Six complaints millennials have about their parents

My two cuties.

“What Millennials Say About Their Parents During Therapy” in the HuffPost, written by Brittany Wong, lists six of the most common complaints—and they’re all about parents.

“We went from a parent-focused society to a child-focused society, and this generation are the products of this flux in our parenting focus,“ Deborah Duley, a psychotherapist and founder of Empowered Connections, a counseling practice told HuffPost. “As a result, I hear consistent complaints that their parents are micromanaging their lives to the point of it being suffocating and overbearing.”

Duley and other therapists across the country share more parent-related complaints they hear from clients in their 20s and 30s.

The number one problem is helicopter parents who don’t allow their kids to grow and develop into independent adults.

“You know there’s a problem when the mother of a 28-year-old calls to schedule a therapy consultation for her son. Parents of millennials are notoriously helicopter parents, which inhibits young adults from becoming independent and learning to solve their own problems.” ― Tara Griffith, a therapist and founder of Wellspace SF, a San Francisco community of licensed therapists, nutritionists and certified coaches.

The other points listed include:

2. I feel like a failure by my parents’ standards.
3. My parents don’t think I need therapy.
4. My parents have become helicopter grandparents.
5. My parents are overly involved in my financial life.
6. My parents didn’t teach me how to navigate negative emotions.

I thought those are very interesting complaints, especially because I have two kids in their 20s. I wonder if my kids feel I have been too involved? Am I too involved in their financial lives? Do they feel like failures? I wonder if I taught them how to deal with negative emotions? I’ll have to ask them and I’ll report back on what they say. Maybe—if it isn’t too awful.

Back to the basics of parenting, it’s not helpful to do too much for our kids while they’re young. They’ll learn more from their mistakes and failures than us picking up after them, packing their lunches, doing their laundry, waking them up for school, and running back to school with forgotten homework. It’s a temptation to have every day perfect for our kids, but then they’ll be unprepared for when life isn’t perfect. Also, they may feel insecure or incompetent because they don’t think they can manage on their own without mom.