I’m harming myself to help my adult child

Therese,

How do I stop sending support to my very adult son?  He has been in and out of trouble, financially and other ways, like drugs, all of his life.  Just when I think he’s got it all together something happens again.  The thing is, I can’t afford it, and to help him, I can’t pay own my bills.  He’s 16 in a grown man’s body!

Paraphrased, this is the conversation I had with a friend recently.

It is also a question that I have grappled with in the past, and still do.  I see how the world, economically, changed from the time I was young, and now.  It seemed to be a given then, that a young person could get an education, work hard, and have a reasonable expectation of meeting, or beating, their parents’ standard of living.  That is no longer the case.

It was also the standard, in the western world I live in, that the young person leave the house somewhere between 18 and 21 years of age, and never come back, except in the event of some catastrophe.  That is no longer the case either.  This change, in my opinion, while forced by some fairly dramatic economic changes, has not been entirely a bad thing.  Having lived in Asia, where the model is to actively engage multiple generations in the raising of the children, and the sharing of the wisdom of each generation, CWG’s suggestion that this was the way, rang true with me.

I was not about to move my entire family in with me, however!  So, how to work within the current economy, and not enable?  How to productively engage the multi-generation model?   I found my own way to have the East and West models meet.  We live in the same neighborhood!  My mother, my daughter and husband, and her sons and my husband and me.  Boundaries were set at the beginning, and have always been respected.

I have two children, both of whom have seemed to require help.  One lives near, one lives far, so it isn’t nearness that is an issue.  But giving to them did begin to feel like a burden, and I started to give without joy.  So, in the past few years, I began to ask myself the questions I thought I should be asking about the situation of helping them.

Questions like:

What am I getting out of this situation?
Is this help really helping in the long run?
Am I imposing my vision of what their life must look like, and not honoring their vision?
Is this help or control?
What might their souls be wishing to experience…as well as my own?

Hard questions to honestly answer.

While I am truly giving to them out of love, if I am to be very honest, I am also giving out of fear.  Sometimes I fear that they will be angry with me.  Sometimes I fear what the consequences might look like if I don’t help them.   There are, of course, other fears.  There are other things, I realize, that I am getting out of this type of giving, that are not beneficial to all, and possibly not to anyone, in the long run scenario.

I also realize I am imposing my vision of what their lives should look like.  I don’t want them to not be able to pay the bills, I don’t want them evicted from their homes, I do want them to have the things I had, and I do want them to always have full a full belly and feel secure.  But…is this what their soul is really wishing to experience?  As “The Only Thing That Matters” articulates quite well, the soul knows where it really wants to go, but it has absolutely no preference as to how we get there.  The long road or the short road makes no difference.  So, am I helping create the long road by removing the opportunities to take the short road?  Am I saying that the short road must not seem difficult for it to be the road that works best?  For that matter, am I removing my own opportunity to experience that more difficult path that is, none the less, the one I must ultimately traverse?

Looking at my relationship with money was another thing I had to do.  Being an American, I’ll bet you can figure out at least some of where I had to go in that conversation with myself!  Not the least of which was asking myself exactly what my definition of abundance really is.

Back to my friend, who specifically said that he is harming his own welfare in order to help his son.  CWG says that all benefits must be mutual.  Stated in another way, it says that to betray oneself, in order to not betray another, is still betrayal, and it is betrayal of the highest order.  And it is giving our children the wrong message.

I was not willing to cold turkey remove the help, but I have cut back considerably, and help in very specific areas, like healthcare for the grandkids.  (Yes, healthcare, even with insurance, is expensive for way too many, but that is a different subject!)  It was difficult to change some of my behaviors, to be sure, though.  It hasn’t been all fun, but, guess what!  it has been quite beneficial for all of us.

The oxymoron here, is that, we are told that life isn’t about us, yet it is all about us!  So, if life isn’t about you, and it is also all about you…where are you really?  How do we justify denying anyone anything, even if it is hurting ourselves?
Neale answered that very clearly in a recent retreat I attended.  We forget that there really is just one of us in the room.  When I take care of me, I take care of you.

My advice, then, to myself and to others, would be to ask the questions and be honest with our answers.  Then…be brave enough to take care of ourselves.  When we do that, we will also be taking care of our children well enough to allow them to do what seems to be failure, knowing we are allowing their opportunities to present themselves…and modeling how to find one’s own answers.  This may be very difficult to witness on occasion, but allowing the process to unfold, and not preempt it because it doesn’t feel good, will also empower us to know when help will be truly beneficial, to all, if offered.

Therese

(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

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