What Will Your Parents Think?

Watch the episode here:

• Do your parents approve of your lifestyle?
• Why your situation is different than your parents
• Why your situation is different than your child’s
• Respecting over approving

Hey, what’s shaken? I’m Rick Jordan, and lets Go ALL IN. 

This is gonna be a hard-hitting one for a lot out there because it’s about parents’ relationships with you when you become an adult, and a lot of us have this thing, that’s stuck inside of us. I know sometimes I’m actually noticing my own tone of voice right now as I’m talking to you. It’s actually very, uh, very calming and soothing because a lot of times, if you listen to the show for a while, you’ll hear me very driving at times. But this is a very sensitive topic and I know it’s gonna hit home for a lot of people today. It’s, it’s your relationships with your parents as adults, and for a long time, you know, you, you start to, uh, you start to seek out certain things and sometimes you can just want approval from your parents. And I want to tell you that if you’re still seeking approval, if you’re doing things, and I want you to think deep down inside, like what really drives the decisions that you make in your life? 

Is it something to where you make a decision? You’re always like, oh man, now I gotta tell my parents, oh, I wonder what my dad’s gonna think about this. I wonder what my mom’s gonna think about me doing this. I wonder, you know, if I, if I’m gonna drop out of, uh, college, maybe I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t know what they’re gonna think about this. Or if I’m going to, you know, pursue a career as a policeman, maybe they’re gonna think it’s too dangerous and they’d rather have me behind a desk or something like that. You know, it’s, you’re thinking about all these things or even like choosing the path you want to go before you enter college. It’s like, you know, maybe I don’t want to go to college after I get out of high school. Or what, what are my parents gonna think about that? 

They’ve always talked about, we’re gonna pay for your college, we’re gonna pay for your college. And then all of a sudden they’re like, you, you get to this point. Like, I, I don’t really know if that’s for me. Or maybe it comes down just like, oh, I got this new boyfriend and I don’t really know if my dad’s gonna like him. You know, or I got this, uh, I’m gonna propose to my girlfriend and I don’t know if my mom’s really going to approve of her because they haven’t really gotten along yet. Or you start to actually maybe keep that first initial meeting of your boyfriend, or girlfriend from your parents, because it’s like, oh, we’ll get to it eventually we’ll get to it all. Because you’re trying to process through your head about how they’re going to think whether they’re going, they’re going to approve what’s going on in your life. 

And I hope you can hear this today because a lot of times your parents will not understand your choices. They just won’t. And the reason is that situations that you’re facing today are very different than the situations that they faced, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago maybe. And the timeline that existed between then and now, it’s difficult to try to remember what that actually felt like, not what it looked like. Because memories, you can remember certain things pretty and how things went and choices you made and all that, but it’s more difficult to remember how you felt in that memory, what emotions you had going on in that memory. And that’s the same with your parents. So it’s, it’s difficult for them to place themselves in your scenario because one, they might not have ever been in your scenario, your exact scenario, maybe something like it, but not your exact scenario. 

And two, they’re just not you. So there’s no way, and that this is this in the reverse direction. Two, it’s true. There’s no way that they can completely understand your choice. There’s no way that they can 100% understand your choice. And that’s something that I, I need to break into you right now because your parents might not ever completely understand your choices. It’s just whether they accept it or not, you know? And that’s not accepting your actual choice, but accepting that it is your choice to make. Did you track with that? So it’s, most of the time they won’t completely understand your choices at all, you know, or maybe just partially, sometimes they might accept your choice, but overall they should just respect that it is your choice to make. And that’s the hardest place to get to. And that actually is, that’s a stage of growth that I just described between you and your parents when you are an adult when you are responsible for your own self, are you traverse these phases to where their own growth, to where they can accept that, okay? 

And you too, that they might not ever understand your choice or maybe just only partially. And then you can grow into, okay, well I’m not so sure I can accept it, but maybe I can, I don’t know. And it’s okay if they don’t ever accept it. But then the real growth is when you transition to understanding, when they transition to understanding in your relationship with them and they respect that it’s your choice to make, they may not like it, but when they respect that, it’s your choice to make, they are still accepting you. Maybe not your choice, but still you. And that’s where it comes to unconditional love. And that type of relationship is something that, that can grow over time. It’s very interesting because I mean, even now as my kids are getting older, it’s like every choice that they make, you can be proud of it. 

You cannot be proud of it, whatever it is. But still, at the same time, I try the most that I possibly can to just respect the fact that it’s their choice to make, I can still guide them, which is what I need to do, but I mean, they’re not, you know, growing up and living on their own yet or anything like that. So I’m really talking about adults and I’m starting to think about what this can look like because here’s where it’s gonna hit really, really hard, and I asked this question at the beginning, why are you really making the choices that you are? Do your parents pop up in your mind? Like, I wonder what they’re going to say? I wonder what they’re going to think. Because you can start to get in. You will box yourself in when you continuously look for your parent’s approval. And this can manifest itself in different ways too, because if you had, a bad relationship with your parents, or maybe there was a parent that was avoidant as you were growing up, or maybe a parent that was even abusive or just even distant, so avoidance, maybe abusive, maybe just distant, 

You will start to look for that approval that you never got, especially in a partner, especially in a romantic relationship, yet also with maybe a boss, with maybe a friend, with maybe a pastor in a church, you will continuously seek out approval, the approval that you were never given from your parents, and you will seek that out in them as you get older and in other people. And that is toxic. You should be seeking fulfillment for yourself, not the approval of others. Did you hear that? The real freedom and real choice and real amazingness of life as it has everything to offer you, are you seeking fulfillment, not the approval of others? This could maybe be a growing point for you too because your role is really to create that life for yourself that brings fulfillment. And this is what comes down to emotional maturity, which is understanding and knowing. Not everybody will approve of what you choose. I know this can be hard-hitting, but maybe some of you have had a parent that’s avoidance. Maybe some of you have had a parent that’s been dismissive or distant, and you can see yourself starting to seek out that approval from a lot of other people. 

Start to know and understand that your growth through this process is knowing that not everyone will approve of your choices, even your parents, but still you are seeking fulfillment and not approval. Go ALL IN.