Navigating Parenthood with Adult Children: Resources Insights, and Hope

Hello and welcome to ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffat, and I'll be your host. Today's episode is a special informational episode. I wanted to share a couple of things with everybody. And obviously, if you're watching this podcast, you know that I have a podcast. But I also have several other resources that I want you to make available to you and so that you'll be aware of them and you'll be able to share them with your friends and family. So parenting adult children is a wild mix of worry, joy, gratitude, frustration, and hope. And if you've ever wondered whether you're the only one feeling all of that at the same time, you're not. Today we're diving into real survey responses from parents just like you. They opened up about communication struggles, boundary battles, faith, healing, and the deep love they carry for their grown children. What they shared is honest, vulnerable, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and always relatable. So whether your adult child calls you every day or you're navigating silence and distance, this episode is for you. Let's explore what parents are experiencing, what they wish their kids understood, and how we can walk this season with wisdom, grace, and hope. So one of the things I want to do is I want to share with you my website, which is the authoritative resource on what this podcast is all about. ABC is a parenting adult children. And it's at www.parentingadultultchildren.org. That's parentingadultchildren.org. Now, at the very top of the website, up at the top, you'll see please take our parenting adult children survey. So if you click on it, it's going to take you to a Google form. It says Parenting Survey. ABC is a parenting adult children survey. Uh, and you have to enter in an email address, and then it's going to allow you to click next, and you'll have nine different questions to answer. If you're a parent of an adult child, but if you are enjoying the resources and you're listening to the podcast episodes, you're a parent of an adult child, and this website, this podcast, YouTube channel, and all the different resources that I've put together over the last three years, this is here for you to help you, to give you hope, give you resources that you can use to be better informed, and uh hopefully give you hope and it'll show you that there's light at the end of the tunnel and that you're not alone. In 2015, my wife and I, Katie, we had two teenagers living at home, and I was being quite challenged. And I told my wife, I said, Look, I don't want to wind up in prison, I don't want a new boyfriend. And uh we were already on Facebook, like millions of other people, and I said, Let's start a Facebook support group. So we did. We had 10 members, and it's now up to I think 1.4,000 members. And here is the the Facebook support group. So this is a private Facebook support group, and it's listed on Facebook as a group, and you can search for it. And uh actually you'll see up here Facebook.com groups, ABC Parenting Adult Children. All one word, ABC Parenting Adult Children. You have to answer uh three questions, they're real simple questions. You have to answer the questions, and you'll automatically be admitted to the group. And as I said, we have uh it's a private group, 1.5,000 members, and people on Facebook can find the group, but they cannot see any of the content, the messages, none of that until they join the group. So it's real easy to join the group, three easy questions to answer, and you're in. And uh, you know, I'm gonna kind of scroll down here. Of course, I have the featured uh survey block here, featured messages, and I put a the parenting adultchildren.org uh survey at the very top, and I actually have a link here to the to the actual survey reference sheet, which is uh I I fed AI a list of podcast episodes and what the topics were about, created a table, a PDF file, where you can click on the PDF file, and we'll just open it up. And here you have it ABC's parenting adult children, episode reference sheet. So it just goes down and it talks about uh communications, all the episodes on communications, boundaries, all the episodes on boundaries, mental health, addiction and recovery, LGBTQ plus parenting, letting go, quick reference on how to find episodes, and all of that. So that's the actual reference sheet that uh AI created, and I created that list because in the survey parents shared with me topics uh of interest that they were looking for, and so I thought, well, let's just I have two different seasons and hundreds of episodes, so I just had AI collate this list, and we will go back to the meat and potatoes of this episode. So I created ABC's a parenting adult children podcast in support of the different resources, like I have a subreddit on Reddit, I have a Facebook group, I have a Facebook page, I have all sorts of resources, and so that's what this is all about. And so if all you're doing is just listening to the podcast episodes, that's great, but you're missing out on a lot of content, right? On the website, you can actually sign up for our free email list. Your email address will never be shared with anybody. I keep it confidential. About once a quarter, I try to send out email updates to everybody that's on the email list so that everybody's aware of all the new developments and any special episodes that are coming out. All my guests actually fill in a guest profile and on the uh let me just show you this. Let me share again. Alright, so I'm gonna go up here to I want to go to episodes. Let's just say boundaries. Okay. So this is a setting boundaries during transition from high school to independent adulthood. I hope this is an episode where somebody has actually uh filled out the guest profile. And no, nobody filled out the guest profile. So let's go to something else. Let's just go to episodes, period. I want to show you when you're on the website, you'll see all of the different topics here right at the top. You can just click on any of these topics and it'll take you directly to an episode. Uh let's see, Paul Voss. I wonder if he filled out a guest profile, rather. Of course, I'm I'm selecting episodes where nobody has filled out a guest profile. Not everybody does that. I ask all the guests to do that. Uh see about this one. I think this one might. Parenting beyond the nest, faith, boundaries, and respect with Angela Caldwell. We'll see if she filled out a guest profile. No, she did not. But anyway, you'll find the guest profile here at the bottom. Okay. You go to the go past the show notes and all of that, you'll see the guest profile at the bottom. If the person has filled out a guest profile, that is where you will see it. I'm gonna try one more time and see if I can get lucky. Uh it's like spinning the wheel. Kenneth Mims, let's see if he did it. Empowering autistic learners through innovative education with Kenneth Kenneth Mims. So let's go to the bottom of this one. Well, no, he didn't fill one out either. Some guests do it and some guests don't do it. So there you have it. But if you're on it, if you're if you're watching a if you're watching a episode, scroll all the way to the bottom of the episode, past the show notes, and you will see the guest profile if the person actually filled one out. I was talking about my my website and all the episodes, and I'm talking about guest profiles. You'll get lucky, and you'll you'll hit an episode that has a guest profile, and you can learn more about the guest. If they've written a book, they have a website, all of that. You'll see all that information. So we'll see. Parenting adult children equals complex, emotional, sacred work. I think we'll all agree on that. Survey overview, ages, living conditions, communications, frequency, why these insights matter for listeners. Communications the number one challenge. So parents said they don't want to be pushy. Politics, lifestyle choices, and parenting differences are sensitive topics, I guess you could say. Busy schedules and emotional bandwidth, addiction recovery, and trust rebuilding, estrangement and no contact. What helps? Listening more than speaking, talking about communications with your adult children. So parents that responded to the survey said listening more than speaking, asking permission before giving advice. In other words, are you here just to have a sounding board? You just want me to listen? Or maybe after they share the story with you, ask them if they are interested in any of your feedback. Maybe you have relatable stories that you could talk about that might help them. Respect, kindness, and eye statements. Keeping things light when needed. Boundaries, the hardest part. Finances, it's a big, big topic. Finances within boundaries. Do I support my children, my adult children, financially? How often do I support them financially? Should I support them financially? The thing that they need help with, is that a financial issue that they brought on themselves, like going out and partying and buying booze and pot and whatever else instead of paying their bills. Mom, can you help me with my rent this month? Well, why don't you have your rent money? Well, blah blah blah. Whatever the excuse is, right? And if your adult child didn't pay their rent because they wasted their money on other things that they didn't need, maybe it's not a wise idea to help them with their rent. Maybe they need to maybe they need to learn a hard lesson there. Finances, emotional support expectations, talking about boundaries, lifestyle choices, parenting grandchildren. I know several people that are uh listening to this podcast, a friend of mine, I know he has grandchildren, and I know that he helps to babysit or watch with some of the grandkids when uh his uh their parent is off working or sick or at the hospital or whatever. So if you're a grandparent, you're gonna find yourself in a position to be able to help. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it doesn't become an abuse, an abusive situation. Alright. Finances, emotional support expectations, lifestyle choices, parenting grandchildren, time and holidays, that's a big one. Examples of boundary wishes, no more financial help. I wish I spoke up more. How much I can help versus how much I want to help. Sometimes we want to help, especially financially, but maybe we don't have the finances at the time. Many senior citizens, such as myself, uh have 401ks, IRAs, retirement funds. We have funds available to us because of careful budgeting and savings plans over the years, and we're that money is there for us when we can no longer work because of uh physical or mental issues that keep us from doing it. None of us get out of this alive, right? So if you are, if you're a parent and you have children, I would I would highly recommend that you start putting money away for retirement. Start, you know, $100 a paycheck, whatever, whatever you need you can afford, start putting it away in a 401k. A lot of employers offer IRAs and 401ks and savings plans that they actually supplement. You put an X amount of dollars and they pay 10 or 15 or 20% on top of that. They help you build that retirement fund so that when you become a senior citizen and you can no longer work, or you no longer want to work. Who knows? You may have $250,000 in your 401k because you've been good at saving money and uh you've had a long-term employment contract, or you've worked for an employer for 20 or 30, 40 years, uh and you're coming close to retirement, then you've got a nice little nest egg that'll help you to live uh the rest of your years in relative comfort. So your retirement is not a nest egg or savings account to support your children. It's there for you and your spouse to be able to live uh off of your Social Security benefits and your IRA or 401k or your retirement funds so that you can live comfortably and you don't wind up homeless like some people. Okay? Now speak I speak from authority because my wife and I, sadly enough, we did not prepare for retirement. So I know what I'm talking about. Start now, start while you're younger. We didn't do that. We were eggheads. I guess we just we just didn't think about it. Or, you know, when you're when you're in your 20s, you think you're invincible. You know, you're not thinking about retirement when you're in your 20s. You're out making money, paying bills, paying rent, car payment, and you have some disposable income where you go out and go partying with your friends and all of that. Well, I'm here to tell you life changes. That's sort of out of the scope of this podcast episode, but while I was talking about that, I thought I would throw that in. That's value-added content for you. Examples of boundary wishes, no more financial help. I wish I spoke up more how much I can help versus how much I want to help. Many of us can't help. Some of us don't have a huge 401k nest egg. We don't we just don't have it. We wanna we want to be able to help, but maybe maybe you just don't have it, and you can't. So, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some of us find ourselves in that position. Emotional landscape. So the survey asks parents how they feel emotionally. So, gratitude, hope, and pride, sadness, worry, frustration, feeling overwhelmed, rarely to often, emotional toll of addiction, estrangement, conflicts. Quote, parenting adult children is not for the weak. I'm gonna tell you what, that parent that quoted that, they are that is no lie. Parenting is not for the weak. You will be challenged in ways that you are not prepared for sometimes. Faith and spiritual support, praying for salvation, strength, truth, healthy partners, living faith through action, navigating religious trauma, faith as a stabilizing force. Quote, my faith isn't a crutch, it's my life. Now, parent that quoted that, I'm going to assume that they said, faith, my faith isn't a crutch, it's my life. Because perhaps their partner, spouse, or even their adult children are not on board with faith. Maybe they don't share the same faith-based principles, uh, life principles that you do. And a lot of your life's decisions and a lot of your direction principles are founded on your on your faith. And you shouldn't make an excuse for that. There's there's no reason to excuse that. That's who you are. You know, my wife and I are Christ followers, and while I don't talk a whole lot about our faith in Jesus on on the podcast, I want to be inclusive. And I want to include other people's faith values. And so therefore, I'm not going to I'm not going to preach at you. I'm not going to force my faith principles on you. Because I think that's a very personal thing. And I think that there are podcasts out there that are very faith-centered, and they're very uh, you know, that's what the that's what the podcast is about. Is uh about being believers in Jesus and going to church and reading the Bible and memorizing scripture and all of that. And I think those podcasts are really good, and they support believers in their walk. And so while I don't prioritize that topic at the top of the list here on ABC's apparenting adult children, I'm not ashamed of my faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I'm not going to hide it, and I'm not going to make excuses for it. There'll be times to where I can talk about my faith. And I would say that if you're a parent of adult children and you have some sort of faith in your life, of your higher power, whoever, whoever your God is, whether it's Jesus, Muhammad, Islam, I don't know, there's hundreds and hundreds of denominations out there, Protestant denominations, non-protestant denominations, the Catholic Church. I could talk for a long time on that topic, but I'll just say that if you're if you're a member of or you subscribe to a different faith than I do, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And and hopefully you are finding the comfort and the support that you need from that faith that you have. So that's enough of that, right? My faith isn't a crutch, it's my life. What parents wish their adult children knew, this is a good one. This is a fill-in-the-blank sort of thing when you come to it on the survey. I love you no matter what. This is parents talking to adult children. I love you no matter what. I want the best for you. And that resonates with me because I think every parent wants the best for their children. They want their children to not have to experience the consequences of some of the mistakes that we made when we were younger. I want the best for you. My patience has limits, but my love does not. I love this one. My patience has limits, but my love does not. I have more experience than you think. I can talk to this one. I remember when I was in my twenties. I was a dumpster fire from the age of about 18 until I was about 26. A dumpster fire. Have you ever watched the NBC Nightly News or news program where you see a car on the side of a road or a truck and it's just fully engulfed in flames? Yeah, that was me. During that age group, and I think a lot of us go through that. And uh I thought my parents were out of touch. I thought they they just weren't in tune with the world of that day of my age, right? When I was a child of the I was born in 61, uh graduated high school in 1980, and I just thought they were just totally not really blithering idiots, but pretty close. One day I was uh in Houston, Texas, and back when they still had payphones. Uh, if you're not familiar with a payphone is, it's a it's a like a rectangular it's a metal box. And it hangs in a it hangs in a phone booth. You go in and you have to have quarters. You have to put quarters in it to dial a phone number. Well I did that. I called my parents in Quinlan, Texas, and basically told them, you know what? You're not as much of an idiot as I thought you were. It took a lot of it took a lot of uh bravery for me to say that, because my dad had quite the temper. And of course we were fairly estranged at that point, so it didn't really matter, but I called them and had a short conversation with them, but I said, hey, some of the things that you taught me as a child, as a young man, has really helped me. My dad was real he was a drill sergeant, he was real tough on me. Real tough. Tougher than I would have cared for him to be. But some of that toughness, some of that military discipline that he ingrained in me helped me get through some of the roughest times of my life, and I'm very thankful for that. I have more experience than you think. I'm healthier now than when you were growing up. I'm healthier now than when you were growing up. I guess somebody was having health struggles while their children were growing up. I miss my granddaughter. Oh my god. That's an emotional subject. Parents, parents love grandchildren. And why is that? Plus, because it's a rite of passage. You know, we we're teenagers, we've become young adults, we grow up and we mature, and we we uh have a partner or spouse, and we build, start making our own families, we have kids. But one of the joys of our parents is being grandparents and being able to swill those little kids rotten. You love to. My wife and I are not grandparents. We probably never will be. However, I know of grandparents that have said in the past that they love getting those little kids all jacked up on sugar and then handing them back to mom and dad when they come to pick them up. Or buying them a drum set. That's wonderful. Little Johnny wanted a drum set, so we were at the mall today and we saw one on sale, so we bought it for him. And uh so that little Johnny will, you know, go home and put that dad'll put that drum set together, and little Johnny will just beat the living tar out of the drum set, drive the parents crazy. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. Appreciate you doing that. I miss my gr granddaughter. That's that's probably spoken from a parent that might be estranged from their their children, their adult children, and maybe for whatever reason they're not uh close. And the distance that's created between the parents and the adult children also includes grandchildren. You know, and uh so anyway, that's a that's a relationship that needs to be mended for the sake of the parents, the adult children, and the grandchildren. Your choices don't change my love for you. That's a good one. Your choices don't change my love for you. So you have an adult child that comes home and says, I'm gay. Well, if you're a child of the seventies and you're, you know, raised in a uh traditional family, mom and dad, male, female, Adam and Eve versus Adam and Steve, well that's gonna trip some of the baby boomers out. You come home and confess that you're gay, some parents are not gonna understand how to wrap their brains around that, and that's okay. So your choices don't change my love for you. I I had a son. He he passed away when he was 38 in January of 2025, just last year. And he was a cross-dresser, dressed up, he looked just like his mother when he was cross-dressing. He uh he had some over-the-top thoughts and behaviors, and you know, we were friends on Facebook, but I didn't follow his newsfeed because some of that stuff I didn't understand, I didn't want to understand it. Uh I recognized that was part of his life, and I get that, and I respect that. I just didn't want to be saying it on a day-to-day basis. And, you know, at the end of the day, he was my son and I loved him. And I wanted him to be healthy and happy, healthy and happy. That's what every parent wants, right? So your choices don't change my love for you. Earbuds keep popping out. What support parents want from this podcast? I asked that question. What kind of support do you want? Practical tools. So the episode reference sheet that I created with AI's help today, that's one practical tool that I was able to provide for fairly quickly. Faith-based encouragement. Uh, we have podcast guests that come on the show to talk about their faith and how it affects their parenting. And so we have some of that. Community with other parents. Well, that's that's what the uh the Facebook private Facebook support group is for. That's what the the subreddit or the Reddit that I have have a group that I have is uh for that. And I also have a Facebook Facebook group and a Facebook page, workshops or classes. So I'm gonna try to see if I can get with uh some previous guests on the show who are subject matter experts and see if I can uh get them to help me put together some uh workshops or classes. Maybe we'll have a you know a Zoom meeting and uh we'll put on a workshop or a class at some point. YouTube videos. Uh I upload all the episodes to YouTube. All the video portions of it go to YouTube, uh, the audio portions go to bus route. So those video episodes are already on my YouTube channel. Please join the YouTube channel, subscribe and follow. That way we can help build the channel together and start. Uh, the more subscribers I get, the more YouTube's gonna be likely to share my videos with other people. So YouTube can help me. YouTube versus YouTube. Let's get that straight. You YouTube can help me build that YouTube channel so that YouTube algorithm will show it to more people. Topics communications, boundaries, mental health, addiction, LG, BTQ, plus parenting, and letting go. Those are the top topics that parents are interested in. So communications, boundaries, mental health, addiction, LG, BTQ plus parenting, letting go. So let me share this with you. This is the uh the reference sheet that I had AI build for me. HTTPS colon whackwack www.parenting adultchildren.org downloads a topics reference sheet. That's topics reference sheet. That's where you can find the uh if you go to the if you go to my main website and you you at the end of parentingadultchildren.org, put slash downloads, all one word slash, and then topics underscore reference underscore sheet. Hopefully that'll work for you. I've posted it on the Facebook group, and I've posted it on the Reddit site. I created a uh article on Substack where I put the link in there. So if you follow me on any of those social media platforms, then you will uh you'll be able to click on that link and download that uh that list. And let's see, I want to share what so I got the YouTube channel, it's uh ABC is apparenting ABC Parenting Adult Children. We've got Instagram, which is parenting adult children125. I've got a Facebook page, you can find the Facebook group, the Reddit group, and the official website, and then my uh YouTube channel, which is at apparent parent ABC Parenting Adult Children. That's www.youtube.com slash the at symbol ABC Parenting Adult Children. That's how you can get to the YouTube channel. I've also got a TikTok channel, and I'm on X, also known as Twitter. So you can follow, subscribe, join, and share all of those resources with all your friends and family. Alright. So, like I said, this was more of an informational episode talking about the many different resources that I have, and I wanted to tell you again about the uh parenting survey at the top of the website. Please click on that, put in your email address and answer the questions. It'll take you about 10 or 15 minutes to fill it out, but it will go towards letting me know what you're looking for, letting me know, giving me some feedback on how you feel about podcast episodes and all the topics and how they affect you, or the the the courses or or instructional material you're looking for. So thank you for being part of ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast. I appreciate you. Parenting is not for the week, but there's hope. You're not alone. There's help out there. There's lots of help out there for you to uh get, and I hope that parentingadultchildren.org in this podcast uh provides you with uh the resources that you need and the hope that you need and the support that you need. Alright? So thank you for being here, and I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye bye.