Asking because I just sat through a family feud within earshot at a local coffee joint. Parents giving advice to son, who looked 30ish, all quite civil, full of the ‘can I speak for a minute’, ‘your minute is up’ and so on, with some ‘when we were your age’ and ‘you must/ will learn’ etc. Mum ended with ‘i don’t have to justify anything to you’.
My dad stopped once I got out of high school, but mum seems to chime in from time to time. I’m well into my middle age.
When should parents stop parenting and just let the kid fail/ thrive on their own? I just feel sometimes the parents are the problem, regardless of good intentions.
I’d say when you move out, more or less, probably a bit after. So I’ll say 21 years old. Maybe 25 for many, especially if they still live at home. But once they’re out of the house they need to be more independent.
I’m 35 and I haven’t felt ‘parented’ by my own parents since about 20, but every girl I’ve ever dated has had a closer relationship with their parents than I’ve had. The only thing I can tell you is that it’s VERY common for girls in their 30’s to still be talking to their parents 4x a week. I try to call home once every 2 weeks or so, which is apparently very distant compared to most families I know of.
In this economy?
No, really.
Meme or not, more and more people literally do not have the money to be able to move out of their childhood home.
For those stuck in that situation, parents still have to know to ease off. A gentle reminder may be in order.
But - and this is an important part - the child needs to step up and start offering to do things around the place and pay towards bills if they’ve any sense about them. And then follow through and do things and pay up if those offers are taken up. Maybe even insist and be helpful by stealth if they aren’t.
If grown offspring don’t want to be treated like children, they need to get out of the “parents take care of everything” mindset.
Edit: I don’t even have kids. I don’t know where that last part came from.
When my parents were still alive me and my wife would come around for dinner once a week. And there was a family whatsapp group that people would share pictures and tidbits in.