Grown up children

[LadyEverard]

When do we stop being mums? when they leave home? when they are 18? when they get married?
Or do we never stop being mums. I have three grown up children a daughter in Australia with two of my grand children and two boys here near me. When things go wrong for my daughter in Aus I am still mum!!
She often need help and reassurance and I am so pleased to be needed.
One of the boys has his own business, very busy but never forgets his mum & dad. But one son the errant one, he has pushed us away.
He wants nothing to do with us. Am I still his mum? how do you let go?
My heart aches, the pain is real! No birthday cards, fathers day,mothers day. Its as if all the years of being his mum and loving him so much have been brushed away. Was it worth ever having him??

There is likely to be right and wrong on both sides here and you are still his mother. Of course it was bloody well worth having him, what a thing to write!. Maybe that attitude has come across all too clearly to him.

Why did your son (whom you describe as the errant one) push you away?. Is he really errant?. You as much as you may not like to do this will need to look at yourself and your H's actions here towards him. He may feel pushed out by his other (to him more successful) siblings or that he felt you could not have cared less about him because you were too self absorbed and selfish to notice.

Such actions too do not happen overnight, these issues can build over many years. He has his reasons for not wanting anything to do with you and you will have to respect that. I reiterate that I'm not stating that he is completely in the right and you are completely in the wrong here; its happened over time and people need to start looking at their behaviours here.

Perhaps bridges can be rebuilt but BOTH sides need to take and accept full responsibility for their actions here.

I have 4 grown up children. I am very close to 3 of them. However the 4th less so, sometimes I think he doesn't like me and I do sometimes think 'if only you knew the patience it took to bring you up'!!! But I just keep on contacting him and talking to him in the hope that one day he will realise my worth to him.

LADY, I have 3 grown up DC. Like you one has pushed us away. Still here if he needs us. I think his DP has a lot to do with it. She didn't have the same supportive and involved upbringing. Maybe she feels threatened by us. I try not to over think it, but it still hurts.

We all miss him, but he knows where we are and the door is always open.