Impending Grandparenthood

What keeps me up at night

With my oldest being 19 years old and moved out I could be a grandmother at any time. It keeps me up at night thinking about my children growing up and starting their own families. I know that they will each marry a person that was brought up differently than they were, and together they will live life in a way different for both of them. I was blessed to marry a man that, despite having a medical upbringing, let's me raise our children holistically. My first husband was not that way. When I expressed my desire to have a home birth I was completely shut down and I agreed to a hospital birth to make my first husband happy. At the time it was not a big deal to me. I was happy to make my husband happy. I cringe when I imagine my own daughters going through a similar experience. I pray that there are men being prepared for them that are as willing as my husband to trust them to decide the type of experience my grandchildren will be brought into the world. As for my sons, I pray that they will be prepared to choose their wives over their mother. I know that I will try to enlighten the women that my sons marry, and I pray that I will be able to do so gracefully.

 In an article titled Who Is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families by Richard B. Miller PhD, it says " The parent-child hierarchy dissolves when children become adults. In healthy families, the parents no longer exercise control or expect their adult children to obey them. They no longer have the right or responsibility to tell their adult children what to do. It is now the stewardship of the adult children to make decisions concerning their own families."

My mother really struggled with this. Granted four of her six children all wanted to do adult things before they were actually adults, but marriage of her children is what got her to step out. I can remember going to my parents after I was married, to ask them what to do, and they told me they could not tell me what to do. They gave me several different scenarios that they could see played out and offered me general advice to pray and read my scriptures, to seek for answers through the Holy Ghost. 

I hope that I am able to step out more gracefully than my mother, but mostly I hope that I will be strong enough to offer the same suggestions to my children. 

Can you remember specific power struggles with your parents? Do you think you are heavily influenced by those experiences?