This book can be considered a manual for how to parent adult children. But you will not find step-by-step directions. That’s because, as you likely have found with your own children by what led you to this book, their decisions and life choices now most likely do not seek your opinion or guidance. That doesn’t stop you from loving them. It merely means they are out of your control.
What may be most helpful for you now is to seek other parents who share common issues and concerns about their adult children. You may have such people in your life, and that is well and good because community can be very supportive and understanding.
But for those times when you are searching your soul and wanting so deeply to wrap your arms around your adult child to steer them, or you are angry, mad, hurt, worried, or wanting to defend them, quiet reflection can bring you peace about the matter.
These meditations about parenting adult children pull from the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and offer a look not at the main characters of those scriptures but at their parents. They are written as if the parents of the person in the scripture have brought their situation to a spiritual director who will listen with a holy ear, not trying to fix the situation but rather to hear their deepest thoughts and concerns and perhaps offer some questions to ponder. This is about you, the parent, coming to peace with your new role, not about your child’s thoughts or feelings.
