>It’s hard. Since my children are now adults, I’ve tried to switch hats from authority-figure-parent to friend. I figure after all these years, I’ve earned it. I’m always asking myself, “have they asked for my advise?” If not, I don’t give it. And that’s less stress. I listen, but as with all relationships, at some point there needs to be give-and-take. We can’t just give-and-give-and-give.</p>
<p>Limabeans…what are you doing for the kids that you think is too much and not helping them grow?</p>
<p>I have a similar situation with a son who moved off to another city and had to start from scratch. I have no problem reminding him about ways to connect with others. I even sent him links to some local groups just to prod him. He has had a few transitions in the past so he knows he will survive. It is a great life skill as we all go through transitions constantly in our lives. His problem was that he left a terrific group of life long friends who are still somewhat together. Not easy seeing the parties and pictures on facebook. </p>
<p>I find myself offering advice (explainations) on health plans, car problems, Health issues, finances, (example: get a Roth in addition to your 401K). </p>
<p>Hey, maybe it helps…maybe not. But it’s all out of love. </p>
<p>I guess I see helicoptering as actually doing things FOR them which I don’t do. It doesn’t sound like you do either.</p>
<p>You can’t help th way you feel. Emotion has a life of its own, so you just let the rip and focus on doing the right thing, which you seem to do know. There is that old expression that “oneis as happiest as one’s unhappiest child” and that seems to hold true. But feeling for them and wishing things were different is a whole other thing than intervening. Difficult as it is, one reaches that point where it can do more harm than good and when you see that, take a breath, like when you had those labor pains. </p>
<p>I know how you feel. Some of mine have been having rough times, and I feel every bit of it.</p>
<p>Thank you all for this thread. Count me in as another parent with a son in a different city who is socially isolated. He started off in a city on the opposite coast, interned and then earned a job at a company, but lonely and not particularly happy with his job, moved to the other coast hoping for a job he liked better and be with gf. Shortly after getting there, he and gf broke up, he had not found housing (bitterly disappointed that housemates he wanted to live with picked someone else), and had no job prospects. </p>
<p>He now is working, what I call a 2 week job interview but good hourly pay, at a company he loves and will keep him on if the 2 weeks work out. He is hopeful but admits the work is challenging for his level. Weekends are hell and he is so lonely. I have no advice so I just worry. I am not a helicopter mom and have a busy job, but sleeping at night is tough. A couple of things he plans if this city works out: Find a room in a house with cool roommates (easier said than done he is aware), and go to meet.com to try to meet people his own age and interests. I think things would have been fine if he and gf did not break up (he won’t share with me why) or the housing situation he was excited about would have worked.</p>
<p>It takes some real work to make friends which is harder to do when you’re working a lot. There are social sites these days like meet.com (mentioned above) that are worth looking into. Cooking classes are great. But as a parent you can’t do much except point out avenues of creating a social life; it’s really up to the individual. All you can say is to hang in there, it’s a process, be your own best advocate.
And remember not everything comes at the same time–job, move, then getting friends–it can be a long process.</p>
<p>Many years ago I hopped on a Greyhound bus with one suitcase to move to a city I always wanted to live in. Prior to this my sister and I traveled around the USA for 3 months, and I told her I wanted to go check this city out. While visiting a museum I found the exact job I wanted, and told the person working there that I would be back. She said she had CETA funds (that’s how long ago this was–1979), I came back 3 months later and within a week I was working.</p>
<p>But I was still lonely. One morning my boss and I were having breakfast together and a friend came up to her to plan a hiking trip with a bunch of people. I actually thought it was very impolite that I wasn’t invited, but didn’t say anything. The next week, after hearing about what a great time everyone had, I asked my boss to invite me the next time they got together. She did and I met a great bunch of people and my future husband!</p>
<p>I’m glad there are others finding this thread and hopefully getting ideas. </p>
<p>I do think time is definitely the biggest factor. It’s just hard heading into a long winter. I’ve looked into a Dale Carnegie class (which his company would partly pay for) but it meets on Wed.'s for 8 weeks and unfortunately (or fortunately, because it gets him out of his apartment) he is traveling every three weeks or so for business. I also looked at Craig’s list in his area under the ‘activities’ tab and there are some pick-up co-ed leagues for some sports (co-ed volleyball, hockey, etc- the co-ed part seems to make it less intense). In the short term I am encouraging him to structure his weekend in advance (laundry, apt. cleaning, working out , meal planning for the next week and food shopping, going to a movie) so that he has some kind of timetable to look at instead of a daunting blank slate of two days that will lead him to sit in front of his computer the entire time and grow increasingly morose. He is willing to go to things, and is going to an alumni event this weekend. I think he is facing the reality that he has moderate social anxiety that he had been successfully compensating before in college with similarly oriented friend groups. In this new general population of professional urban 20 somethings (read:“not a bunch of nerdy engineers”) his discomfort is unfortunately spot-lighted and I think that took him by surprise.</p>
<p>I have had a version of that conversation with my daughter…it is the hardest thing in the world to hear such extreme sadness in your child’s voice and know that there is nothing to be done but slug through a chunk of time until the pain is less pronounced. I feel for your D.</p>
<p>The world has not changed all that much from when you did that.</p>
<p>My son moved to NYC without a job in 2012. He wanted to experience NY until starting professional school in 2014. </p>
<p>He subleased a room in an apartment in a basement in Bushwick. The guy he subleased from was a HS friend of his who was going to Asia for 6 months. My son did not know any of the other people in the apartment, but became friends with two of them. Solo living can be a real drawback to meeting people.</p>
<p>Got a job tutoring in the evenings and working part time as a tutor at a Charter in Harlem three days a week. He found 2 or 3 locations that offered affordable yoga classes and that was his way of meeting more people. He mentioned that he had considered starting to take martial arts lessons again as another way to meet people, but between the roommates and yoga people that did not turn out to happen.</p>