11 Old-Fashioned Things Parents Still Expect From Their Adult Children
It's not easy to adopt or accept new roles in your family relationships as you enter adulthood, but it is necessary.
Inside Creative House | Shutterstock.com Many young people entering into their independent lives as grown-ups find themselves surprised and frustrated when they realize there are certain old-fashioned things many parents still expect from their adult children. Often without realizing they are doing it, parents will apply pressure on their adult kids, overstepping boundaries as both parents and children struggle to find their way with shifting roles in their family dynamic.
By recognizing these traditional expectations for what they are, especially those that might inadvertently sabotage the health of your family relationships, parents and their children can work together to find the right balance of quality time, communication, and affection with your adult kids without sacrificing anyone's emotional well-being.
Here are the 11 old-fashioned things parents still expect from their adult children
1. Regular phone calls and visits
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Many parents feel the urge to be in constant contact with their children, and this tendency doesn’t just appear in adulthood when they’re battling relational disconnect, but early in their lives. Educators even name this tendency as a major disruptor in their classrooms, with parents texting and calling their kids and expecting an immediate response.
In adulthood, this old-fashioned expectation has more to do with respect. Do your parents respect your adult identity and autonomy, or are they more concerned with asserting their superiority and entitlement over you?
Even with something like a missed phone call or text message, they can rely on guilt-tripping to get what they want.
2. Discussing major life decisions
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Letting go of adult children and accepting their autonomy to navigate, craft, and make decisions for their own life can be a struggle for all parents, whether they’re considered healthy and supportive or not. Change in a relationship that’s remained stagnant for decades isn’t easy and redefining your role and place within it is even more difficult.
Unhealthy pressures and old-fashioned expectations from parents only work to alienate and push away adult children from their families. Let them be who they are going to be, make decisions for their life, and navigate adulthood without your veil of criticism and judgement.
If they make a mistake, be there to support them, but never blame them for not seeking out your advice first, they’re an adult capable of making their own decisions.
3. Caretaking in their old age
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Discussions of caretaking in old age can spark resentment and anxiety in many families, as there’s a lot of nuance, financial pressure, and societal expectation placed on adult children in this position.
Many parents expect their kids to take care of them in their old age, even when they have the financial means to pay for help, which can put a heavy emotional and social burden on their kids.
Motivated by their own anxieties and fears, parents may struggle to recognize the stress and personal turmoil their adult children may face in a caretaking role, creating a dynamic in which everyone feels misunderstood and unheard in conversations about the future.
4. Maintaining a traditional or successful family image
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Adult children struggling in their personal lives and careers often feel invalidated, unsupported, and dismissed by their parents who prioritize traditional old-school values like maintaining the “perfect” family image.
They may ignore their children’s suffering or struggles to protect their image, only further alienating their kids and sparking resentment.
While it can sometimes be a motivating pressure for adult children to appease their parents and make them proud, something that all kids have an innate urge to do, according to psychologist Michelle P. Maidenberg, expectations of maintaining a perfect image are more dismissive and derogatory than healthy.
5. Prioritizing family over personal time
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Especially as adult children start new intimate relationships and families, disconnect between parents is inevitable, but not necessarily unhealthy. What does typically become unhealthy is an insecure parent’s response to this disconnect, typically resorting to manipulative tactics like guilt-tripping to shame their adult children into spending more time with them.
Unfortunately many traditional parents struggle to view their children in their unique adult identities, making it difficult for them to respect their boundaries and personal lives. They feel innately entitled to their time, energy, and attention, even once they’ve moved out, started their own families, and entered a new stage in their lives.
While it might be one of the old-fashioned things parents still expect from their adult children, it’s okay to set boundaries as an adult child to protect your time and emotional wellbeing. You deserve to spend time with your partner, your in-laws, your kids, or another relationship over your parents without feeling guilty or anxious about it.
6. Immediately responding to texts
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According to experts from the Orange County Health Psychologists organization, it’s necessary for parents and adult children to re-evaluate roles in their relationship once they enter into adulthood or a new life stage.
The old communication habits, boundaries, and expectations that defined your childhood aren’t going to be relevant to your adult interactions — like expecting an immediate response to a text or accepting an uninvited visit.
7. Respecting their elders
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Many people argue that the phrase “Respect your elders!” has become logically flawed and problematic, especially within parent-child relationships into adulthood. Respect, much like trust, is something that needs to be earned in relationships, it’s not something that we need to embody in the face of rudeness, disrespect, or criticism.
When parents expect their kids to respect everyone, even adults that are fundamentally toxic to their lives or rude to their faces, they dismiss their true emotions and invalidate their feelings.
Supportive and healthy parents celebrate their adult children in setting boundaries with people who disrespect them, even if it’s uncomfortable or “nontraditional.”
8. Grandchildren
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While grandchildren and having kids were once a traditional rite of passage for married couples and adult children, the reality of the modern world is that this trend is quickly disappearing. For a number of reasons, from financial burden to the environment, adult children today are largely opting out of the traditional life path leading to having children of their own.
While they might’ve made this decision in their relationships, that doesn’t remove the traditional pressures many feel from their parents, family members, and society.
According to a YouGov survey, nearly 15% of adult children face pressures from their parents wanting grandchildren whilst making the decision on whether or not to have children, with 6% naming societal pressure as a major contributor.
9. Financial independence
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Of course, especially in the modern world, where so many young adults are struggling with financial stability, independence, and paying for basic necessities like rent, it’s not uncommon for parents to help support their adult children. However, most operate under a sense of traditional stereotypes and norms about financial independence that can spark resentment, enabling behaviors, and emotional turmoil in family dynamics.
According to parent coach and psychologist Jeffrey Bernstein, healthy parents may occasionally offer financial support and problem-solving techniques (rather than rescuing) to their adult children to ensure they’re not enabling and to protect their wellbeing.
On the other hand, traditional parents may expect their adult children to be completely self-sufficient, pushing them away not just financially — by choice or necessity — but emotionally, as well.
10. Constant excitement, growth, and success
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Whether it’s moving forward with starting a family, getting a promotion at work, or indulging in a new creative outlet, many parents expect their kids to be constantly innovating and adding excitement to their lives, even if they’re not doing it personally.
Living vicariously through their children in early adulthood, many parents fulfill themselves and pour into their own self-esteem through the actions of their kids.
While this behavior is typically innocent and non-threatening, it can cause a sense of pressure towards adult children to be constantly excelling without breaks or rest.
11. Living close to home
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Many parents struggle with letting their children move away from home, especially if it’s going to sabotage the quality and quantity of time they share together in person.
Typically over-dependent and traditionalist, parents of adult children inadvertently push away their kids by expecting them to fall in line with their expectations rather than pursuing their one unique interests and goals.
While there’s a larger trend for younger folks today to remain in their parent’s home into adulthood out of financial necessity, there’s also cultural factors that contribute to multigenerational family homes and a pressure to remain close to family that can sometimes harm adult children.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.