How aparentchooses to punish their kids is, within reason, up to them. Doing the discipline dance with your children can be fraught with danger though, especially if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Some parents find this out the hard way.
For one woman, her and her husband’s decision to withhold birthday presents for their teen son’s 16th and 17th birthday came back to bite them. Now that their son is in his twenties and they desperately need money for medical bills, he’s cut them off entirely.
More info:Reddit
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Revenge is a dish best served cold, as this woman and her husband found out much to their chagrin
Image credits:senivpetro / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits:Keira Burton / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Now that their son is in his mid-twenties and earning well, the couple asked for his help to pay his dad’s medical bills
Image credits:Natanael Melchor / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Their son told them to get lost in no uncertain terms, but the dad wouldn’t stop pestering him
Image credits:anonymous
The woman has begged her husband to quit asking, fearing it will drive their son away even further, but turned to the web to ask if doing so was a jerk move
Now that he’s 24 and financially secure, OP says that her son has cut them off entirely. She adds that, recently, her husband had a medicalemergency, leaving them with a mountain of bills. Struggling to cope, the couple reached out to their son for help. He flatly refused, crushing his dad who is apparently filled withregretabout how they treated him in the past.
According to OP, her husband is heartbroken because every time he reaches out to their son for help or to try to fix things, he’s met with anger or silence. Now, finally, OP has pleaded with her husband to stop asking their son for money, fearing it will drive him even further away from reconciliation.
From what she tells us in her post, it would seem that OP, and to a greater extent, her husband feel entitled to a portion of their grown son’s wealth, despite their harsh treatment of him when he was a developing adult.
But what, if anything, does the son owe his parents? And is there any way for OP and her husband to repair the relationship with him? We went looking for answers.
Image credits:freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
In herpostfor the Institute for Family Studies, Ashley McGuire writes that it would seem that at the root of familial breakdown is a lost sense of obligation: husbands and wives to each other, parents to their children, and children to their parents.
McGuire goes on to add that a culture steeped in radical individualism has given people license to abandon their most fundamental obligations to their primary communities: their families.
Despite this, most children are surprisingly keen to help their folks out. Nearlytwo-thirdsof children surveyed say they plan to provide their parents with at least some financial aid. The same percentage of those surveyed said they were even willing to let their parents stay with them once they retire.
If OP and her husband hadn’t been so reckless with their punishment when their son was in his teens, who knows, they might have been reaping the benefits now that he’s older and they need the help. Is there anything they can do to turn things around?
In herarticlefor HuffPost, Marie Holmes writes that, if you’re hoping to reconnect with an adult child who you’ve became estranged from, you should do your own work before reaching out, respect your child’s boundaries, be prepared to listen, and, crucially, show them that you see their perspective.
Only time (and a lot of soul searching) will tell if OP and her husband can mend fences with their rightfully disdainful son. Perhaps they should start with an apology rather than a demand.
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