Letting Your Kids Fall Down

If you have adult children, you know how difficult it is to let them make their own mistakes and bear the consequences of their bad decisions and impulsive actions. Just like you tried to protect them from skinned knees and broken hearts when they were growing up, you want to protect them now from bill collectors and low credit scores. Unfortunately, just like they would get hurt when they didn’t listen to you when they were young children, they will get hurt when they don’t listen to you now. As a parent, there comes a time when you have to back off and let them fall down. For me, it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I want to hold them up and spare them from the pain that will come their way, but I can’t. They’ll never grow unless I let go.

My husband and I both learned our financial lessons the hard way. We’ve survived storms of our own making, and we’ve had to work hard to turn things around enough to enjoy the blessings that come with financial security. Our kids are bright, energetic, and well-educated, and we presumed they’d take advantage of the money management skills we taught them throughout the years. Unfortunately, they’ve all gone the route of overspending, carrying more debt than they can afford, and living from paycheck to paycheck. One is facing foreclosure on a home, another is risking his life in Iraq to pay off huge amounts of debt, another is depleting her and her fiancés savings in order to have a dream wedding, and the youngest is living with us and still having a hard time making ends meet. They are making decisions that will impact them negatively for years to come, yet we are powerless to do anything other than sit back and watch. Now we know how our own parents felt when we ignored their pleas to save something from every paycheck and not overspend.

I’ve decided it’s a fact of life that most kids are going to make some wrong financial turns regardless of their parents best efforts to guide them along the right path. As moms and dads of people who are now grownups, we can fret over it, or we can accept it as inevitable and look forward to the day when they’ve learned the lessons for themselves and are enjoying stability. I hope I live long enough to see that day!