I know that I have so much to be grateful for in my DS (18). He is very happy and very popular. His life choices though are bringing me down which I know is related to my past. I had a tough upbring –parents in menial jobs where money was a major source of angst between my parents (e.g. my mum had to get solicitors involved to get housekeeping money from my dad) and my home life was emotionally and physically abusive. Every day was filled with anxiety about when/if something was going to kick off. While all this was going on, I vowed that when I had control of my life it would be entirely different to what I was going through. Luckily (or maybe because of my home life), I loved school – it was civilised and predictable unlike home and I loved learning. I was the only one in my family to go to uni, got a first at a top uni and a well paid job. I had my son on my own (100% OK with that), and he’s never gone without. He’s seen me working my socks off and with some people that instils in them a good work ethic. As I mentioned above, he’s always been popular. On leaving primary school, he got into a top secondary school (he was tutored for that but they said he was bright) and I expected everything to be plain sailing but it hasn’t. After a few years at the school, I realised that it had quite a progressive mindset (absolutely nothing about this in the open evenings/school literature) such that he was allowed to get away with not handing work in. Unlike me, he’s doesn’t have a love of learning so was quite happy with this hands off approach but it meant that he fell behind in his work, became unpopular with the teachers, then he disliked school, was even less inclined to do work etc – a vicious cycle being established. He was also unbelievably disorganised generally. GCSEs was a torturous process – it was as if he’d never been to school at all and after his GCSEs he was diagnosed with ADD (by a psychiatrist). Whilst he was going downhill at school, he got into train spotting, which became consuming and he became part of that community. It’s a full on passion which, if you’re not into trains (me), is hard to understand. Fast forward to the current day, he’s now a few months off doing A levels and massively behind as before – although not as bad as the GCSEs. He’s still a passionate train spotter spending as much time as possible doing that – literally loads of time [he definitely doesn’t have autism BTW).What I’m finding difficult is that every single one of my friends/family have children who are heading off to university and are growing up in their approach to life i.e. are looking forward to moving away from home, living independently, having their lives open up.In contrast, my DS can’t wait to leave school and has his sights set on working on the railways – that is in a mundane, undemanding job (that will allow him to see trains) and says that he’s never leaving home. It’s as if his friends lives are going to keep developing – meeting new friends etc – whereas my son’s life will be stagnating. His new friends (work colleagues) will be a bunch of mainly middle aged men. He’s a truly lovely boy (happy, affectionate) but I feel quite bereft inside.When out for lunch with a friend recently who was telling me how her son was thriving at uni both academically and in life generally (living in a house share), and how this was an important life phase, I found myself blurting out, “Oh my God, this is making me so sad” and I felt quite tearful. I’ve just spent the day yesterday with two other people and again felt really down afterwards on hearing about their children’s plans for the future – travel, uni, aspiration.One of these has a son who also has ADHD and on getting the right medication, has been transformed and almost instantly grown up. My son says his medication doesn’t work and has no interest in addressing his ADHD i.e. it took him a year to tell me that the medication he was on was not actually having any effect and he has no interest in looking at strategies that my help him life more adaptively with his ADHD symptoms. It’s like myself and my friends were all good parents but it’s paying off for them in the way their children are developing; whereas for me it hasn’t. I just feel like my escape from my childhood has been for nothing and that my son is taking himself right back there (which kills me) – a mundane job (that allows him to see trains) with low pay, and all the struggles I know that will bring as he’s used to the sort of life I’ve given him. I think the bottom line is that I’m an aspirational person so seeing a complete lack of that in my nearest and dearest is a real struggle for me. I’m not really sure why I’m posting – I suppose it’s just to have an offload. If anyone has any insights though I’m open to them.