Do Your Adult Children Like Spending Time With You?

Many parents, who have otherwise healthy relationships with their adult children, complain that their children get snippy and irritable when they spend significant amounts of time together. Alternatively, they don’t understand why their adult children seem to only spend calculated amounts of time with them, or refrain from sharing aspects of their life with them.

As someone in both the fields of education and psychology, I want to share some of the most common reasons why your adult children may be spending less time with you than you might like, or simply keeping aspects of their lives from you.

Not all the below may apply to you. However, if you can relate to some of the below, then you know what to work on in order to increase both the amount and the quality of time you spend with your adult children.

The Help You Provide is For Your Self-Definition

While this can be either parent, it is more often a mother-issue. Unfortunately, many women in the baby-boomer age category belong to a generation of women which oftentimes lacked intrinsic self-worth. Many of these women defined themselves, and thus their self-worth, by what they could do, give and provide for the family. They were good, worthwhile women if they were good wives and moms. In turn, being a good wife and mom were based on being a good cook, cleaner and picker-upper. Thus, in their minds, if they can’t DO things for their kids, then they have no worth.

It's wonderful to have a parent you can rely on to help you when needed. But, the above parents often become intrusive with their help. This help becomes a burden to their children because it was also often not what the children asked for or needed. In fact, the help wasn’t for the children (who didn’t require it), it was for the parent, who needed it to define themselves. If this is you, you have healing to do. And, when you learn to believe in your own, intrinsic self-worth as a human being, your kids will actually want you around more because you will be an equal friend and confidante, rather than a bizarre form of indentured servant.

The Advice You Give is Not for Someone of Equal Intelligence

Have you ever heard yourself say “I don’t understand why my child always gets annoyed when I give them advice/assistance?”

Whenever you are about to give your adult child advice, ask yourself this: Would you give this advice to a friend whom you consider to be of equal intelligence to you? If not, don’t give it to your adult child.

“But it’s different. They are my family,” you say.

They may be your family but they are also adults who are equal in intelligence to you, so talk to them as such. If you don’t, you will notice that they refrain from sharing things with you, in order to spare themselves pointless, and oftentimes condescending, tips from you.

My dad used to be particularly talented in this aspect, as well as acting utterly confused when I would grow irritated. One time, I was working on selling my half of my business to my business partner as I was ready to move on to other things. My dad, in a very worried tone said “But you have to be careful to not get cheated. Make sure you get the right value!”

I looked at him flabbergasted and said “Dad, do you believe that I may have an intellectual disability?”

He answered with a confused, “No. Why are you asking that?”

“Because if I’m not 5-years old and I do not have an intellectual disability then I’m confused about the advice you believe would assist me.”

“I’m just trying to help you.”

“Would you give this advice to your best friend? No. Because your best friend would be offended that you are speaking to him in such a juvenile way.”

“But, you’re my family!”

“Exactly. Then shouldn’t you think of me even higher than of your friends?”

Here’s the thing. I would have been very happy if my father had offered me the contact of a good, affordable lawyer for the paperwork. I would have appreciated educated advice on how to potentially work out financing with my partner so he could pay in fair installments. That’s the type of advice I get from my intelligent friends and the type of advice I would love to get from my family. My father has improved over the years, but I still have to gage what I tell him in order to eliminate very pointless and thus irritating conversations. I want to have conversations with my parents. But, I want them to be at our shared intelligence level.

The same goes for things you may think are ‘sweet’ and show your love and care, such as incessantly reminding your 30-year-old child to wear a scarf on a cold day or asking them if they ate enough fiber this week. First off, your child knows you love them, it is not necessary for you to kill the space of a real conversation with these nonsensical fillers. Secondly, having real conversations with your children, at their intelligence level, shows them that you love them and are proud of them much more than these little fillers do, which are there only to make you feel good.

Life is What You Believe It Is

This one is more often than not for the baby-boomer dads. These men come from a generation in which the man was the head and thus he knew best. Look, while this may sound lovely on paper, in truth it eliminates any potential of having a real connection with your children.

If your children have to deal with your offended huffing and puffing because they have their own ideas about politics they will simply stop talking to you about their political beliefs. So, the result is that you won't know them.

If your children have to argue with you or listen to you belittle them about everything from their marital structure to their work schedule, they will just start pretending that everything is the way you want it to be. The result is, you won't know their real lives at all.

Basically, your family doesn’t want to deal with your lack of ability/willingness to have meaningful conversations or deeper relationships based on mutual respect. So, they smile at whatever you say, grind their teeth and spend as little time conversing with you as basic politeness allows.

You may think you are right. But, in the end, you are just lonely.

And cultural excuses are just that.

“Oh, that’s just how it is in my culture.”

“This is what we do in our culture.”

If you are saying, or thinking anything along the lines of the above:

Did you know that as recently as 1987 India had its last case of Sati, after which it finally criminalized the practice? The practice of Sati was a cultural tradition in which a woman was burned on her deceased husband’s funeral pyre. Meanwhile, in Mexico severed human heads were used as sacrifices to the rain gods. It was part of the culture. Crazy enough, the last recorded human sacrifice was in 1868. Up to the mid 1900’s, it was part of western culture that a woman had to have her husband’s permission to do anything outside of the home. In fact, France didn’t grant women the right to work without male permission until 1965.

I think you are starting to get my drift.

Many people speak of culture as if it is a static ‘thing’. It is neither static, nor a thing. I completed my doctoral research on the interplay of culture, morals and values. I’m also from a first-generation immigrant family and have lived on three continents. Culture is an ever-evolving compilation of beliefs about life. These beliefs evolve as humans evolve. As we (hopefully) become more and more aware as a species, traditions and cultural beliefs that we find to be toxic, harmful and/or destructive are constantly being upgraded, improved and replaced.

Therefore, if you continue to act in ways that are toxic and/or damaging to your family relationships and your singular explanation is that this is your culture, then your explanation is merely an excuse to allow yourself to take zero accountability for your behavior. Thus, you put zero effort into improving yourself as a human. You can do better than this. You ARE better than this. Be a better human, and you will be a better parent. Your children deserve it, and so do you.

When Did You Get THIS Boring?

Perhaps that sounds like a cruel way to end this article, but unfortunately it is often true. We are not talking about a person who is inactive because they are limited due to severe health and/or mobility issues. We are talking about that relatively healthy parent who doesn’t seem to have a self outside of the house.

“Do you want to go out for coffee?” - Oh, it’s easier to make it at home.

“Let’s go for a movie” – Let’s just watch Netflix

“Let’s go for a walk” – Isn’t it nicer to just sit on the deck?

“Let’s go to the lake” – Too many bugs.

“Let me take you on a trip” – I don’t like to travel.

And on and on and on it goes. Every suggestion is met with a negative and the only thing left is to sit at the house and stare at each other across the couches or lawn chairs. If it’s a lucky day, there may be a backyard barbecue. This is the story EVERY TIME you get together. Even the grandkids are bored.

For my mom’s 70’s birthday, me and her went to Peru on a girl’s trip. You don’t need to climb a mountain or even travel to another country. However, if my 70-year-old mom could pull her courage together and climb Machu Pichu for her birthday with me, you can go out for ice cream with your family, or take your grandkids out for mini-golf, a movie, or even a walk in the park. Not only will your family want to be with you more, you will like yourself, and life, better.