I also moved quite a distance from my family and HS and college friends. And my parents were divorced so I had two families to visit as well. It was a balancing act that I tried to make work, but I’m sure someone felt shortchanged in terms of my time.
I agree the main plus, @conmama,is that you’re considering a new perspective. See if you can get to ‘glass half full.’
See how abasket’s suggestions are all phrased in the positive. Studies show it’s easier to accept and adapt/agree to things phrased positively.
@conmama I don’t think you’ve been defensive at all. Quite the opposite actually, putting your feelings out here and listening.
I’m glad things are improving, and hope you guys continue to find ways to be close!
Re #80 - I mentioned that DS was using his vacation days to visit. (maybe others did also!)
I am very conscious of this as it was a bone of contention throughout my marriage. In-laws and my parents were both different directions from our home and not easily drive-able. Neither in-laws or my parents ever wanted to visit us; we were expected to report to their homes. Some how, they missed the fact that we had limited vacation, travel was expensive and stressful, our children had commitments to their schools and church at holiday times and that we wanted to establish some of our own family traditions.
As a result of my own experience, I tell my own adult kids they are welcome to visit us at their “birth hometown”, but respect the decisions they make as to how to use their vacation time. (We have sometimes met in fun vacation places and skipped “home”!)
@conmama — just gave to say I admire you! You’re very brave to come here and be so open to different perspectives in trying to improve your visit and relationship with your S. Sounds like you really took a lot of the thoughts to heart and they will help you have a better Christmas visit!
I agree it’s always a balancing act for us and the visiting “kids,” to spend time together while giving them space and autonomy. It drives my S nuts when we visit and have no set plans—he wants us to be busy while we visit and our idea of travel is much more face time and fewer attractions.
@conmama I too compliment your grace in the face of everyone’s feedback, and I say this as someone who would have handled the visit completely differently.
A huge +1 to those who suggested finding as positive a context as realistic. I’m in a different situation in that my mother’s behavior is often hurtful and self-absorbed (has been all my life, not a function of aging or failing health). A therapist helped me get to a point of accepting her limitations and being able to enjoy what she does have to offer. There’s been a positive feedback loop and she’s less pushy than she used to be, even though I haven’t moved my boundaries in any way. You don’t have the same dynamic; my takeaway is just that finding peace about the current reality with someone helped make me happier around them. Having it reflected back was an unexpected bonus.
Here’s to a Christmas visit you can all enjoy!
@conmama, I also want to add my admiration for your willingness to read these threads and consider. I know I was blunt (probably harsh) in expressing my thoughts. That comes from my own experiences with a difficult parent.
From my perspective, I have tried very hard, but it is never enough for my mother. From her perspective, I am certain she experienced aspects of my visits “home” (especially the escape to the room and limited interactions) the same way you have with your DS. I always regretted that there was no unbiased bystander to point out our differing expectations and needs. Congrats on being so willing to improve your situation!
Agree that it is a process and congratulations for recognizing and learning. We all do.
Just an idea that we have done throughout the years. We make an effort for exercise walking daily and continue to do this while they visit. Sometimes they ask to come with us.
Also, we try to incorporate learning how to cook with good healthy choices. (H loves to cook, and is an excellent one, and has us in the kitchen while he is cooking.) This includes SO’s and D’s. People naturally gravitate to the kitchen.
Thanks everyone for your nice comments and support. I truly mean that!
I got married at 21; my husband was 23. We BOTH had divorced parents. So we had four families to deal with, and little time or money with which to do it. I’m sure we hurt a lot of feelings.
My kids don’t have divorce to contend with; distance is our issue. My husband and I are on the East Coast, and they’re both in the West (although nowhere near each other). And they both have partners now. My daughter has obligations to her husband’s family as well as her own, and my son has obligations to his girlfriend’s family.
And maybe they just want to be on their own sometimes. (We did.) It’s not easy being a young adult.
S is in VA, D is in CA and we are in HI. It sure is far — 2500 to 5000 between us. I am grateful we are able to get together as often as we do but sure with we/they lived closer so we could spend even more time together (typed while S is lounging in his bed shopping online and we are in kitchen finishing breakfast, which he declined).
It is wonderful and awful how far flung we can end up from loved ones.
Yes, and it was always super fun to make the trip to the separate cities the divorced parents lived in and then sit politely through marriage and relationship advice from people who each had multiple failed marriages and had never been married to the same person for more than a couple of years at a time…
Almost as much fun as getting work and career advice from the stay at home mom or the person who had a blue collar, union type job (but had very strong opinions on what suit I should be wearing to my international consulting job for example.)
Visits are hard for parents but they’re also challenging for young adults.
@Himom, it seems our families have parallel lives: I’m in VA, my CA DD’s family spent Thanksgiving visiting SIL’s family in HI. Looking forward to their visit east for Christmas. I thought I was far when DH and I moved a 4 hour drive from our families of origin.
This thread reminded me of the visit home years ago when my D asked me, “How do you think I function every day of my life when I am at home?” It really made me think! Since then, I have learned to let my adult kids be adults. D finally moved back to the area after being away for 10 years between college & her early career. She even lived with us for a few months while she & her fiancé saved for/bought a house about 25-30 minutes from ours. I am glad she called me out … and glad I “heard “ her. It’s a good thing her brother is 3 years younger. He makes it difficult to keep my mom-comments to myself. But I have had lots of practice & can do it. S lives about 5-10 minutes away & likes to stop by to chat for a few minutes once or twice a week. He is not a “sharer,” but it’s good to just have him around for short periods of time. He has had some work situations recently & has asked for advice - but we are careful to offer only as asked & to leave it at that. I honestly think being intentional about treating our kids as the adults they are -even when we might secretly think they are maybe not doing things as we might - will pay off well in terms of our lifetime relationship. Glad you are working toward this goal, as well, @conmama.
We have the opposite problem. Our son is willing to come visit and spend time with us. (He has no local friends anymore,) but he’s pretty awful when we visit him. I know it’s my fault for having suggested we get him a cleaning service one year for Christmas, but really he could use one!
Yeah, sometimes when H tries to micro-manage me extensively I smile and nod but sometimes I blow up and say, “You do know that I’m an adult and ran a courtroom and am running a nonprofit just fine without someone over my shoulder?”
Finding the right balance with loved ones is a work in progress.
OP- big hugs. I know the let down feeling when you’ve been missing your kid so much and then the visit/trip home doesn’t measure up. So you get aggravated, and then the kid goes back, and the cycle of missing/disappointment continues. Aargh.
I don’t have a lot of wisdom on a lot of the issues you’ve raised on this thread, but I do want to put in a plug for keeping your mouth shut when it comes to your kids work lives. Spouse and I have about 75 years combined experience (yikes) working in big companies… and some of them were the “most attractive employers in America” according to Forbes, Fortune and the like “back in the day”. So of course we think we understand the workplace, and I work in corporate HR and deal with new grads/Millenials all day, and we’ve advanced to the point that we’ve dealt with talent management, policy, global human capital issues for decades.
Guess what- we don’t know anything. And that is not hyperbole. One of my kids is at a start up- a successful one that had a successful IPO, and every single bit of advice I’ve given has turned out to be wrong. H and I (with 5 degrees between us) don’t really understand what the company does or why it’s successful or why our kid (who does not have a CS degree) has become so valuable to the company, or even how in heck they are still in business. And our advice on dealing with the options/stock issues (we both have MBA’s) turned out to also be incorrect. Not as in “factually incorrect” since we understand the financial/tax/timing issues quite well from a technical perspective- but incorrect in terms of maximizing the value of a once in a lifetime event. Spouse and I were quite conservative financially early in our careers, and the idea of taking a big risk with actual capital would have kept us up at night. And- not so with young folks today. And it turned out to be the right call.
So we hear about funky/strange stuff that goes on (nobody tracks vacation, and that’s truly a “thing”) and we shrug and say “Wow, that’s fantastic”. We hear about stuff that would have gotten either of us fired “back in the day” and somehow is now appropriate. We honestly don’t understand the culture of many companies today and that’s fine- but it does mean we’ve learned to keep our mouths shut.
Another kid is working in a field where we kinda/sorta understand the terrain- but again, every piece of advice we’ve given has turned out to be exactly wrong for lots of reasons. And the work environment is both opaque and quite different from anything in our wheel house even though it seems like two corporate beasts like us could figure it out. But no.
My point? I don’t know where your son works, but it is for sure possible that the comments you have about his work life, or the judgments you want to make are really off the mark, and that sets your son’s teeth on edge. So on that count- be grateful that he’s moved off your couch, has figured out how to make a living, and try to zip it otherwise.
On the gifts- just stop. Truly- just stop. Your son doesn’t need an Apple watch. Write him a check at Xmas and write a nice note, and leave it to him to decide if he wants a computer, put it into his vacation fund, or blow it on fancy dinners out. I think paying for an occasional trip home is generous if you can afford it, but honestly, paying for a ticket does not insure that you’re going to see much of him when he’s home. And if that bothers you (it would bother me) then stop paying for his tickets home. You can visit him in January when the rates go down.
Hugs and a shoulder to cry on. I get it. It gets better.
This thread has a wealth of people sharing their experiences that most of us can take some parts of and apply them to our lives. When my son moved home after college he drove me absolutely nuts. I didn’t think he gave himself enough time to get to work on time, I thought he dressed casually for an office environment. I got upset when I made dinner and he didn’t come straight home from work and didn’t call. I got even more irritated when he stayed out really late without calling. I was angry about his messy room and smelly laundry. I would nag him and I know I irritated him. I had a good friend who gave me some great advise. First was that expectations build resentments. Ihad expectations that he was not going to deliver. I set myself up to be disappointed. She also suggested I make a list of what was bothering me and set a time for my H,S and I to talk. I was able to calmly let him know how I felt. On the dinner issue I told him I would not be cooking for him unless I heard from him by noon that he would be home for dinner. It simply solved an issue that had made my blood boil. By laying it all out in a calm manor it made life so much more pleasant. I think I felt like I wanted to spend time together and he just saw us as a free place to live with food in the refrigerator. Of course that wasn’t true.
my son also had ADHD and hated the meds and went off of them at college without telling us or his neurologist. I would go pick up the prescription each month at the Dr, fill it and mail it off to his college. When he came home with a box full of full bottles I was angry. On the pot smoking- I could always tell when my son had been smoking. It would turn the most sensitive person into a surly difficult person. It just didn’t agree with him. He also is my kid who has to learn by doing. That often means learning things the hard way. As a parent it’s hard to watch.
Regarding weight- super hard issue. I have another adult child who is struggling with weight. By talking to her about her weight I’m not helping. She knows she has a problem.
Wow, great great advice! I never knew that there was truly a difference to that degree in the work environment @blossom .
My lips are forever zipped when it comes to his work! If he doesn’t read things right and gets fired yet again, it’s on him. I forever want to rescue my kids it seems.
@mom60, thanks and I agree about the weight. We’ve had talks in the past when he’s brought it up and nothing changes. I’m not mentioning that anymore.
It seems being a parent is ever evolving.
Be glad that you see each other at least once a year.
My parents still live in Germany and I can only manage to see them every 2-4 years.
When I do it’s great, we sit and talk and I try to spend as much time as possible with them.
They are in their eighties now and I know time together is precious.