THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK—”MY KID DOESN'T CARE HOW I FEEL” | EP. 224
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.
I had the most amazing conversation with my son the other day, and I had to share, because it connects directly to this thought that so many of us have as moms, that our kids are completely self-absorbed and oblivious to everything we do for them. Honestly, that they just don't care. So I was talking to my son about the fact that he's going to spend the summer in Chicago, and we were talking through logistics, how he was going to get there and whether or not he was going to take a car.
And he said, No, it's probably not worth bringing a car. I remember how long that drive is. And then completely out of the blue, he said, You know, every time I tell my friends the story about how you drove me home from Chicago back to New Jersey overnight, they say, Wow, my mom would never do that for me.
You've got a really awesome mom. When I tell you that my jaw almost hit the floor, it is not an exaggeration. I was completely gobsmacked, if that's a word.
And the reason I was so stunned is because at the time that this actually happened, it felt like it meant absolutely nothing to him. So I need to back up and tell you the story, because even now this feels surreal to me. At the time, my son was a junior in high school, and we were right in the thick of a really painful period in our relationship.
I mean, things were really strained. He agreed to go on this college trip with me because logistically he couldn't go on his own. He was only 17.
So when I offered to take him on a trip to the Midwest to see schools in Chicago, he was willing. But our relationship at the time was really tough. He would respond to me when I asked him questions, but with as few words as humanly possible.
He wasn't opening up and he wasn't sharing what was going on with him at all. And I couldn't help but feel like he was completely self-absorbed, to the point where I felt genuinely hurt and rejected. And yet, despite all that, it was important to me that he had the opportunity to explore the schools he wanted to see.
So we went. I think we planned the trip on a really tight timeline, maybe just part of a weekend, because he had to be back on Sunday for work. So we got to Chicago and we did the visit, and the whole thing felt tense but manageable.
It was almost like we'd reached a kind of detente. We weren't fighting. We were just coexisting.
I think by that point, I had just stopped pushing for him to open up to me, because it was clear that that wasn't getting me anywhere. But it was disappointing, to say the least. Here I was on this college trip with my son, this moment that felt like it should be an opportunity to bond.
And we were anything but bonded. In fact, it felt like, to him, I was just filling an obligation of motherhood rather than doing something that he actually should appreciate. And then we got on the plane to come home, and we sat there for a while, and then eventually they announced the flight was delayed and that everyone had to get off.
And an hour later, we got back on the plane, we waited some more, and then they told us the flight was canceled. Apparently, this is a regular occurrence flying out of O'Hare, but at the time, we were beyond frustrated. It was mid-afternoon on a Saturday, and my son was beside himself, because he had already gotten into trouble at work for missing shifts.
So we looked at alternative flights, but given the weather patterns, it became clear pretty quickly that there was no way we were getting home on time. So I made a split-second decision and said, why don't we drive? He looked at me like, can we even do that? How long is that? And the thing is, I'd actually done that drive before, on September 11th, when I'd been grounded in Detroit trying to get home. So I knew how long that drive was, and I thought, I can do this.
I can do this for my son. And I'm not going to lie, at the time, I absolutely thought, I'm doing this thing. I'm going to go to heroic measures for him.
And there was a big part of me that thought, if I did this, my son would absolutely see how hard I was trying and how much I cared, and that maybe if I did this, it would shake something out of him, maybe give us a chance to connect again. I thought, maybe if I do this, he'll finally see how hard I'm trying and how much I love him, and that I don't want this distance between us. So clearly, I had an ulterior motive.
But we rented the car, and we hit the road. Immediately, we hit Chicago gridlock, and I was doing everything. I was doing U-turns and back alley driving, probably adding time instead of saving it.
But eventually, we got out of the city, and before long, it was nighttime. And if you've ever driven that Midwest corridor, you know how long and lonely it can feel, especially at night. And it felt even lonelier because my son wasn't engaging with me at all.
At some point, he fell asleep, and I was calculating in my head how long I could drive straight through without sleeping. And I realized at some point, I was going to need to stop to close my eyes. So we stopped at a motel, and I rested my eyes for about an hour, and then we got back on the road, and he continued to sleep.
I drove through the night exhausted, but determined to get my son to work, just like I'd promised. And eventually, I dropped him off. He wasn't exactly on time, but he wasn't terribly late, maybe 20 minutes.
He mumbled something, like maybe a thanks, got out of the car, and that was it. So needless to say, I drove home and collapsed into tears. Of course, I was exhausted, but I was also so deeply disappointed.
I had been so sure this effort would finally crack something open in my son, but it didn't. Fast forward four years, a lot of water under the bridge, and a lot of healing in our relationship, and we've found our way back to each other. And somehow, now, my son remembers that trip exactly the way I hoped he would.
I just didn't know he was registering it at the time. My friends, so often, our kids act like they don't care, or like they're completely oblivious to everything we do for them. But that doesn't mean they're not paying attention, and it also doesn't mean that what you're doing doesn't matter.
And I know how hard it is to believe that when your kid is acting like a jerk, or dismissing you, or seeming totally unappreciative. Because what we really are thinking is that they don't care how we feel. Or maybe it sounds more like they don't even notice how much I do for them.
They're so checked out. It seems almost inconceivable that you could have given so much for so long to this person, and that now they don't even seem to see you. And look, I've been there.
If you find yourself in this place, I know you're not making it up. It's almost impossible to interpret the facts of your kid's behavior any other way. But on top of our observations that our kids are oblivious, or dismissive, we can tend to add on another layer of interpretation that sounds something like, I don't matter to them anymore.
They don't even recognize my effort. Almost like you could disappear and it wouldn't even faze them. And my friend, I know how much that hurts.
But also, I know from personal experience that this is where we can get stuck without realizing it. It's without meaning to. We start using our teen's behavior as evidence of our value to them.
We essentially start looking to them, to their tone and their behavior, to tell us whether we still matter. And this isn't because we're needy. It's because we've invested so much of ourselves for so long, rearranging our lives to accommodate our kids, showing up for them even when it was totally inconvenient for us.
We've waded through exhaustion and frustration and disappointment and anxiety. And so, of course, it's natural for us to want some sign that all of that effort mattered. But here's what I think is actually happening.
And this is subtle. For years, your brain has been trained to pay attention to your kids' responses. You've watched their face to see if they're okay.
You listen for changes in tone and notice when they seem upset or frustrated. It's part of our maternal instinct to be attuned to our kids. And we've been practicing this for a really long time.
And so when your mind, and even your nervous system, has learned to track another person for safety, connection, and reassurance, it doesn't just turn off when they become teenagers. So when your big kid stops responding or barely acknowledges you, it's disorienting. You say something and they grunt.
You do something thoughtful and there's no reaction. You rearrange your schedule. You drive them everywhere.
You cover for them. And still, your effort is met with silence or irritation even. There's no thanks.
No eye contact. No sign that your effort even registered. And that lack of recognition doesn't feel neutral.
It feels like you continue to make a huge effort to support your kid and it just goes into this black hole of nothingness. And when that happens, your brain looks for an explanation. Why didn't that land? Why doesn't this seem to matter to them? And it doesn't take a big leap to think, they don't care how I feel.
And to be honest, it feels like the truth. Like it's simply a fact that they don't care. And when that feels true to us, our mind usually goes in one of two directions.
Either we make it mean something about our kid, that they're selfish or ungrateful, or that you didn't raise them to be this way, or we turn the blame back on ourselves. I must have done something wrong. Maybe I spoiled them too much, or maybe I should have set better boundaries.
And whether you blame yourself or you blame your kid, both of these interpretations create the same emotional experience for us as we feel hurt, rejected and resentful. And often we also feel scared because it's not just this moment that's painful. It's also that we can't help think about what this means for our relationship in the future, or maybe even who our kid is becoming.
And when we feel this way, we naturally react, either by lecturing or criticizing our kids, trying to get them to see that their behavior is hurtful, trying to encourage them to be more appreciative and thoughtful, trying to get them to care. But when that doesn't work, we feel even more frustrated. Or maybe we keep trying again and again, like me driving through the night hoping that this heroic effort would somehow get my kid to see me again.
But then when that doesn't work, we can feel even more hurt and even resentful. And sometimes we just feel like we need to pull back and stop trying because it hurts too much to keep putting yourself out there and continue to get rejected. But here's the hard part.
None of these reactions actually get us closer to what we want because they don't create closeness or cause our kids to suddenly show their appreciation. Most of the time, they just create more distance, which then just feels like confirmation that the original thought was true. See, they really don't care.
So now I want to take a step back for a minute because there is actually a developmental reason our kids act this way when they're teens and young adults. And I don't offer this to excuse your kids' behavior or to suggest that you should tolerate being dismissed. I offer it because it gives important context for what you're experiencing.
The thing is, during adolescence and often well into the early and mid-twenties, different parts of the human brain are still developing and they don't all mature at the same time. So during these years, kids are especially focused on whatever feels urgent or stressful in their own lives. So their attention naturally tends to log into what they need or what they are worried about in that moment.
At the same time, the parts of their brain that help them slow down and take someone else's perspective or fully think through how their behavior affects other people, those parts are still maturing. So even when your big kid benefits from what you do for them, they're not always able in that moment to step outside themselves and recognize the effort you had to take to show up for them. It's like they aren't yet able to appreciate two things at the same time, what they need in the moment and what it costs you to provide it.
Being able to step out of themselves in that way is truly an emotional skill set they haven't yet matured into. But consider that even though they aren't able to show appreciation in the moment the way we'd like them to, that doesn't mean your effort didn't register to them. It just might mean your kid doesn't yet have the capacity to fully process it, especially when they're stressed or focused on themselves, just trying to manage their own lives.
And again, this doesn't mean their behavior is okay or that you can't set boundaries. You don't have to just accept being disrespected. But it could also mean that your kid's current ability to acknowledge you is not a reliable measure of how much you matter to them or even how much of an impact you're having on them.
And my friend, I'm not sharing any of this to try to talk you out of how hurtful it feels when your kid doesn't seem to care, because sometimes they really do act like they don't. Sometimes they even say it out loud. And when that happens, it really hurts.
So instead of arguing with that thought that they don't care, what I want to offer is a wider lens. Because even though it might be true that the way they're acting and maybe even expressing themselves seems to point to a reality that they don't care about anybody but themselves, what also might be true is that your kid doesn't have the capacity right now to show they care in the way you hope they would, that whatever is going on for them is so consuming that there simply isn't much space left for them to look outward. And again, that's not because you don't matter, but because they're struggling to manage themselves.
During that long drive home from Chicago, I had to sit with my disappointment, and it was hard not to focus on the lack of conversation or acknowledgement of the lengths I was going to for my son. And honestly, it wasn't even the thank you that I needed as much as the connection I wanted. It's so profoundly hurtful and sad to feel like you don't matter in your kid's life.
But even at that time, I knew how much he was going through, how much he was struggling with, and I actually knew it had nothing to do with me. I couldn't fix it for him or even connect with him enough to try to help him through it. He was going through it on his own, and all I could do was show him I was still there, doing what I could to support him, even if I was getting absolutely no validation or recognition for my effort.
The thing is, if I'd had a crystal ball back then that could show me that everything would work out okay, it would have been so much easier for me to just let it go. If I had known that four years later, my son would be telling his friends about what I'd done on that lonely drive, and he would be agreeing with them that I was an awesome mom, my friends, if I had any hope or idea that that might happen one day, that's all I would have needed. I might have still been disappointed when he got out of the car without saying anything but a mumbled thanks, but I wouldn't have made it mean I was losing him or that he didn't care about me.
It would have been so much easier to believe that this was just a phase, just a chapter in our relationship that was so much more about him and what he was going through than it was about me. But we don't have that crystal ball, and I don't offer this story to promise that all of our kids will come around. I pray that's true for all of us, but when we're sitting in the pain of loving so much and feeling dismissed and unseen, it's hard to hold on to that hope.
And this is one of the many reasons this stage of motherhood can feel so hard. It's not just that our kids pull away, it's that we're asked to keep loving without certainty, and that is incredibly hard. Because when you're living inside the hurt and disappointment, when your kid's behavior feels personal, we become almost desperate for reassurance.
We want to know that we haven't lost them, that we still matter. And when you don't get that reassurance, it's so easy to let your mind fill in the blanks with the most painful conclusions. That's why this work isn't really about getting our kids to be more appreciative.
It's about learning how to stay emotionally steady without needing them to reassure you or waiting for their permission or acknowledgement to believe that your effort does matter. My friend, there is so much power in keeping the light on in your relationship with your big kid, even when they seem to be doing everything they can to close the door and turn out the light. But creating the strength in you, the peace and the steadiness to be the mom you want to be no matter how your kid is acting.
This is the work I do with moms in my one-on-one coaching program, Mom 2.0. This program isn't about fixing your teen, and it's not pretending this doesn't hurt. It's about learning how to understand what's happening in your mind when you feel dismissed and unseen and deciding with intention how you want to show up to that moment. And when you learn how to do this, to know when it's time to set a boundary or when you need to let it go, you keep the door open to connection without chasing it.
The truth is, our kids' appreciation and acknowledgement doesn't usually come from us pushing for it or demanding it. It comes from trusting that no matter what, you love your child and that connection is there no matter what. This is more powerful than you can imagine, my friend, and it's already within you.
It's just hard to access when you're feeling hurt and resentful, waiting for your big kid to change so you can feel connected and at peace. Your child's current capacity to show how much they care is not the measure of your worth as a mom. And your love, even when it feels unseen, is not wasted.
This moment, as hard as it is, is not the end of the story. 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.
