As humans, we are a being that requires nurturing and care throughout our lives. Obviously, when we are babies and children the care of all our needs is provided by a parent or parental figure in our lives. But as we mature, in the teen years, we begin the slow progression of learning to care for our own needs and to transition to seeing our Heavenly Father as our ultimate parent, who never leaves us.
Even though we are grown, we must now parent ourselves in a sense in order to stay healthy and properly nourished and nurtured. This is something not many people are taught. We don’t often know how to set up boundaries around the responsibilities required of us as working and contributing adults and because of some cultural and societal opinions we often think we must work, work, work, to earn approval or our financial needs met and we can often let our own emotional, and physical needs fall by the wayside.
Likewise, as parents, we often don’t know where to draw the line and we can continue to try to parent our adult children, which is a lane we were never designed to swim in. Therefore we are not anointed or graced for it and it will always be a less-than experience of how God designed our relationship to be.
In the Word, we see a clearly drawn delineation between childhood and adulthood. It’s often more easily recognized that when your adult child becomes married there is a clear separation as the child forms a new family, cleaving to their spouse. For those adult children who are not married yet, or do not desire to be married, this can be a little less clear, but we can see from scripture that there came a day when Jesus no longer felt the need to appease His mother. We are to honor our parents always (Ephesians 6:2) and respect them while we live under their roof as young adults. But when Jesus stepped into His calling He no longer bowed to His mother’s or family’s requests in order to fulfill God’s request of Him (Mark 3:33). We, mamas, have God’s unique nurturing quality deeply embedded in every fiber of our being and we truly enjoy being needed (most of the time 😉 ). While we will always be a parent (noun) we should no longer parent (verb) our adult children. Crossing this line will always cause some form of resentment, by either the parent or the child, and unnecessary expectations that are no longer healthy to fulfill by either party.
When we’ve created a habit of parenting in this sense, it can sometimes create a toxic co-dependent relationship, when an adult child becomes dependent upon a level of response, input, and support in their now independent life. When the child tries to set up a new boundary, we might decide to take on offense or feel hurt. When the parent tries to correct this issue by pulling back a bit, it can then create resentment and a false sense of abandonment for the child. It is also unhealthy for a parent to expect and even enjoy a certain level of their adult children’s dependence upon them. This doesn’t mean we are no longer needed or that we don’t support, pray for, be their biggest cheerleader, and give advice when asked, but we must realize that it is no longer our responsibility to be over-involved. A good question to ask ourselves when tempted to become overly involved is “Is this situation my business, their business, or God’s business?” If it’s NOT our business, then we have NO BUSINESS trying to get involved in it. We must step back and have the belief in our child that they and God will figure this out together! This is the basis for a healthy relationship between two adult people. ❤ ~Be Blessed, Jenny
#mom #christianmoms #christianmama #christianmomblogger #motherhood #christianmotherhood #mothering #motherculture #moms #momsupport #momcoach #homeschoolmomcoach #parentingcoach #parenting #christianmomsofinstagram #prayer #prayingmom #prayingmothers #momsofadultchildren #christianwife #christianmom #womenofgod #womanofgod #raisingwarriors #raisingarrows #spiritfilledmama #momlife #christianlifecoach #lifecoachingforwomen #mamabear
~JENNY RIEFLIN MINISTRIES~ 