WELCOME HOME, YOUNG ADULTS
By Emily Mills
The clocks have been set back and the seasons have changed. We’re about to welcome our college kids home for the holidays with all of their stories, new ideas, beliefs and opinions about their childhood. Our home, once filled with more noise, is quieter now. Weeknights and most weekends are just us and Gus, our teenage son, who seems to be totally cool with the shift. Upon returning, Hattie and Lucy will unconsciously attempt to squeeze the big world’s they’ve been creating back under our roof. Nothing fits like it once did. We all feel it. “God, let the foundation hold”, I find myself praying.
It’s not our first rodeo welcoming them back. This summer was a freakshow because I failed to plan for the amount of garbage in tow, nor did I communicate my own needs very well. My anxiety rose as rooms overflowed with apartment and dorm belongings. Their bedroom floors were invisible and I was convinced we’d raised hoarders. Our kitchen became a revolving commissary. They like their own food, their own way on their own timeframe that conveniently didn’t include the minutes it takes to clean up. The bonus houseguest was perimenopause, the kitchen was HOT.
I still have a lot to learn about parenting, but what I know for certain is that college kids still need a safe haven. This year in particular, after the election ride, our young adults will bring with them realities, fears, ideas and beliefs that may or may not match ours. They may have struggled academically, relationally, suffered heartbreak or roommate drama and not care anything about engaging politics. No matter how they come back, our job as parents is to hold out a loving welcome. This gets tricky. Young adults may want to be a part of family traditions but may also challenge the norms: “Grandma, can I have your Texas sheet cake recipe?” and also, “How could you vote for that person?” They may be more emboldened and opinionated. Depending on their life, work and educational experience, our young adults will return to our family systems with newly formed ideas of how it should or should not work. Hattie and Lucy might feel like other families do it better than us. They might start to bring up resentments from childhood and longings we never knew about. They might feel more disconnected than before. They may be tired of learning and want to sleep and eat for days. However they’ve morphed, hopefully, they still know they belong to us. Love never fails, but it’s always tested.
Adult children still need, perhaps they especially need, to know they are seen, known and loved no matter how they’ve changed. The confidence they have in dialoguing about joys and pains within the family system will give them the assurance they need as they fly away again. Hot topics and conflict ought not threaten belonging but for many, it has.
Parenting doesn’t stop as our kids grow, it only changes. Two things are true at once: individuation from our family of origin is essential to maturity and also, we are biologically wired for this attachment. It may feel tighter, more uncomfortable, to parent adult children well when they seem so far from the kid they once were. Leaning in and hugging tight is awkward for them too. Love gets riskier as our kids grow, we start seeing our peer in our child. The best parenting advice is still the best: healthy parent, healthy child. You too must keep learning, growing and becoming. Your children need to see you love yourself as you age. They need to know that midlife doesn’t mean rigidity or apathy. They need to know that your capacity to treat yourself with grace and self respect only offers you more space to love them.
The house might get tight, but love grows in tight spaces.
First published in the December 2024 issue of WACOAN Magazine