<p>I think I said this, last year: August is a funny month, on CC. Odd things crop up, sort of like crabgrass. </p>
<p>Squeeze your kids with expectations and you can run the risk of a lack of desire to engage. It’s a delicate balance. </p>
<p>I do agree building a solid sense of family is important. But the ground work starts well before hs. After they head for college, they start to scope out life on their own. Closeness ebbs and flows. The rules change. The bar changes. But if you did things right enough, “family” is still there, the bonds are there. It’s not counted in phone calls.</p>
<p>I hope for what Moonchild has- and am pretty sure I’ll get it. Why? Because my own expectations will evolve, too. </p>
<p>The 7 hour time difference we have with my son makes lots of face time difficult. Emails have to be the most frequent. I savor the vacations, though.</p>
<p>Daughter in grad school comes home lots more than she could in undergrad, 1200 miles away. </p>
<p>“Squeeze your kids with expectations and you can run the risk of a lack of desire to engage. It’s a delicate balance.”</p>
<p>Beautifully spoken!!! Rings very true for me!! I also think the amount of expected contact as well as the perception of how much parents can actually influence how their kids will turn out has some cultural implications to it as well. Coincidentally, my husband and I were JUST talking about all these things just a bit earlier today.</p>
<p>I used to be squarely in the nurture camp but now that our son is developing into a person who is so vastly different from both my husband and I and whose goals in life are also so different than ours, I am really starting to move into the luck/nature camp on this.</p>
<p>I always remember my grandma who always lived with us telling me before I started first grade that I should get good grades and be a good student and guess what? I did just that always attributing it to her influence. Fast forward to now and my son is now 18 and while he is very smart and has done very well in school (due in part to my pushing), he doesn’t believe in grades and competition and his goal in life is to just make enough money to feel financially comfortable and other than that to just enjoy life, pursue his interests and to develop meaningful relationship. He feels that many if not most ills in society are due to our overemphasizing the financial “success” and to living in the state of constant stress and he doesn’t want that kind of life for himself.</p>
<p>I am not sure he really understands the value of hard work and persistence even though he’s consistently seen it from my husband and I… how could this have happened? I will never know for sure but I am thinking my inborn personality had allowed me to internalize my grandma’s teachings while my son was born a very different person and even though I’ve always shown him by example, it hasn’t quite made the impact I was hoping for.</p>
<p>As far as squeezing with expectations, I’ve experienced that with my parents and to be honest, it’s suffocating. There are certain cultural implications like I mentioned before (my parents don’t speak English that well, they are old and not doing that great health wise) but I am only now starting to really understand how damaging it was and is for me to be guided by a sense of duty and obligation more than the true closeness. The hard part of it all is that I’ve been around it for so long that it’s almost become the norm and I am realizing that I might be doing the same thing with my son. Hopefully, the realization is the first step in trying to change it but it’s certainly not going to be easy.</p>
<p>My daughter, home from her 4th summer in Sweden (8 weeks) and with us for 2 days before she returns for her senior year at college says " Mom! I want to be in a relationship with you now because I love you, not need you!"</p>
<p>I actually think that is a healthy philosophy. However, as many of us have experienced, when you have severe financial problems, there is also a “state of constant stress” that I’m sure he would not want for himself. Finding a happy medium is hard, and often does require that one do well in school to get that good job and have a good work ethic. Some people are lucky enough that they can land in that place without too much effort, but it’s sure not something you can count on.</p>
<p>Today, my daughter and I spent 2 hours at Whole Foods while she tried on various makeup items. She actually liked what I picked BETTER than her choices! I even got to pay for it! Not as good as a carpool, but close!</p>
<p>fauxmaven…post 102 made me cry. I called up my D, who was at the airport (on her way to Texas for a gig). We had a long talk, I told her how useless I felt, she asked me
“how could my best friend be useless?”
oh the tears.
thanks</p>
<p>And yes…MAKEUP!!..that’s what BFF’s are for.</p>
<p>We have two sons. Both became very independent in h.s. We felt them pulling away from their junior year onward. They had active social lives ,p/t/ jobs,driver’s licenses and old trucks. Lots of friends meant very little hanging out with Mom and Dad. I think the last family vacation we were all together was 9th and 11th grades. They both attended instate universities but mostly only came home for holidays and then spent most of that time w/ friends. They good natured, never rude or mean…just have other things to do that don’t include us.</p>
<p>Both have graduated fr. college S1 lives/ works 6 hours away and has bought his own home. He doesn’t get home to visit often. He usually calls every couple of weeks. S2 is living with us working locally. He rarely eats a meal w/ us and is usually out with friends when not working. He and two friends are currently house hunting so he’ll be moving out in the next couple of months. He’ll still be in our town but doubt we’ll see much of him. DH’s family (4 kids) was very much the same way. Once the kids left home that was it.
I guess I’ve sort of accepted that our adult (unmarried) sons choose to spend their leisure time with friends rather than their boring parents. I’ve often wondered if things would be different if one of our kids had been a girl.</p>
<p>I’m conflicted how I feel, while we’ve raised our D to be independent, there is the expectation that it would be nice if she communicated with us more. We would never tell her that, but my H is silently disturbed that she calls me more than he. He is feeling hurt and not quite sure what to make of it.
I have moments as well. She lives in Brooklyn and we are in a suburb off of NYC. She is close, yet worlds away. She is busy with work, doesn’t have a lot of money and trying to make it on her own. We get that!! We try to meet her for dinner every couple of months in the city and she comes home for a night or two every 3-4 months. I initiate a text or 2 during the week.<br>
So, yes I think we can over parent, by trying to do all the correct things in raising them. Pushing independence, slowly distancing ourselves because “it’s the right thing to do”, giving them the tools to not be dependent on us. I guess it the price we pay as parents. But I would much rather her want to be around us because she wants to be, rather than she feels guilted into doing so.</p>
<p>My kids come over every Sunday. Sounds good, right? I feel like they, for some reason, feel obligated to do so. My D who is the oldest seems to practically be looking at the clock half the time to see if she’s put in enough time here. My H doesn’t see it that way. He thinks they like being here. I really feel like they feel obligated. I need to change it up and not have them here every Sunday. It’s become mundane for all of us.</p>