We take credit for supporting son’s interest in music. Since his music activities led to him getting to know his lovely, musical wife… methinks we get some credit for that too 
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My dh once said that our son got his smarts from me and his compassion from him. Of course, I immediately said (loudly and emphatically), “You don’t think I’m compassionate!!!???”
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My MIL told a story on herself which stuck with me. For background my DH is the baby of the family and the only one who went to college and is very responsible. His brother and sister were “bad kids” in high school (drinking, smoking pot, doing drugs, acting out – they eventually got their acts together mostly.) My MIL was asked by a counselor during the throes of her oldest son’s acting out in high school if she took credit if he did great on a math test (he was very smart, just did not like school) and MIL said “of course not – he achieved that on his own”. The counselor then said, “don’t take blame for his mistakes, either, then”.
My DH and I try to view our kids as their own people and not take any credit or blame for things they do. We encourage and support them, but what they do is their own.
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I do think intelligence is inherited as well as musical talent. I guess I’m speaking more of behavior.
As my daughter is an adoptee, no genetic inheritance.
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I take credit for my kids knowing how to take advantage of a good deal. This week I’m dog sitting at my daughter’s house and I was proud to see 4 pounds of butter in her freezer. We are a family that never wants to run out of butter (passed down from my mother), and I’m sure she found them on sale.
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My daughter can be prickly. I see myself as easygoing but have been called “drama queen” on occasion. Our relationship is mostly good but sometimes I don’t feel seen or heard or like she doesn’t really want to know me? Or let me know her.
Sometimes it can feel really lonely and like I’ve failed to create a close, happy family. That’s me being a drama queen.
With my daughter, I actually do try to be silent a lot. She’s like a cat, if I give her space, she opens up. And if I’m honest, I have a lot of boundaries myself.
I’m grateful that I have good friends to talk to, I don’t think my mom did and it led to a lot of oversharing about her marriages & problems. I remember being really upset by all of that. Maybe I should have been more supportive. Our relationship is still not great - I’m not prickly but with divorced & dysfunctional parents I had to lay down boundaries. But that’s a very different tangent than the OP’s question.
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I appreciate this thread so much - thank you everyone for sharing. Being a parent of 1 prickly young adult (my husband and I like the cat analogy) and knowing there are plenty of other parents out there with a similar personality child makes us feel better. It feels a bit lonely with friends all talking about how loving and easy their young adults are and how they call/facetime all the time etc… Luckily, our daughter is not prickly when asking for money or when we take her out to wine and dine - then she is a real joy. 
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Little kid and husband are shopping for a house. I’ve bitten my tongue many times… thank dogs for their realtor who is super patient and says the same things I’ve said! After 2 houses they seriously considered and have been talked out of, I think they now let me speak up freely. 
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I have a prickly older daughter. She listens to my H on the rare occasion where he offers advice. She does the opposite of whatever I recommend. That’s fine for minor issues, but she’s made one costly decision bc of this (not getting a teaching license when she had the opportunity to in college - she majored in English, but her school offered the licensure pathway). She never thought she’d be teaching, but is wrapping up her second year next month. She’s on five year emergency license and will have to pay for a masters if she wants to continue. My H has generously offered to pay for her to start night classes (part time program takes two years), but she doesn’t know if she likes teaching that much 
. She is very good at it though; she had the highest rate of student improvement in her department in her first year of teaching.
She also has moderate to severe environmental allergies and eczema, but was tested twice while living at home and the skin tests never showed much of a reaction for some reason. She finally took another where she lives now and this one showed the true extent of her allergies and she was advised to start getting allergy shots but has not followed through even with stern (for him) advice from my H to do so while she is still on our insurance. She now has four months left. Every time we FaceTime her she is sniffing, coughing, scratching, most of the time all three. And I almost forgot- she also got a cat - yes she is allergic to them.
It’s so hard to respect boundaries and bite your tongue when your adult child makes irrational decisions that affect their (and your) finances and health.
I shared in another thread that she got mad at me for buying her a cute blouse with a cat pattern (that I’ve seen pics of her wearing). Apparently she doesn’t need my financial assistance and I’m undermining her independence. I just thought it was a cute shirt and that she’d like it! 
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Just wondering – I only have sons. Is there a difference in prickliness between mothers and sons vs mothers and daughters??
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I don’t think so. I think prickliness is a personal trait that isn’t necessarily related to gender. A lot of people on this thread have prickly D’s. Not me - she passed through her prickly stage in middle school. But my S is prickly. It’s just who he is.
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Oh no, are we going to categorize “prickly” into gender slots!!! 
I think it should just be seen as a “person to person” problem. When we try to chalk it up to a gender, it feels like we give the problem an excuse.
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My son has no problem calling me to help search for the best price. A good bonding moment.
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I also think it is situation-dependent. My absolutely non-prickly child suddenly became super sensitive to our comments about the houses she and her husband considered. Go figure!
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We’re in the same boat … Kids probably competing with yours for a house. But I can sympathize. There’s just not much there, and so much in the price range is, well, not worth anywhere near asking price (imho), and then sells even higher. SIGH. (sorry… aside)
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Once, when my adult child was planning to spend a LOT of money in an area I am very familiar (my career!), I offered advice. He cut me short, and said he will leave the advice “up to the experts”. OUCH.
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Hope they’re not competing! Ours decided that they want to avoid Seattle SD, so looking north-east of the city.
Back to the original topic.
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My favorite phenomena is when you spend half their life saying something like (for example) “you really should put a blanket in your car” and they ignore you for years or roll their eyes…and then you hear them telling a younger cousin “I know that I always put a blanket in my car, but you do what you want” like it is a completely original thought.
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I would say in general that I have really comfortable conversations with our 3 “twenty something kids”.
I have definitely noticed that their prickliness (love that term, by the way) increases in the face of their major decisions or life changes. So starting a career, new relationships, breakups can take some adjustment on my part. All makes perfect sense, but I need to remind myself, and more so my DH to avoid reverting to parent needs to fix this mode.
Also, I marvel at how much I am learning now from our adult children. The way they look at the world, make decisions, relate to others is inspiring to me. I tell them this during our conversations and it has helped foster a much nicer adult to adult relationship.
Trust me that we had some rough teenage years, so this is a pleasant change.
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