Originally published February 2023.
In my other life, I speak to single people. I speak to the world about single people, and how maybe we’re not a less-than version of adults. Recently, a podcast listener who I hope knows how cool she is asked me what to do about her parents, who were reluctant to approve of her planned cross-country move. They approved of her (younger) sister’s prior move, of course, because she’s married. This is a beautiful convergence of two of my favorite topics: singlehood, and the Babies Of Boomers. Any chance I have to help people break free from the emotional handcuffs of both, I will.
A version of my answer was published in a podcast episode which you can listen to here, but you might enjoy my words better when I’ve edited them for a week. Also some of us prefer to read what others prefer to hear. I’ve never listened to an audiobook in my life and I never shall.
Here’s something us kids were never given tools or encouragement to understand: Once you’re a grown-up, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Even if your parents don’t want you to. It’s allowed, your life, how you want it, is allowed. You are free to disappoint the shit out of these people and if they don’t still love you afterward, that’s on them, not you. We are a generation of people raised thinking we were responsible for our parents emotions and moods. No shit we can’t make so much as a Target run without their blessing.
When your life centers someone else’s contentment over your own, and prioritizes how someone else feels (because when they don’t feel good, you feel unsafe), your desires — the actual things you want for your life — fade. They become less important than making other people happy, and while making other people happy is pleasant as a bowl of punch, it’s a trash way to structure your entire human life.
I know, intimately and for far too long, how hard it is to do things your parents don’t like. Especially when your parents only like things that keep you small, close by, and controlled. If you haven’t heard it in your adult life yet, don’t be embarrassed, but this is true: Your parents aren’t in charge anymore — you are.
If our parents can’t see our life choices as valid for no other reason than we’re single (or we’re not employed the way they want us to be, or we don’t have kids yet, or, or, or), then I’m not sure that they ever can hear their child’s genuine perspective and receive it. Here’s what blows my bonfire out: Do they not trust their own handiwork? Their children are people they raised, do they not trust the work they’ve put in to result in life decisions that are a good idea? Like, we are literally your fault, so why do you doubt us so much?
Further, and this is just for my single pals, isn’t it just the tits that the whole reason our families feel like we’re not fully cooked yet is that we haven’t legally bound ourselves to someone they didn’t raise? AKA a stranger? They’ve known us since conception but they’d just feel better about things with someone new involved. What the actual bubbling fuck.
I don’t think its our job to teach our parents that we’re valid, whole, and capable. If they don’t already know that before we accomplish the thing they think we need to accomplish, I’d be pretty steamed if they suddenly believed it afterward. Oh, thank heavens, you’re married [or insert major life thing] now. Whew! We feel so much better about you as a person. Y’all that’s insulting.
So what do we do? I don’t expect us to simply stew in a prison of immobility, I’m not a monster. There are, I think, action items available, and while they may sting a bit, like that Bactine our folks were so fond of, in the end…we heal.
In my opinion, to feel better, to feel free, to feel like we own the life that we do, in fact, own…we separate from our parents. Not in a dramatic, cut-them-off and take up rooms on the Lower East Side, never to be seen again except by the dude who delivers the weed sort of way. I mean separating in conscious, productive ways that establish our authority over our own lives, which we shouldn’t really have to do but…let’s.
First, understand that your parents are not the authority. Not anymore. I know we’re maybe still reliant on their approval because it feels better to make decisions that have their backing, but what that’s also doing is leaving them in charge of a life that doesn’t belong to them. We tend to think of freedom from our parents in terms of the fun stuff we can do that they never allowed, but this also extends to the big decisions they have no business making for us any longer. Your parents are not the ones who approve things anymore — you are. Sit with that for awhile.
The second way I think we separate is by removing our parents as our “Most Important Person.” We’ve been taught and shown the (bullshit) necessity of having a human pillar, someone we’re supposed to lash ourselves to with sailor’s knots, the one we “run things by.” From birth to 18, that’s our parents. And in many ways it should be. The unfortunate part is in thinking that you still need a Most Important Person when you’re an adult, because that’s going to lead us toward chasing a romantic partner as a replacement. No replacement is necessary. You are now the Most Important Person in your own life. Your decisions no longer need approval from anyone but you. I know that’s scary, but it’s also delicious.
Becoming the pillar you used to lean against sets you free. Recognizing your own authority sets you free. And moving from a place of depending on your parents blessings to simply thinking they’re nice opens the door to your future. We can love without needing. We can respect without shrinking. And while we can’t “fix” our parents, that was never our job. It was their job to raise us, and now it’s time for them to trust their work.