Launching Adult Children.

[Nyla]

Today my youngest brother is finally leaving home. At age 27, he has waited the longest to move out out of four adult children. He was always coddled so it is no surprise that he waited so long.

 

What I don't understand is the way my mother weeps when each of her kids leave home. She was always very vocal and angry about the sacrifices she had to make as a parent. I felt her resentment as I grew when my mom made statements like: "These kids are bloodsucking parasites! I would have so much more money if I didn't have kids!"

 

Why would a mother be sad when her kids left home if she hated having to look after them for so long? I would think that my mom would be popping open champagne as her adult children launched. When each of her four kids left, she cried and cried. The tears didn't look happy either.

 

What's going on here?

[tbf]

Your mother sounds like someone with borderline personality disorder. Splitting.

[Nyla]

I saw a lot of professionals when I was in my late teens to early twenties. I had so many issues because of my childhood and nearly every doctor or therapist I saw said my mother was mentally ill...or just deeply flawed.

 

I wonder if guilt is a factor? It just seems weird that she can be abusive for years, vocally hate all that comes with being a parent and then weep when the "parasites" leave.

 

My parents do not have a happy marriage and my mom has been letting people stay in their house all the time, so that she won't have to live alone with my father. Maybe she is sad because now there is no buffer between them.

[tbf]

You might want to read up about BPD. One aspect is an intense fear of abandonment.

 

Borderline Personality Disorder | Psych Central

[Nyla]

I know the symptoms of BPD all too well. It does sound like my mother has this problem, though I am not a psychiatrist.

[Nyla]

Kids require a HUGE amount of sacrifice. They DO suck up all your time and your money. You DO put off huge opportunities to raise them, to taxi them around, to clean up after them, etc and often they only complain you don't do more. When you are young watching your youth fly out the window there is a resentful part of you for doing a thankless job. But as you get older you begin to accept the huge sacrifice and start to take honor/fulfillment in your role as parent. Soon after that paradigm shifts, kids are soon ready to take off! Then you mourn that lost time you didn't parent with a constant smile on your face.

 

Parents especially suffer this if they have some extraordinary talent they Gave up to pursue parenting a child they didn't plan, or if their spouse was not helpful and the burden fell almost entirely on one parent.

 

Having four kids and a husband you don't get along with is no joke. Though she certainly let out more resentment than she should have, I can understand why she felt so downtrodden.

 

I was abandoned with two children, had to work two jobs and go to school while raising my kids alone. I was certainly mad and greatly burdened for years and would tell my daughter when she complained of our lifestyle to either get a job or move out because i was doing all I could and didn't need a guilt trip from a capable body who didn't contribute.

 

But I live in a country where the wages and benefits are so low while the cost of education is high that the economic conditions forced on me were wearing me exhausted. I don't have BPD, just a tired soul that got handed too much.

 

Nobody is forced to become a parent. It is a choice and if a woman doesn't want all the sacrifices and expense, she should remain childless. That is why my husband and I choose not to have babies; we don't like what parenting entails.

 

I wish my mom had done the same thing. Maybe she would have been happier.

 

It is one thing to feel downtrodden, quite another to take out your anger and resentment on your children. I'm sure you were not "handed" your daughter. You became pregnant of your own volition and decided to raise a child.

 

I thought my mother would have been elated at her freedom.

[turnera]

What I don't understand is the way my mother weeps when each of her kids leave home. She was always very vocal and angry about the sacrifices she had to make as a parent. I felt her resentment as I grew when my mom made statements like: "These kids are bloodsucking parasites! I would have so much more money if I didn't have kids!"

 

Why would a mother be sad when her kids left home if she hated having to look after them for so long? I would think that my mom would be popping open champagne as her adult children launched. When each of her four kids left, she cried and cried. The tears didn't look happy either.

 

What's going on here?

Her 'identity' is being a mother. She doesn't see you guys as individual people, but rather beings who made her role solid; since she doesn't know who she is, or doesn't want to be who she is without a shield, she grieves that this part of her life is changing.

[Mr. Lucky]

Her 'identity' is being a mother. She doesn't see you guys as individual people, but rather beings who made her role solid; since she doesn't know who she is, or doesn't want to be who she is without a shield, she grieves that this part of her life is changing.

Actually it sounds like her identity is being a martyr. And once the sources of martyrdom are gone, who's left to reinforce that status? That what she weeps for as you leave.

 

Nyla, kudos to you for figuring it out and not letting it define you...

 

Mr. Lucky