The Parenting Myth We Don’t Talk About Enough

The idea that motherhood has an expiry date

I felt I had to write a bit more about parenting and being mothers to kidults after my post about my Mother & Son Escape has proved to be one of my most popular so far. It obviously resonated with mums of sons just like me.

So today I want to talk about another aspect of parenting.

The parenting myth we don’t talk about enough.

The idea that motherhood has an expiry date.

That at 18 or 21, or whenever our kids have left college or university, that we get to clock out and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing we’ve done our job. That they will step confidently into adulthood, ready to take on the world. But for many of us, motherhood doesn’t just continue, it gets more complex, more painful, and sometimes more isolating.

Because what happens when your child doesn’t thrive? What happens when adulthood isn’t a smooth handover but instead a constant cycle of worry, crisis and heartbreak?

For mothers of adult children struggling with mental illness, substance use, or chronic unemployment, there is no ‘letting go’ in the way society imagines. Instead, there’s the exhaustion of navigating systems that weren’t built to help, the grief of watching your child suffer and struggle and the loneliness of feeling like no one understands what it’s like to mother in this space.

The invisible struggles of mothering an adult child in crisis

If your child was diagnosed with a mental illness as a teenager, you might have spent years coordinating care, sitting through therapy sessions and advocating at school meetings. But what happens when they become adults? When they can refuse treatment? When you’re no longer legally allowed to intervene? Watching a child battle their own mind, sometimes refusing the help you know they need is a specific kind of agony.

If your child struggles with addiction or illness, you live with the gut-wrenching fear of the late-night phone call, the endless cycle of hope and disappointment, the unbearable weight of ‘tough love’ advice that never accounts for a mother’s heart.

If your child is chronically unemployed, unable to live well due to anxiety, neurodivergence or systemic barriers, you may feel trapped between financial support and resentment. How much help is too much? How do you balance your own well-being with the instinct to cushion their fall?

The judgment & the silence

Mothers in these situations often find themselves judged or worse, abandoned. The world tells us we should have done better, set firmer boundaries, raised them differently. Friends with ‘successful’ adult children can’t always relate. And so, we stop talking about it.

We carry the weight in silence.

But here’s the truth - if this is your story, you are not alone.

There are many of us out here, have navigated or still navigating the shifting terrain of mothering adult children in crisis. We need spaces to talk about the real, raw, complicated emotions of love, guilt, anger, grief, hope.

We need community, not just for them, but for us.

Reclaiming your life while still loving your child

The hardest thing to reconcile is that motherhood doesn’t mean martyrdom. You are allowed to have a life outside of your child’s struggles. You are allowed to set boundaries without guilt.

You are allowed to protect your own mental health.

And most of all, you are allowed to acknowledge that you are still a mother, even when the journey looks nothing like you expected.

I thought as it’s World Mental Health Awareness Week this was an opportunity to talk about this subject. One that is very rarely talked about. At least that’s been my experience.

Let’s break the silence.

Because this kind of motherhood is just as real, just as valid, and just as worthy of support.

Sending love if this resonates with you 💗