11 Things Adult Kids Should Never Feel Forced To Do For Their Parents
Setting boundaries is crucial for maintaining a healthy relationship with parents during adulthood.
Zivica Kerkez | Shutterstock All relationships change over time, even within families. As kids age, it can be hard for parents to let them separate and accept that they have independent lives. At the same time, it can be hard for adult kids to acknowledge that their parents are getting older, too.
Adult children face unique challenges as they watch their parents grow older, but they should never feel obligated to do things for their parents that jeopardize their own well-being. Setting boundaries and finding balance is the best way for parents and their adult kids to stay close as time goes on.
Here are 11 things adult kids should never feel forced to do for their parents:
1. Let them move in
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Aging is never an easy process, but even so, adult kids should never feel forced to let their parents move in with them. Every family unit operates differently, and what works for one set of adult kids and their parents won’t automatically work for another. Older parents might need more practical support than they once did, but moving in with their adult kids isn’t always the right solution.
As harsh as it might seem, adult kids don’t owe their parents anything, and they’re not automatically responsible for their caretaking as they enter old age. In a healthy family dynamic, parents recognize that their adult kids need to prioritize themselves.
“Healthy parenting includes trying to create a loving environment, supporting your child so that their talents and interests thrive, and guiding them as they increasingly build their own life,” Psychologist Dr. Margaret Rutherford explained.
When parents rely on their kids to meet their needs, it can create a “very complicated dynamic of enmeshment.”
According to Dr. Rutherford, in a pattern of enmeshment, “the parent expects or even demands loyalty and doesn’t celebrate their child’s independence… When the child reaches adulthood, they can be stricken by guilt for simply wanting and needing their own life.”
Adult kids have the right to establish emotional and physical distance from their parents, no matter how their parents’ needs change with age.
2. Fund their retirement
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Adult kids should never feel forced to fund their parents' retirement. Even though parents are the sole source of financial support during their kids’ younger years, their kids shouldn’t be expected to pay them back once they grow up.
Still, a significant portion of adult kids support their parents and their own kids. According to the Pew Research Center, 54% of people in their 40s are part of “the sandwich generation,” meaning they have a parent who’s 65 or older at the same time that they’re raising a child under 18 or have an adult child they’re supporting financially.
A separate study from the University of Michigan revealed that sandwich-generation caregivers were twice as likely to report financial difficulties as parental caregivers who weren’t also supporting their own kids.
Researcher Donovan Maust pointed out that sandwich generations are “caught in this ‘trilemma’ of being caregivers to two generations and members of the workforce at the same time.”
As emotionally taxing as it can be for adult kids to witness their parents’ transition to retirement, they shouldn’t feel forced to take on their parent’s financial burdens.
3. Manage their emotions
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Adult kids should never feel responsible for managing their parents’ emotions. Being emotionally validating and empathic doesn’t mean carrying the weight of someone else’s emotions. As the Lukin Center for Psychotherapy explained, “We hope that people will care and respect our needs, but it is our responsibility as an individual to take ownership of ourselves and well-being.”
Setting emotional boundaries requires people to acknowledge that “their emotional well-being is within their control regardless of what might be happening for another person.” The Lukin Center pointed out, "We can practice communication, empathy, respect, and care with someone and still practice emotional boundaries to protect ourselves.”
When adult kids set emotional boundaries, it doesn’t mean they ignore or disregard their parents’ feelings. It means they’re taking care of themselves first to stay connected to their parents healthily.
4. Have kids because they want grandchildren
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Becoming a parent is an extremely personal and emotional decision, and adult kids should never feel forced to do it for their own parents. Parents who pressure their adult kids to have kids of their own usually do so with good intentions: They love their children, and by extension, they would love their grandchildren.
Yet, in the same vein as setting emotional boundaries, adult kids aren’t responsible for making their parents’ dreams of being grandparents come true. As harsh as it sounds, the reality is that for adult kids, raising their kids lasts way longer than their parents will live. Adult kids don’t exist to fulfill their parents' wishes, especially when those wishes are emotionally fraught.
5. Follow in their professional footsteps
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Parents want their adult kids to succeed, yet part of success means having agency over their own lives. Parents can’t define success for their kids, no matter how much they want to. Adult kids should never feel forced to follow the same professional path as their parents.
Healthy relationships require parents to step back and relinquish control over the decisions their adult kids make. It might not be easy, but letting kids have their own lives is essential.
“Parents who want to hover and control their children’s lives will tend to want to control their adult children’s lives, too,” coach Kathy Ramsperger explained. “They have the expectation that their child should do what they would do or what they’d advise.”
“That is seldom the case,” she continued. “With a new generation comes a new world perspective.”
In demanding that their adult kids do as they did, parents are “setting them up on the road to indecision and doubt, anger, and resentment.”
When parents hold onto the expectation that their adult kids should move through the world the same way they did, they deny them the opportunity to find their own passion and purpose.
6. Always be available
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Adult kids should never feel forced to always be available for their parents, no matter how much their parents expect them to be. Staying in touch is easier now than ever, but that doesn’t mean adult kids must pick up the phone whenever their parents call. They’re allowed to leave texts unanswered and ignore their parents when they FaceTime them.
“No matter how natural it is to want to keep your kids close, it is essential to keep a balanced view and see your children as separate people who are eventually going to grow up and have their own lives,” psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten explained.
She pointed out that “parents who become overinvested in maintaining a very close relationship (by their definition) with their adult kids can be very hurt and react in dramatic ways when their kids try to individuate.”
“So many adult children in this dynamic wish their parents would just ‘get a life’ and be happy so that they could stop worrying about the parent constantly and feeling like their parent’s happiness rides or dies on whether they texted that day,” she shared.
Limited availability does not reflect how much adult kids love their parents; it’s just an indication that they have their own lives to tend to.
7. Go home for the holidays
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The holidays are meant to be joyful times, but parents shouldn’t automatically expect their adult kids to come home for each one. Even if their parents insist, adult kids should never feel forced to celebrate holidays with their parents. They have every right to establish their own traditions, separate from what their parents want.
Setting boundaries around holidays can cause tension, but ultimately, it allows adult kids to love their parents and themselves simultaneously.
“Boundaries aren’t a bad thing or about being selfish or disrespectful. Setting boundaries is a powerful, liberating act of self-care,” Psychotherapist Robin D. Stone shared.
“Setting limits can set you free. If you don’t set limits or guardrails for how you operate in your relationships, you will end up drifting into your zones of discomfort, leading to frustration, anger, and self-blame,” she explained.
If adult kids feel pressured to spend holidays at home, the holiday cheer their parents hoped for will likely not exist.
8. Take part in family conflicts
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Adult kids should never feel forced to take sides in family conflicts, especially when it interferes with their inner peace. Within families, long-established patterns can be hard to recognize, especially regarding conflict resolution.
As Embark Behavioral Health explained, parents in dysfunctional family systems often assign roles to their kids, whether consciously or not. If kids were expected to mediate their parents’ conflicts, they usually struggle to break free from that role, even as adults.
Peacekeepers try to “resolve conflicts and maintain harmony within the family, often at their own expense. They may sacrifice their emotional needs to provide what their siblings or parents need.”
For adult kids in this situation, focusing on their well-being becomes more important than maintaining peace. There’s no rule that they must continue harmful patterns; putting distance between their parents and themselves is often the only solution.
9. Follow their advice
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It’s entirely normal for parents to give their children advice when they are young, but by the time their children reach adulthood, they should recognize that their children don’t need the same amount of guidance. No matter how freely it is dispensed, adult children should never feel forced to follow their parents’ advice.
According to therapist Merle Yost, “A parent's job is to help create an adult and launch them into the world so they can take care of themselves.”
“It is essential that the parent back off and allow the adult child to make their own mistakes and decisions. It is part of growing up,” he explained.
“Interfering in the adult child's life can push them away and create a problematic relationship,” he continued. “It says: I don't trust you. You are not smart enough to know what is best for you. You are incompetent and not an adult.”
More than anything, adult kids want to feel like they’re in the driver’s seat of their own lives, which often means rejecting their parents' advice.
10. Prioritize their parents’ health for the sake of their own
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As difficult as it can be to accept, declining health is part of the aging process. Parents might struggle to navigate their health issues, but adult kids should never feel forced to prioritize their parents’ health for the sake of their own.
It’s one thing for adult kids to drive their parents to the occasional appointment, but it’s something else altogether to assume all responsibility for their parents’ health. If their parents do need additional support that they don’t have the bandwidth for, adult kids should feel free to set limits around what they can do. No person can be everything to someone else, even someone they love, including parents and their adult kids.
11. Forgive them instantly
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No parent is ever perfect, just as no child is perfect, either. Part of loving someone means loving them for who they are, with all their flaws and the inevitable mistakes they’ll make. Even so, adult kids should never feel forced to forgive their parents instantly just because their parents are seeking forgiveness.
According to psychologist Dr. Jack Stoltzfus, a sincere apology “identifies some past action for which you take responsibility without any ‘buts.’ You indicate that you are genuinely sorry for what you have done and will not do this in the future. You offer to make some amends if this is possible.”
“You may request forgiveness but understand that this may not be given, and your apology cannot be contingent on forgiveness,” he explained.
“An apology is the heart’s attempt to connect through the emotional vulnerability of sadness and remorse,” Dr. Stoltzfus shared. “We owe it to our kids, no matter what age, to step up, be the bigger person, and allow them to see our love in this way.”
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.