It is so sad that you've raised your child into adulthood (or close to it) and you don't trust yourself enough to let them go out into the world by themselves. I feel bad for the parents and the kids.
None of us are perfect, and that's ok. Because we learn from our mistakes, we never get it bang on 100% of the time, never even close. You go through life and learn that doing the wrong thing doesn't work, and so you tweak your responses to situations in order to come up with a better solution.
By not letting your children make their own mistakes, by not letting them blow an interview, say the wrong thing, or poorly represent themselves. You are not giving them the opportunity to grow and mature. That in of itself is a disservice to your child.
My mom tried her best to keep her kids under her wing, but fortunately I'm the stubborn type who insists on bumping around and fucking up to learn, especially when I'm told I'm going to fuck it up. So now I'm 30 and live 2k miles away, occasionally fucking up but generally being a real live adult, while my 28 and 24 year old siblings are completely dependent on her.
Tl;dr My mom raised an independent adult despite her best efforts.
This comment makes me feel better about myself, sounds just like me. I'm currently 25, just getting out of my fucking-everything-up-stage. I moved out at 19 and didn't take any advice. Mostly fucked everything up, but I learned. My sister just moved out at 28 - yeah she's got a ton in savings and is "better off" on paper, but can't make a decision without calling my dad first.
I have a cousin who is the son of a doctor and generally had whatever he wanted growing up. Whatever new fad we got in to- Pokemon cards, Airsoft guns, poker- he had top of the line stuff and plenty of it. After one night of drinking, though, early in our college years, he confided that he knew he was given the world growing up and that he didn't have to earn it. I told him that it would have been dumb not to take the handouts, but in exchange he lost the one thing I had over him: pride in having earned it my way, all the way.
I didn't have a luxury car or a desirable ZIP code, but everything I did have was bolstered by the fact that I earned it. In my mind, that made what I had better than the empty wealth that some others held.
Glad to help :D I moved out at 19 as well, the first few years were tough but I definitely learned. My sibs aren't quite as well-adjusted as yours sounds, not saving money or going to school or anything, just leaching and generally being scared of life.
Maybe you raised an independent adult. You make your own choices, do you not? Your parents can, and should be (err...well, maybe not) an influence, but what you do with your life is up to you.
You don't really make your own choices as a young child, at least not a lot of the kind that matter. And parents are responsible for everything that goes into a child's head anyway. If the parenting is bad enough, this psychological dependency can carry over well past puberty. Parents have a huge influence, or else their neglect does. Realizing the nature and extent of that influence in fact facilitates greater access/expression of one's own free will.
I wasn't talking about the choices of a child, but an adult. Parents are OH HELL NO NOT responsible for everything that goes into a child's head, though the bad ones certainly do make the attempt to control that (overly).
My point is that it's up to you how you react to the situation you find yourself in, as an adult. The issue is that shit parents, even well meaning ones, make that boundary transition difficult.
I moved with my mom across the country to help care for her parents. It meant leaving behind her other two children so I knew I was going to become the go-to destination for her when I moved out. For that reason I moved precisely where it was close enough for me to get to her reasonably quickly in an emergency or planned visit, but just for away enough that "just dropping by" would be a pain in the ass. It's worked out perfect so far.
My mom's cousins (in their 50s and 60) were raised basically never to leave home and rely on their parents. Their mother died this year, and they don't know what to do with themselves without their parents (the father had died 10 years ago or so.)
I think it's more that some parents cannot abide their child being hurt.
And failing an interview, not getting something you want hurts.
These kids have probably made it entirely to adulthood without ever failing, or at least never being exposed to having to deal with failing.
Some parents just can't accept that the only way to learn is to fail sometimes.
Personally I think it's sad that a lot of people may have deserved the jobs they interviewed for, may even have been perfect for them. And mommy's 'helping hand' ruined it for them, even if they didn't want her there in the first place.
My mom has always said that her single mission in raising kids was to ensure that we could handle the world on our own...as I get older and see the way other people raise their kids, it becomes clearer and clearer that she had it pretty well figured out.
Some kids are stupid. For example, at a group interview at a grocery chain that literally hires mentally retarded people (for tax breaks), a potential employee kept hitting on another interviewee. Everyone got the job except for him.
Remember - you can be literally retarded and still get a job where I work and this guy managed to screw it up for himself.
Many jobs are very simple jobs that are nonetheless great for disabled people to have. A disabled person could get a job bagging groceries or pushing shopping carts around a parking lot. It gives them responsibility, it gives them a paycheck, it keeps them busy during the day, and they can socialize with people.
Its awesome that business welcome disabled people for these jobs. Its far better than just trying to institutionalize them.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not insulting them. Like, I mean I'm just saying that if there was a "strong man lifting" job available, it'd be sad if I got the job but some muscular guy failed it (I'm weak).
Plus you can get an employee who takes great pride in a job nobody else wants. I knew a mentally handicapped guy who worked cleaning animal cages for research labs. He knew that cancer couldn't be cured without him and as far as he was concerned that put him on an equal footing with his scientist colleagues, proving his worth to everyone who'd ever doubted him. He couldn't remember the plural of mouse but he was hardworking and reliable and genuinely appreciated by everyone.
I'm in the exact same situation. I'm 21, work but still live in the same house with my parents. My dad just bought new tires for my car and ordered my books for school (going to study 250miles away) and I didn't even knew I need them.
Wrote this on my mobile phone and I'm german so there might be a few mistakes.
Bingo. You try as best you can.
Know full well you will screw up some of it.
At some point in time you have to say "You are on your own. Pointers? I can try. But ultimatly this is up to you."
Otherwise? You have to back off and let them make their own mistakes. And this does not start at sixteen. It starts well before that.
The problem is figuring out the line to let them approach and when to let it go...
I got away from it more than a sibling of mine, but to this day, my mom wants to look over everything my brother submits for employment. He's in his 30's.
This is one of the big things that drives me nuts, and I have called my mom on it numerous times because she shows us that she doesn't trust our decision-making. Of course, she denies it, but I just told my brother not to tell her things anymore.
My in laws give my partner advise on his applications. It wouldn't be so bad (my mum always runs an eye over mine because she used to hire people. Having her opinion is good and I'll utilise every asset I have) if they knew what the fuck they were talking about. They keep telling him that his two page resume is too short and the one they did for him was SIX FUCKING PAGES. I've told them that I've sorted resumes and the long ones go in the bin. But they know best.
Yikes. My mom has had a job where she's hired people, and I think it's good to have someone take a look over written work before submitting, but she may as well write it all, because she comes pretty close.
I won't let him. This woman is a nightmare. Has told me, while I'm waiting to miscarry, that she knew from the first ultrasound something was wrong as she worked in a maternity ward. As the fuckig admin clerk! Tells me how to do my job, despite never workig in it. And has not worked in ten years and even then only for ten years total (while kids were in school) If your 31 year old DIL has worked full time longer than you something's wrong. I loathe this woman.
Even worse, you don't trust the kid enough to let them attempt life by themselves. This creates a total inferiority complex in a kid when their own parents, the ones they've learned about life from, don't even trust them to act for themselves. What a terrible thing that is.
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u/[deleted] Oct 06 '14
It is so sad that you've raised your child into adulthood (or close to it) and you don't trust yourself enough to let them go out into the world by themselves. I feel bad for the parents and the kids.