Parenting Limbo

On raising adults who still need you — just not in the ways they used to.

The day I turned 18 in 1992, I drove to 7-11 and bought a pack of Camel Lights. It was, I thought, a first act of adulthood. I suppose I knew that you don’t cross the threshold into adulthood all at once; I could not, after all, buy any beer to go with those smokes. Get legally married? Yes. Get tattooed, sure. But I couldn’t rent a car. I couldn’t play poker in a casino. I could vote in elections, but not yet run for office.

The handful of years after 18 is a period of adult limbo, with coffee spoons of responsibility doled out over time. Apart from the arbitrary legal checkboxes, you are beginning to make a lot of other adult-like moves. Getting credentialed. Having a first “real” job, meaning one you will do for a long time. Living on your own, perhaps, or living with other adult-ish people. Doing all your own grocery shopping and cooking.

You are also going home a lot, most likely—sleeping in, getting home-cooked meals, checking in with mom and/or dad.

And how are they doing? Turns out they are in limbo, too.

Now that I have two children who are past 18 years old and one on the cusp of it, I realize that young adults in this stage of life are not the only ones living through a middle passage. Parenting has its own limbo, matched to the kids’ adult limbo. The shift is both gradual and sudden. Every now and then, you have a shock of recognition: this person whose diaper you used to change can get through their days without you. They can do more and more for themselves.

You might not want to be done doing for them. You might want to keep overseeing them, providing input. That does not matter, because they are not asking for your input. They are assuming they don’t need it. And in many cases, they actually do not need it.

Then there will be a moment out of the blue—probably during a meeting at work—when your phone will ring and you find out that they need full oversight, and they need it now. They are encountering some Hard Adult Thing for the very first time. They will have had a car accident and not know about calling the police or the insurance company or interacting with the driver who hit them/they hit. They will experience the American healthcare system on their own, and they will receive the nauseating patient bills that system generates. They will grapple with some other corporate or governmental bureaucracy that adults come to accept as a part of life but that take practice and patience to navigate.

Did you prepare them for each one of these Hard Adult Things? You did not, either because it did not occur to you or because you did not want to freak them out.

They will need a resume—a real one, even though there’s not much real to put on it yet. They will fail at something of consequence—not just sports or a class exam, but something that hurts, like a job or, worse, a relationship. They will make a mistake that costs them real money—money they do not quite have. For the first time, it will occur to you that even if you have the money, you shouldn’t give it to them, because they are adulting.

The upside of all these situations is that they have come to you to ask for help. You get to parent again! But also, they may not ask. You may not even hear about the Hard Adult Thing until it’s already resolved—or left unresolved. That is their choice to make, as an adult-like person. And if they do ask for help, you will need to recognize that the help they are asking for is different from the kind they used to ask for. They are no longer a child needing instruction. They are an adult needing input.

But not too much. Just the right amount. And from just the right person.

And here’s the real kick in the pants: that person will not always be you.

This is perhaps the trickiest part of parenting limbo: Your kid will be able to hear from other adults things they cannot hear from you. You will have said a thing to them 10, 20, 50 times. You will have told them exactly what they needed to hear. But they will not have heard you. You are the adult in the Peanuts cartoon, a nonsense voice in the background. An NPC. Then you’ll hear of some other adult—a teacher, a mentor, a random podcast host—who told them the exact same thing you’ve been saying, only it has come as a fresh revelation. Your adult kid heard it as if for the first time, and in a way, that’s what they’ve done. It’s as if you never said it.

Your job in this moment is to nod and smile and thank the good lord. Your job is to refrain from saying That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Saying that will do neither of you any good, and their good is your goal. (Sometimes, you’ll still say it. You, too, are learning.)

Parenting limbo requires you to change your parenting reflexes. You have to lean in as the moment requires, but also let go as the season requires. If you’re anything like me, you’ll need some calibrating. Sometimes you’re going to talk to your adult kid as if they are 12 years old. That is going to irritate them—and indeed it may hurt them, because it’s no longer appropriate for you to talk to them that way.

The leaning in part is easy for any involved parent—that’s what you’ve been doing since they emerged from the womb. You have honed your instincts to give them what they need, provide feeding, clothing, counsel. When they wobbled their first steps, you were there to catch them if they fell—though you also had to restrain yourself back then. A little stumbling is the key to learning to walk. You don’t prevent the baby from falling over. You create space—moving that sharp-cornered coffee table, blocking off those stairs—and watch them wobble.

Adult kids will do some wobbling, too. Your job is to make space for it.

Some parents of adult kids never figure all this out. I’ve only partially done it myself, and indeed I’m writing about it here to get this lesson through my own thick skull. I’m in parenting limbo. I’m learning to make space, to balance letting go and leaning in. I’m starting to suspect that parenting limbo will last for the rest of my life.