When Do We Stop Raising Kids and Start Raising Adults?

Mara here: Being a parent is a murky experience.

For starters, everyone is different, so his means that kids are all different. As a result, it's almost impossible to be prepared, in a traditional sense, to be a parent because literally every experience is different.

There's no definitive handbook.

If you don't have kids, it probably seems as if there's only so many options for how it's going to go.

But the reality is that it's a day-to day-mystery. It's kind of like driving a car at night with no headlights. You know how to move the car forward, but you don't actually know where you're going, and it feels as if you could crash at any moment.

People are complicated. Kids are complicated. 

When my daughter was born, I felt pretty confident I could take care of the basics. I could make sure she was fed and clothed. I could buy toys and teach her to read. You can find out how to do those things in books. 

Where it gets trickier is when it's not just about keeping your kid alive. It gets much harder when raising your kids transitions to raising your kids to be adults.

When does parenting stop being just about the basics? A doctor can give me a schedule of when my child needs shots and check ups. But there's no manual for when kids need to be told about the more complexities of life. When do we prepare kids for the realities of life as adults?

As parents, our instinct is to shield our kids. We don't want them to hurt themselves, and we don't want them to be hurt. But I wonder if that means that sometimes we don't prepare our kids for some of the harsher aspects of having to be independent in this world.

No parent wants to burden their kids with worrying about money. But if we don't ever talk to them about money, how do they learn to manage a budget? How do they learn to appreciate that money is limited? How do they learn to make smart choices?

Or, if we tell our kids that winning doesn't matter and that everyone is equal, how do we prepare them to handle disappointment? We don't live in a world where everyone gets a prize or even a consolation prize for everything.

I think the difficulty is that we as parents want our kids to understand that nothing—money, awards, grades, etc.—affects their value as a person. Parents desperately want their kids to feel as if everything's okay, regardless of their achievements and disappointments.

But I wonder if we haven't taken it too far. I feel as if parents are now made to feel that we are supposed to shield our kids from anything that might possibly make them feel any negative feelings in any way.

In a perfect world, I would absolutely do that for my daughter her entire life.

But the world doesn't work that way. And if we shield our kids too much as children, are we preparing them to be functional adults?

And then, of course, if we do want to prepare them, it's a matter of deciding when we think our kids are ready to handle things. Whether or not it's appropriate to tackle different topics is completely dependent on that individual kid.

For myself and my husband, we've decided that we would rather have the difficult conversations with our daughter now, as opposed to having felt we hadn't prepared her to handle the ups and downs we imagine she'll face as she gets older. 

We'd rather have the tough conversations now about making financial choices, personal choices, educational choices—now, when she still has time to explore and experiment. If she makes mistakes now and we already have a dialogue going, we'll feel more confident that she'll know how to handle things when she's older and realizes there are more consequences for making "bad" decisions.

Ultimately, every parents has to make these decisions for themselves. And really, there's no right or wrong answers. But I do think it's important for parents to realize that our kids don't just turn into adults when they hit a certain age. Kids don't just turn 18 and magically know how to manage a budget or deal with rejection. Kids have to be taught to be adults. Kids have to be guided to learn how to make adult decisions and deal with consequences.

As with many things, practice makes perfect. Okay, nothing is perfect, but practice makes things more manageable. Kids have to be given the opportunity to practice being adults. They have to be given responsibility incrementally and they have to be given the opportunity to fail. If we try to protect our kids from any kind of failure and disappointment, they never learn that it's okay to not always be successful. And if they never face disappointment, they never learn it's okay to feel sad. And most importantly, if they never face any adversity, they never learn that those feelings and experiences pass and we survive them.

It would be easier for me to shield my daughter from the hard stuff. In fact, it often feels as if my duty as her mother is to try and take on all her hardships and challenges and make life easier for her. But that was my job when she was a baby.

And even though I will always think of my daughter as my baby, she isn't a child anymore. I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point my role as a parent transitioned from raising a kid to raising an adult.

And just like being a kid is different from being an adult, raising a kid is different from raising an adult.

I asked my mom a few questions about this subject.


Is there anything that you think would help parents with the difficulty of allowing their kids to be more independent?

First off, Mara, I thought that was a stunning essay. Thank you. As for your question, I think it would help parents it they think long term, meaning thinking about how they want their kids to be when they've grown up. If they're like me, they want them to be independent, make good decisions, take responsibility for their lives, and be kind to others and help them when they can. Keeping that in mind as a goal can help you prepare for how to be a parent while your kids are growing up.

Mara, you touched on how to do this in your piece; start while they're young to teach them these skills.

Do you think you started early enough to teach Jamal and me to be adults?

Well, after telling everyone to start while your kids are young, after watching how early you taught Malia these skills, I think it would have helped you and your brother if your Dad and I had started earlier. 

It may well be easier for Malia to transition to adulthood because of the job you did as a parent. I will say, though, that despite my thinking we could have started earlier, it seems to have worked out because we think you and Jamal are doing great as adults. I love how independent each of you are. I know other kids in their 40s who still call their parents when their plumbing backs up! 

So, your Dad and I did something right because it seems to us as if, although you love us, you don't need us to help you get by in life.

How do you think Jamal and I are doing as parents?

I am so impressed. You and Brad had Malia before Jamal and Bridgett had Cam, and I think that all of us learned a lot from your parenting style. I admit that you were a lot stricter than Dad and I were, and that sometimes we thought you were too strict with Malia. But, wow, did it pay off. Here she is, about to be 17 in January, and she really is a young adult. 

Of course, she has the emotional volatility of a teenager at times. But I'm talking about her understanding of what adults need to know, from budgeting to being responsible with planning and execution of those plans, and being able to see that life isn't always going to be the way you want it to be. Even when Malia doesn't take that last point in stride, it feels to me as if she understands the truth of it. 

Your brother and Bridgett are doing an great job too—finding that middle ground between taking care of all Cam's needs, but making sure she's also learning to take care of herself in the many ways you wrote about. 

Your Dad and I were—let's face it—hippies at heart, and so you and Jamal didn't get as much direction as the two of you are giving Malia and Cam. But you did get unconditional love from your Dad and me and I also think perhaps a spiritual dimension to your lives, and so I think he and I did okay.