I’ve never believed that parents should do everything for their children. You have to let them make mistakes in order for them to learn from them. If you see a child making the same mistake over and over, it is appropriate, in my opinion, to discuss their actions with them, even as adults, and help them understand what the long-term consequences of their actions may be. But you still have to let them make their own decisions and live by them.
That said, what about if your child ends up in a horrible situation, even one caused by him or her, and has no way to get out of it. If you are able to do so, should you, as a parent, help that child? Would you, as a parent, help that child? Or would you sit by and let him or her drown in the problem?
I have recently been shown that my parents would not help me, even though they could certainly do so, in a huge hairy problem. This does not surprise me; they never helped me with small problems. Or pretty major ones–my mother never stopped her husband from abusing me, for example. So why when our home is being foreclosed on, why would I expect help from them? What’s funny about this is that the concept here makes perfect sense to me, but no one I know, including my husband, my best friend or my therapist, understands this. If my parents were broke, it would make sense. But they are not, they are very, very comfortable financially.
Where I am having a problem here is reconciling my vision or idea of what parenting should be to the parenting I received. And it breaks my heart. God willing, I would help my children with anything they needed, if I were in a position to do so. I never expected to be in this position, but here it is. And the one person I should be able to count on most, my mother, is just letting me drown.
God help me.
stillalive2013 