When do adult children stop defaulting to teenagers?

[daraghdecember]

Very upset with my 23 year old dd who is staying for 2 weeks this xmas. She holds down a responsible job in another city, is perfectly capable of looking after herself and is fantastically courteous and lovely to the parents of her friends.

With me, however, she lapses into being an argumentative teen. So:

1. I've done alot this xmas to try and make it special. All I get back is her being hyper critical of me in particular and nit picking/finding fault.

1. She's made one family meal since being her. Seems to be happy to take and not give. I'm happy to cover all food and drink costs but would have liked her to at least offer to make a few more family meals. At 23, I don't think I should have to spell this out to her.

1. Appears to be using the house as a hotel base to sleep, eat, make minimal contribution whilst she catches up with friends pretty much every day whilst here. Again, this would be fine if at other times she behaved in a pleasant, loving way that wanted to spend time with us. So the other day we went for a walk. She spent the first 20 minutes on her phone messaging friends. I did say it was rude to do this so she reluctantly put it in her pocket.

I am starting to think I don't want to do this again. Might rethink next year...

I suspect this is very common behaviour if you have parents who persist in treating you like a teenager even though you are a capable adult with your own home, family, professional job etc. My parents do the same. Impossible to have an adult/adult relationship in this dynamic. So makes sense to refuse to share your current life.

I would say I was like that until I had my own kids, embarrassingly!

Nailed it.

With me it has helped to stop thinking of DD as an adult child, and to think of her as a visiting adult relative instead.

Maybe think about your interactions with her, and see if there's any behaviour of yours that you could tweak. DD very firmly puts me in my place (quite rightly too) if I forget! She told DH and me off for squabbling yesterday.😂

Are you treating her like an adult or like a teenager? My mum used to say this about me when I was a similar age but she still thought of me as a child who was at her beck and call rather than an adult with whom you might share out tasks. So for instance with meals in later years we’d agree to take turns or we’d sit down together at the start of the holidays and plan some kind of cooking rota and what we’d make, which was actually fun. With the going out with friends we would again say ok you’re out XYZ days and I’m out XYZ evenings so we’ve got these times together. Previously she’d just expect me to be at home and feel annoyed when I’d made plans with other people.

My mum has a tendency to be hyper critical of any family member esp in her house but she (laughably to me) thinks I’m “picking on her” if I say anything in the least negative eg that I’ve thrown out the jam as it had gone mouldy. It’s not even a criticism but the way our parent child relationship works is that she is allowed, maybe even supposed to criticise me (clothes, how I slice an onion, my friends, how I walk the dog) but I’m not allowed to say anything that even implies negativity to her. So OP check you’re not of this mindset too as it’s exhausting to be around.

I think we all default a bit when we go home, until the roles flip and you end up parenting the DP.

I would be very explicit about what you expect her to do. If you want her to cook every third night then tell her, likewise clearing up etc. You may not want to have to tell her, but to be fair to her she can't be responsible for you quietly seething about something when she has no idea what that is. Think of it as training her for other people when she visits.

Yes great post

I could have written this, in fact I did write a similar post last week. It's difficult, and I'm trying to navigate a different relationship now that my daughter is an adult who comes to stay in my home.