Teaching Adults

This whole having a child who is now an adult is the most terrifying thing EVER.

Like, you sort of kind of get warned about toddlers, teenagers, the terrible two's, etc.

But, no one tells you how absolutely horrifying it is to have an adult child!

Jackson will be 21 in August.

What the what?

Jackson is a good, good man.

He is funny and handsome and smart and motivated and eager to do what is right now and forever.

He sat with Mike and I yesterday for a bit.

Here's what happened:

I found that I am parenting after the fact.

Like, Jackson: Don't do anything I did for 42 years!!!

So, Mike and I talked about some of our conversations, issues, events.

We talked him through the strengths of our relationship and what we find to be the solid foundation we have.

We talked to him about how we worked through issues that have been difficult.

Like, conflict resolution.

Raise your hand if you were literally never shown how to resolve conflict as a child!!!

Like, you saw or heard arguments and then it was just somehow magically "ok" and you had no idea how to process that.

We talked about communication.

We talked about our most sacred time - at night, laying in bed, TALKING.

Laughing,

Crying,

Being.

Discussing everything about everything.

Being vulnerable.

And how important that is for us and how we do hold that time very sacred.

Then, this.

Mike had him watch the https://youtu.be/-4EDhdAHrOg.

He talked about how most of the time, women don't necessarily want something fixed.

They want compassion and empathy and to be heard.

Mike is a fixer.

We discussed an incident that happened last Monday.

T said I was behaving like a toddler.

I was.

That is not inaccurate.

Mike had NO clue what was actually wrong with me.

For a minute, neither did I.

He wanted to fix it.

In fact, he had no idea what to be empathetic with or compassionate about because he had no idea what in the actual hell was wrong.

But, he talked to Jackson about this concept.

As females - generally - we want to be heard, empathized with and shown love.

Generally, men want to fix things.

We also talked to him about this:

If we would have, in fact, started dating at all while he was living next door to us, it never would have worked out.

Why?

Because we were both in the the deep-down process of fixing and healing ourselves.

I was in therapy three times a week.

He was too.

We were both so committed to working on ourselves, learning about ourselves, becoming better for ourselves, that it would not have worked.

Now, we are both in a position where we are doing all of this together.

We want our children to be happy, healthy, and to have joy.

All we can do now is listen, love, and SHOW them a healthy relationship.