Question:
My daughter turned 30 this year. She still lives at home with me. She has no friends to speak of (except her aunt, a friend of mine and me). I want her to try living on her own but feel guilty as I envision her lonely life, working, coming home and watching TV. I’ve broached the subject with her recently but can’t get her to talk at any length about it and even brought her to tears once. She barely squeaked out of high school (learning disabilities) and has worked in a low-paying job for 11 years. I’m no expert but think she may have a form of Asberger’s Syndrome and may even be depressed. Even so, she refuses to initiate any form of therapy. She’s always been a good daughter, doesn’t drink or do drugs, NOTHING! I have seen therapists who have suggested that we get out the newspaper and start looking for rentals for her and just DO IT! I feel like I’m abandoning my only child and my sister and friends only reinforce my guilt over it. However, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living with my adult child. How can I make this a win-win situation?
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Answer:
Part of the job parents are faced with involves preparing children for a time when they need to function independently. Even if children do not take up their independence upon their maturity, they will ultimately be forced to do so when their parents become frail and elderly, or simply die and are no longer available to be caregivers. From the perpective of this larger view it seems clear enough that the right thing to do is to prepare your in many ways overdue child for living independently.
The situation on the ground is a little more complicated. For one thing, your child maybe has developmental, and social issues and possibly some mood issues as well. For another, no one in your family seems to be supportive of your desire to help your child become independent. Even you are yourself ambivalent and feeling rather guilty.
I think it may be worthwhile for you to explore why you feel guilty, as this guilt feeling seems in large part to be driving your reluctance. Guilt feelings often come from a sense of violated duty. It becomes important to clarify exactly what you perceive your dutys to be in this circumstance. Working with a therapist might be helpful in this capacity. From my own perspective, your duty to your adult child requires that you not abandon her, and that you help insure that she is making ends meet. You might also be ‘required’ to provide temporary shelter during times of crisis. It does not include your having her live with you indefinitely unless she truly has special needs (e.g., is mentally retarded or otherwise incapable of living independently). Even in the case of special needs children, there are group homes and similar resources that can be utilized to help promote independent living to the fullest extent possible.
Large life changes such as independent living are often frightening and intimidating. It helps to break them down into smaller parts so that they are less scarey. One way you might do this with your daughter is to help her work on the issues that might be holding her back from wanting to live independently. Addressing her depression and seeming dependence issues would be a good start, and getting her to see a doctor for medication (if appropiate) and a psychotherapy referral would be the way to implement such a plan. If she does have Asburger’s Disorder or a similar developmental disorder affecting communication skills, then it would be a good idea to get this diagnosed so that any treatment or socialization or housing options that are available to her through that avenue can be explored.
Keep in mind that, to the extent that your daughter is comfortable in her present circumstances and probably frightened by the idea of change, that she will resist your efforts to get her to change. She may refuse to go along with your plans. There maybe isn’t any thing rewarding she’s looking forward to associated with leaving home. If that is the case, so long as you are unwilling to set effective consequences on her to motivate her to leave, she may simply not leave. You may need to prepare yourself to set out a plan and a timeline for your daughter leaving home and force her to stick to it. Depending on how entrenched and dependent she is, this sort of thing may be rather traumatic for her.
As an alternative to forcing your daughter out of your house, have you considered taking an inventory of the things you’d like to be able to do without your daughter around, and seeing what it would take to do those things with her still in the picture?
This is a difficult situation to be sure, and I’m not sure I know what the right outcome should be. Still, I hope that my attempts at an answer for you will prove helpful.
- Ask Anne
