Tiptoe Parenting

One of the best parts of aging has been the full-out fun of young adult children. The taskmaster days of ensuring that homework is completed, showers are taken, and moral compasses remain pointing north are over, and in their wake an easier and freer family bond has emerged. These days, our family feels more like a peacetime NATO conference. We’re definitely a united front, but we’re also happily accustomed to doing our own thing within our own borders. The challenge comes (and of course it does come) when your young adult children find themselves confronted by a difficult and consequential decision, one they may or may not be fully ready to tackle on their own. As a parent, you look down the road they are traveling and believe that you can see every pothole, speed trap, and homicidal hitchhiker lying in wait. But now that they are grown and living independently, is it still your place or responsibility to tell them?

I have come to refer to this situation as tiptoe parenting and this is where I find myself today as

my twenty-five-year-old daughter navigates a career change that will impact the future of her

emotional, professional, and financial well-being. She is at a crossroads, and I am trying to softly

walk beside her, gauging when to advise, when to just listen, and when to offer concrete help.

My balancing act has definitely been less than ideal and I’m sure she would suggest that while I

might think that I am tiptoeing, I am doing so in size 16 Doc Martens.When they were growing up, I would always tell my children that there wasn’t a problem in the world we couldn't figure out

together.

Today, I sense that what my daughter truly wants from me is to just trust her to find her own way, regardless of how unsure she is of what that will be. I love her confidence as much as I fear the difficulties she may face with her choices, and the conflicted emotions have been the cause of a good amount of lost sleep. It has also stirred my own memories of a fresh-faced and confident twenty-two-year-old who moved herself to New York City some thirty years ago to take on a high-powered executive training program only to discover three months into it that she was miserable. That young woman made a change and found her own way along with some lasting life lessons, and I have no doubt that my daughter

will do the same. Perhaps it’s time for me to stop tiptoeing so she can run.