Question
It was with great pride we attended our daughter's graduation last year. Although very costly, since she studied abroad, we felt it was worth every penny as she is both intelligent and hard-working, and graduated with honours. She has plans for further study, and thankfully, good job prospects.
Since she returned home, however, I have become increasingly worried about her. She seems withdrawn and often depressed, sometimes sleeping all weekend. Many of her former school friends have moved on and it's like she no longer belongs in our town. She socialised and had friends while at university, but these, too, moved back into their own lives and she has already lost contact. Her younger brothers and sisters, in contrast, who still live at home have loads of friends, and the phone and mobiles never stop ringing. I understand how unsettling it must have been to leave as a teenager and return home a young adult. She is proud and will not confide in me. I don't feel comfortable raising the issue.
Do I accept this as a normal transition in life and leave her to find her own feet at her own pace? Or do you think there might be something more serious that needs to be tackled? It simply breaks my heart when I see her like this. And I sometimes wonder did we do the right thing for her, allowing her go off to college.
Answer
Have you asked yourself why you don't feel comfortable talking to your daughter about her obvious distress? Even though you clearly have some insight into how hard it might be for her? I know you say she's proud, but that honestly doesn't convey anything really. Do you call her proud because she doesn't ask for help? Or because she doesn't raise any issues with you? And why would that be pride rather than, say, helplessness?
Yes, I am challenging you, but not to be nasty. You're holding back from helping, and you need to examine the emotions which hinder you from doing the obvious, namely talking to your daughter, holding her close, telling her how precious she is. You are frozen, not by your daughter, but by your own heart and mind. You need to find out why, not just for your daughter's sake, but for your own. You are clearly a good person. What is stopping you from doing the good and kind and right thing, namely opening a clear channel of communication with your child?
Sitting on the outside, all I can do is paint a possible scenario. You must pick and choose, or dismiss it entirely, as you see fit, since you have the actual facts, and I have not.
Anger is the emotion most likely to pin a person down, particularly a good person like you, because inherent kindness prevents free expression of rage. So maybe you are angry. The cost of going to your daughter's graduation wasn't just financial. The big show about her success meant that you had invested a lot emotionally in her capacity to deliver - her ability to give you something to be proud of. And now? Now she's sleeping whole weekends away and has no friends. So where does that leave your pride, your hopes, your sense of achievement?
Disappointment, I've discovered, is perhaps the hardest feeling of all to handle. And while much is made of parental ambition in terms of money, career and social position, what we most want is that the children are happy - as measured in phones ringing, things to do, places to go, laughter, lots of good stories about the times they've had. Nothing taunts us like an unhappy child. And particularly a child for whom we've gone out on a limb, financially or otherwise. We sort of feel that they owe it to us to be happy. Otherwise we've failed, our efforts were in vain. We are deeply disappointed.
I know this is going to sound difficult. But what you need to do is separate yourself from your daughter. Try to think of her as someone you simply know well, and whose distress is apparent. Sure, you love her, but try and see her not as the product of your parenting, but as an independent human being, to whom you have unique access. In short, take yourself out of the equation - well, in as far as you can. To do that, of course, you need to search your soul, find the lines of attachment which have been thwarted by your daughter's unhappiness, and unhook them.
Or think about it this way. At the moment your daughter doesn't need a mother, with all the emotional baggage that automatically entails. She needs a friend. And what would a friend do?
