The Struggling Adult Child Wish Parents Feel Ashamed of

A mother I've been coaching said something to me last month that she'd clearly never said to anyone else. We were about 20 minutes into the session, talking through her 27-year-old son's third failed attempt at holding a job, when she stopped mid-sentence and said, "Honestly? I just wish I didn't have to think about him every day." Then she apologized for saying it.

I hear versions of this constantly from parents of struggling adult children. It's rarely the first thing they tell me—usually it comes out after they've already walked me through the diagnosis/condition/descriptive label they've settled on for their son or daughter. For example, he's got undiagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or he's depressed (again), he's just lazy, or she was always the difficult one (the parent who said this was grimacing). The label that seems to fit and explain everything, whether it came easily or has been elusive for a long time, is often the focus for frustrated parents of struggling adult children.

Parents Who Want Relief Feel Like They Are Abandoning Their Adult Children

Behind that label, many parents share with me the long list of setbacks and pain their adult children have experienced. Yet they seem to feel that their own wish for relief to make their lives as parents better is a taboo subject. It's as if the parents wanting to personally feel less pain and pressure is a betrayal to their adult child, especially if that adult child is blaming their parents for their own life's struggles.

I sought to address these feelings of enduring guilt and shame when I wrote my recent book, You Ruined My Life—Now You Owe Me! I examined why wanting your adult child to need you less feels, to many parents, like a betrayal. And, repeatedly unhealthy levels of guilt (often activated by what adult children—who are in their own pain—say and do). But in my experience, it's the opposite. It's usually a sign that someone has been running on empty for a long time and hasn't had anywhere to put that down.

Shifting From the Need for Certainty to Curiosity Helps Many Parents

What I try to do in those sessions is to get parents to set the diagnosis, emotional limitations and struggles, blame-laden allegations against the parents, and that incessant, painful sense of guilt aside for a minute. Not forever, just long enough to ask a different question. Instead of "Why is he like this," try "What is he actually afraid of right now?" Instead of "She's taking advantage of me," try "What does she think happens if I stop?" That shift, from certainty to curiosity, is where I've seen the most movement happen, both in how parents feel and in what actually changes at home.

None of this means dropping boundaries or excusing harmful behavior. It means letting yourself want your own life back without treating that want as proof you're a bad parent. You can be exhausted and still show up. You can wish for quiet and still love your kid completely. Those two things were never actually in conflict—they just get talked about like they are.

The Takeaway

If there's a wish like that sitting in you, the first move isn't fixing your adult child. It's about admitting to yourself first what you actually need. That's not selfish. In my experience, it's usually the thing that finally gets parents unstuck.