THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK—“I'M RELIEVED THEY'RE BACK IN SCHOOL” | EP. 180
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace. I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins.
Have you ever had a thought as a mom and then immediately felt terrible for thinking it? Believe me, you're not alone, and you're truly not a bad mom for thinking it. In this series on the thoughts us moms are ashamed we think, I'm exploring these thoughts and where they're coming from. Because when you shift from judgment to understanding, that's when everything changes. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
So school is back in session. Kids are back at college. And we're getting back into a routine.
There might be a part of you that's thinking, thank God they are back at school. But I wonder if behind that thought there's another one. Maybe even a little guilt or shame that you feel so relieved.
I've actually felt this way since my kids were really little. As much as I've always looked forward to summer, I mean, it's one of my favorite times of year. I love the beach.
I love the downtime and relaxing, the chance to connect with my kids in ways that just don't happen during the school year. But there's always been this other layer. Because all of those amazing summer memories require a lot of effort.
And now that my kids are older, they also require some degree of buy-in from them. Back when my boys were little, I remember feeling exhausted by the pressure I felt to both entertain them and keep them meaningfully engaged. And to be honest, it's surprising to me how much I still feel this way now, even though my boys are now adults.
They are now 18 and 20, and I still feel this pressure over the summer to create opportunities for us to connect, to make sure we have meaningful time together. Almost every night the boys were home or around this summer, I felt this pull of guilt that I wasn't cooking dinner enough, that maybe I was responsible for missing the chance for us all to be together. My youngest prefers to cook his own meals, and that should tell you something about my cooking.
But somehow I still had that voice in the back of my head saying, you should be taking care of him, or you're missing the chance to connect. And it's not just about connection. It's about wanting our kids to be meaningfully engaged in their own lives too.
How many times have you seen your kid wasting hours on their phone or gaming, and you immediately judge that they shouldn't be on their phone so much, they should be doing something more productive, or I should be encouraging them to get off their device and do something better. It's not always even about us doing the activity with them, it's about us managing how they spend their time, holding this invisible checklist in our mind of what they should be doing to become the best version of themselves. And when they're not doing those things, we blame ourselves.
And let's face it, technology has added a whole new layer of guilt, because we know that hours of scrolling isn't good for them, for their mental or their physical health. So we're constantly feeling guilty about that. And that's probably true even as we head into the school year.
But over the summer, there's just so much more time. And more time means more opportunities for us to feel responsible and guilty, really to feel like we're always falling short of what we should be doing. We want our kids to have fun and be productive and to connect with us and their friends, and we feel like it's our job to make all of that happen.
But the truth is also that this responsibility doesn't end with the summer. The new school year brings with it a whole different kind of pressure. We shift into back on track mode, making sure they're being responsible again and managing the demands of school and sports and activities.
But I wonder if you feel this small sense of relief that you're not the only one responsible for holding your kid accountable anymore or for engaging them in their life. Now there are teachers, coaches, and advisors in their lives, other adults who are checking in and creating structure for them. There's something about that shared accountability that can feel a little bit lighter for us moms, even if it's just that their days are more full, that there are places that they really have to be.
So we don't have to feel responsible for all of that time. It gives us just a little window to let go, just a bit. And because of that, it feels like there are fewer hours in the day where we have to wonder if they're okay or if we should be doing something more to keep them on track or help them be happy and productive.
While they're in school, it just feels like there's less space to worry about how they're spending their time. But here's what I want to offer you. It's not actually the circumstance of school starting that creates that relief.
It's the underlying thought, I'm not the only one responsible anymore. But that's actually not an absolute truth. Or said another way, you could potentially also think this in the summer as well.
But what's happening is that your mind is making a choice to believe that you're not alone in your responsibility. If you feel some relief and letting go of that responsibility as we head into the new school year, I want to invite you to notice that. Not as a judgment, just with curiosity.
Because that feeling of relief is just a signal that your brain is letting you off the hook, even if just a little bit, because of how you're interpreting the shift to September. And even as I say this, you might be listening and thinking, I'm relieved they're back in school, but I'm also stressed about what that means in terms of how much I have to manage now and oversee. Now I've got to worry about whether my kid's applying themselves and I have to be on top of their schedule so I don't miss anything.
Believe me, I know the school year can offer a whole new set of stresses. But it's interesting to notice this constant sense of responsibility we carry, because it's actually not required. It's not a factual thing happening in the world.
It's a perception, really a thought pattern. You can even think of it as a habit. And if it's a thought pattern that can shift even just a little bit as the seasons change, then you can find a way to shift it at any time or any stage of life with your kids.
Here's what I've noticed in myself, and I wonder if your kids are older if this is true for you too. Even when our kids are older and technically on their own, or capable of being pretty independent, we can still take responsibility for their productivity and emotional well-being. Like this summer, my oldest was living back at school for an internship.
On the one hand, I felt really good about it. He was being productive in my mind and getting experience in his field. I felt like it was an important and valuable way for him to be applying himself this summer.
But then he'd call home and he'd say things like, I feel kind of lonely and I spend a lot of time by myself. And immediately alarm bulbs go off in my mind. And I'd want to make that a problem.
Like, he shouldn't be lonely. How do I fix this? The truth is, our brains don't like to sit with the reality that our kids might be uncomfortable. We don't want them to feel lonely or frustrated or disappointed.
So we'll do anything to protect them from those hard emotions. But here's the trap we fall into. We then perceive that it's our job to save them from struggle.
To save them from the reality of life being 50-50. 50% amazing, wonderful, or just fine. And 50% kind of terrible, or at the very least, boring.
The drudgery of life. That's just the reality of life. But what many of us do is spend so much time focused on the negative and stuck in those painful emotions that this can become our reality.
So that we're not even present in the positive 50 of our life because we're spending all of our energy on the negative. And we fear this experience for our kids, right? We don't want them to be stuck in the negative experience of life. And so we try to save them from that.
I mean, of course, we love our kids so much and we want the best for them. We want them to be happy and to feel connected and productive and successful in their lives. But then we make that like a standard that we have to meet for them.
We have to make sure that they're always okay. That they're always moving forward. And we carry that standard into every interaction with our kids.
We're constantly watching them, checking on them to see if they're anxious or disengaged or bored. It's like we're constantly watching them and thinking, what should I be doing differently here? And again, of course, we want our kids to be okay. But this caring can also turn into an impossible responsibility.
Because the truth is there will be times when our kids aren't happy or productive. At the very least, in the way we think they should be. And so we set ourselves up to constantly feel like we're failing.
The reality is there's always another moment where you could have done more or done something differently. And when your definition of success is that they're always doing well, then you'll never feel like what you're doing is enough. You've probably heard me say this before, but it bears repeating.
Most of us aren't walking around saying, I want to be a perfect mom. But what we are often doing without even realizing it is living in fear of what might happen if we don't do all the right things. And this is truly perfectionism at its core.
It's not about being perfect. It's literally about fear. The fear of missing the chance to help our kids become everything we hope for them.
The fear of regret and failure. I've had so many conversations with clients recently where they look back on the summer and they feel this weight of disappointment. Maybe they didn't spend as much quality time with their kids as they'd planned.
Or they went on that vacation and feel like it didn't go the way they wanted. Or their kids were on their phone too much. Or they didn't do as many fun things as they would have liked.
Or they didn't make as much progress on college applications as they would have liked. We have all of these judgments of ourselves, and not just in the summer. All year long, we can be thinking, I didn't do enough.
I didn't plan enough. I didn't push enough. I should have been more present, more intentional, more something.
And underneath all of it is this assumption that there was some invisible finish line we were supposed to cross. Some ideal version of what it would look like if we'd just gotten it right. But that finish line is always moving because it's undefined.
And if we're honest, we've never actually decided what enough even looks like. So here's the question I want to invite you to consider. What is enough? How will you know when you've done enough to help your kid be safe, happy, and successful? What is that standard? Because here's the thing.
If you're never clear with yourself about what that looks like, what you do will never be enough. Maybe you'll have brief moments when everything seems okay, and then you can finally let yourself off the hook. But even then, you can find yourself thinking, but if I had just done more.
Or you're just waiting for the next shoe to drop. And it's frankly exhausting. I know because I've been there myself.
The weight of that responsibility to get it right, to not mess this up, your kid's life, something so precious to you. The weight of thinking it's all on you and you've got to get it right is quite literally the cruelest thing we could be telling ourselves. Because truly, how can we ever know? But I also want to offer that this perfectionism, which creates this over-responsibility for us, also impacts our kids.
Because this pressure impacts how we show up with them. And if we have in our mind that they should be doing something different, and that it's our job to get them to do that, now we're turning all of that pressure onto our kids. And if we're really honest with ourselves, what that looks like is, I can't feel okay until you meet the standard of being okay or being productive that I have in my mind.
Essentially, I can't feel okay unless you're okay, my child. Think about how much pressure that puts on your kid. We're essentially conveying the message that my emotional well-being is on you.
I mean, of course, that's not what we say. But what we're doing is nagging and lecturing and reminding and getting frustrated. Essentially doing everything we can to let them know that we're upset and we can't feel better unless they change.
We can even do this to our kids when they're upset, processing some heartbreak or hurt feelings with friends. But then when they don't want to talk about it, we ask again and again. We want them to tell us what's wrong, what's going on, how can I help? So I can't feel okay about this as your mom unless you prove to me that you're going to be okay.
And my friend, if this resonates with you, I want you to know this is not a judgment. I have done this too, so many times. It comes from such a good and well-meaning place.
But at the same time, it makes our emotional stability dependent on whether our child is thriving or doing what we think they should be doing. And this becomes more about us than about them. It becomes about our need for certainty, our fear of what it means if they're not okay.
Even our hope that if we can just stay one step ahead, if we can just fix their pain or push them to be their best, then we can finally let go and know that we've done everything we can to help them. But the truth is, their journey actually is not for you. It's not your report card.
It's also not your proof that you've been a good mom. And look, even as I say this, I'm thinking about both of my boys at college, wondering if they're okay, worried about that last conversation we had, thinking about the challenges they're both facing, wanting to make it better for them. I, just like you, feel the urge to want proof that they're going to be okay, that I've done enough, that I'm doing enough, that I haven't let them down.
But when we act on that urge to try to control or fix or demand answers so that we can feel better, we're sending the message that I can't feel better unless you change. I can't be at peace until you show me that you're okay. I'm guessing that that's not the relationship you want with your big kid.
What we really want is to support them, to be calm and steady when they're feeling stressed and hurt, to show them that they can come to us anytime they need us, but also that we believe in them and their ability to work through the challenges of their lives. And that starts with doing our own work. It starts with learning to sit with our own discomfort, our anxiety and our fear and our guilt without making it our kids' responsibility to fix.
We have an opportunity to separate our emotional well-being from their actions and emotions. If the truth of life is that we will all face challenges and struggles sometimes, then why are we so focused on protecting our kids from that, almost shielding them from the reality of life, maybe even passing on the implied message that we don't think they're capable of handling it without us? My friend, I'm not going to lie, this is one of the hardest parts of parenting teens. It's the challenge of letting our kids be who they need to be, to let them be human and have big emotions, and to figure out for themselves how to work through them.
This is the hardest part, but it is also what sets you free. I'll be the first to admit that for me, letting go doesn't mean doing nothing. Sometimes I need to offer that tough love or share my input.
Sometimes I say the thing when my boys don't want to hear it. Sometimes I even overstep and I realize too late that I probably should have kept my mouth shut. But what I am very clear with myself about is that I do not make my boys responsible for my emotional well-being.
I create emotional safety and awareness within myself first, and then I decide what's enough. I will never stop wanting my kids to be safe, happy, and successful. There's no world in which I'm going to let go any of that.
But I don't need them to be those things first for me to be okay. I create that for myself first, and then I do everything in my power to let them know I am here for them, and cheering them on every step of the way. My friend, everything you can does not mean everything all the time.
It doesn't mean carrying this impossible weight of responsibility to get everything right or refusing to let yourself off the hook. What if you could decide what's enough? What if you could decide how you want to show up with your kid? Not to make yourself feel better, but because you know in your heart that this is what your big kid needs. What I've found with my clients, without exception, is that they know in their hearts what's enough, or at least they know how they want to show up as a mom.
They know realistically where they have control and where they don't. They know intellectually that their kids will struggle sometimes, but often our own fears and this crushing responsibility that we've created in our minds means that we don't trust that inner knowing. My friend, if you're wanting to go into the new school year creating more trust in yourself and wanting to create the emotional safety to trust what's enough, this is the work we do in my coaching program, Mom 2.0. Together, we find the mindset traps keeping you stuck in guilt and over-responsibility, and I teach you a step-by-step process to help you create more peace and confidence and self-trust so that you can show up as the mom you want to be for yourself and for your kids.
My friend, imagine giving yourself permission to trust that you know what to do and that that is enough. Because the truth is, there is no perfect formula for making sure your kid is always going to be happy and successful. I don't think that exists.
But there is you, as their mom, showing up with intention every single day, trying your best, loving your kid. Can you let that be enough? My friend, it is such an honor to be with you on this journey. Let's go into this new school year having our own backs.
I've got yours. Until next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend
