When parents try to control their children’s life, even if they are grown up and old enough to make their own decisions, they overstep a certain boundary for me. I already wrote something about how much other people try to influence or comment on the life of other human beings.
But when parents try to influence or take away decisions of their children it is even worse. Their children trust in their opinion and hope for their support, they are more vulnerable in their position as their child. It´s okay to tell your children your opinion when they ask for it but to influence or manipulate your children to still have control over them is just so shady. Either you don’t trust in your child and its ability to make decisions, which basically means you screwed up as a parent, or you can’t let go of your control and your power over your child. Congrats that’s as bad as the other option.
I understand that it is hard to let your child go, but interfering its life is a pretty bad way. Just imagine you’re not happy with someone your child is dating. You haven’t even met this person; you just don’t like the fact that there is someone in its life. You try to influence your child to stay away. You not only influence the life of one person but of two. Who gave you the right for this? Maybe they would have a lovely relationship, or they break up after a while. It is not your business. But it will definitely affect your relationship in an awful way. From my point of view this only leads to your child hating and disrespecting you. They will start to realize what you are doing, and they won’t like it. They will feel as you don’t respect them and have no tiny bit of faith in their abilities. Your child could decide to stay away from you and not to talk to you anymore.
And even if not, do you really want your adult child to depend on you for forever? Don’t you want to see what kind of person it became? If you take away or influence the decision you probably get the outcome you want, great, but your child can not only be absolutely miserable about it but also losses its own identity. We show our personality and character in so many ways. For me one of the most important ones are the decisions that we make. It shows what kind of person we are, are we kind and helpful, are we cruel and ignorant, do we try to keep everyone happy? Is it really worth it to destroy your relationship and the personality of your child for staying in control and get what you want?