Dear Carolyn: Our 24-year-old daughter, “Kate,” moved back in with us. She and I get along well, but she and her mom butt heads. My wife is disappointed Kate did not go straight to graduate school after college and doesn’t seem to have a plan. I trust that Kate will get it together. I did odd jobs for at least five years out of college before heading to business school, and that seems even more normal these days than it did then.
I am not sure how to broker peace between these two. When I tell either of them to let things go, they suggest I am being sexist. It has reached the point where I really only enjoy their company separately, which is too bad because it’s not a very large house. — Keeping the Peace
Keeping the Peace: Your wife is entitled to all her feelings, but she’s not entitled to dump her judgments and unmet expectations on a fellow adult. Not even one who’s back home. It’s boundary time.
Please set aside a time to have this out with your wife, when your daughter isn’t around and you’re calm and you don’t need to be somewhere anytime soon.
“This is not about whether you’re right. It’s about your standing to judge an adult’s path through life. Plus, your frustration isn’t helping: It’s weighing you down, it’s weighing Kate down, it’s not motivating her to do or decide anything faster, and it’s exhausting for me to watch. And I’d be a hypocrite to condone it, because I took time to sort things out at that age.
“So: Can you see any value in letting go and trusting Kate?”
If it’s an absolute no, then please consider family therapy. Go without your wife if she refuses.
I find myself wondering whether she just wanted her nest to stay empty, and complaints about Kate’s career choices are easier ones to express.
As for the “being sexist” charge, perhaps drop “let things go” from your lexicon.
Readers’ suggestions:
• As someone who went straight to grad school after undergrad, I’m not convinced it was the truly better decision. Older students in my cohort had a better developed sense of why they were in the program and what they wanted to get out of it.
• I graduated in 2011, right into the recession, and moved back home, and my mother and I fought constantly. I was applying for retail, and she was disappointed. I was applying for entry-level administrative-assistant positions, and she was disappointed. She thought that because I had gone to college, I was settling by taking anything that sounded menial to her. At a time when I needed support and some space, I got neither.
• When you tell them to “let things go,” you diminish things that are clearly important to them that they want to discuss, and it’s patronizing. If you weren’t invited into their conversation, then stay out of it — your opinion on every little thing is not needed.
• I am a professor and also the graduate coordinator, and I urge students not to go directly to graduate school. Without any experience, often they are over-credentialed; employers would prefer the college graduate whom they can train.
