My Son Spread His Wings
My oldest son spread his wings as he reached adulthood. Good for him. We all want our children to launch. For me it was very painful, dramatic and intense. Not at all what I expected. And from the relationship and experiences together throughout his childhood, I was completely thrown.
I imagine this experience is more true in society than people have decided to discuss. I thought there would just be more adult things he would be doing as time went on and he’d be gone at some point. I figured we’d miss him and life would shift to getting to know our adult child. It seemed plausible and in reach.
Suddenly though, he seemed to take all we taught him and all he seemed to be himself and throw everything out. It was the proverbial throwing the baby out with the dirty bathwater. It’s like he was starting over from scratch, not muddled with anything from his childhood.
It created a lot of hurt feelings for not only us, but for him as well and his sibling and friends. We all reacted to the changing behaviors and attitudes. It shocked me. I didn’t understand, nor see it coming.
I also couldn’t figure out where it came from. It wasn’t purposeful or intentional, but rather his reaction to life inputs at that moment of development. He wanted to start his adult life with a clean slate.
He changed his behaviors including his clothing and looks, his down time activities, and hobbies, then his living situation and who he hung out with. He changed his friends and all his other relationships. He uprooted everything, his religious/spiritual everything, morals, ethics etc. I didn’t recognize who this person was, yet he was so familiar.
He literally changed all the inputs to his life to the point that we didn’t talk for a period of time. We didn’t even know where he was at some points. We learned from others on occasion what he was doing. We felt the separation.
When he was around us on rare occasion, it became chaos; massive disrespect for us, our home, things, lifestyle, and values. It was all displayed with venom and rudeness. It felt pretty intentional, though now he says he doesn’t even remember some of what we bring up.
We felt the distance emotionally, physically, and mentally. We heard his distaste and disgust with anything that connected him and us. We no longer saw him, nor saw eye to eye on a lot. He seemed lost from our view. It sounds so foreign and dramatic now, but it was a real feeling.
From what we learned, he was having the time of his life with his new everything away from home. It seemed to further alienate us-our pain while he was happy. I was really struggling to process all this.
Obviously parents make mistakes, but every parent that tries, hopes their children will follow all the incredible experiences with and wisdom of their parents instead of their failures and shortcomings which do exist. I mean we are all human which implies imperfect.
Sadly, parents can’t choose which parts of life experience their children will connect with and latch onto. Not even my own parents could control that with me either. What I got and what they said they taught me, did not always sync up.
And my siblings, as we discuss our childhoods, have discovered we all experienced different ideas and perspectives on the exact same events. I understood my son was going out into the world; adulting, growing, making his own life choices-all needed and expected though not completely comfortable for any party involved.
Of course it's exhilarating for the shiny new adult. However, for those that helped raise that adult, to see such changes definitely feels like the short end of the stick. When we as parent’s can endure this sudden and dramatic shift in how our adult children's lives sometimes change; we can shift our perceived trauma.
Even when our adult children make us proud, we might feel it, but do we rightfully acknowledge it as strongly as the decisions we don’t like. When are we the most vocal? Can we see anew, recognizing the growth and the truly remarkable adult on the other side of all the change?
The adult son I know now, is a truly amazing human, though not all I would and had expected; nonetheless, he’s wonderful and in some ways more than my views. It reminds me of the mess inside the cocoon of a butterfly, before the butterfly emerges.