Dear Dr. Hurd: Your article, “The Generation that Isn’t Growing Up,” speaks directly to our situation. We have a 24-year-old son who has no friends (beyond those he has met online), no girlfriend, no driver’s license, no job, nothing. He spends his days in his room. He’s quite good at condemning his siblings and his generation for their poor judgment in all areas. He’s news savvy, and complains about the ignorance of Americans, etc. He never smiles. He has no health insurance, and paying hundreds of dollars to a therapist really isn’t feasible. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where I went wrong with him, and I don’t know how to fix it. The knowing how to fix it was the element missing from your article, and it’s the one I need most.
You won’t like my answer. But here it is, anyway.
# 1 Totally change your thinking. You are part of the problem. How do I know that? Because you’re asking me how to fix your adult son’s life. His life is not yours to fix. Only he can fix it. Stop thinking that his life is yours to fix. Get out of his crib. Move past his school age years. Back then, he was all your responsibility. The expiration date for that period of his life is long over. Until or unless you change your thinking on this point, he will never change his.
# 2 Turn off his Internet. I’m not a betting man, but I will place a bet that your son is addicted to the Internet — most likely, video games. Video games are a 24/7 world of online play with other people in far away places. They’re incredibly elaborate, engaging and time-consuming. It’s literal, virtual reality. Maybe he’s addicted to something else, but video games would be my most likely guess. It stands to reason that if you turn off his Internet connection, he will come out of his room. Get a cable technician to show you how. No excuses. Turn off his Internet. Seize his cell phone and iPad, holding them hostage until he moves out, at which time you will return them. Nothing will change until this happens.
# 3 Give him 30 days’ notice to move out — or move yourself. I’m completely serious. I can count on one hand the number of times a parent or grandparent threw their kid out of the house. In both cases, it worked well and the kid did just fine. The problem is that parents like yourselves cannot or will not bring themselves to do it. “He’ll be homeless.” But why, exactly? You just spent a paragraph writing me how bad it is that he won’t leave his room, smile, or do anything other than play video games all day on the Internet. This implies he has other choices. If he has free will, is able bodied, and has a functioning brain, why do you assume he’ll be homeless? He won’t be homeless if you throw him out. And even if he is, it’s not your fault. You did not create his life 25 years ago to give him a place to play video games, and do nothing else, into old age.
Since the overwhelming majority (99 percent) of parents will not take this step, in my experience, the next best thing is to put your house up for sale and move yourself. I realize it’s a drastic step. But maybe there’s somewhere else you’d rather live. I don’t mean across town. I mean at least 3 hours away, and preferably 3 states away. I hear Florida is a nice place to relocate, especially if you live up north. Maybe even another country. The point is: break off this dysfunctional relationship. Make him confront the reality of the “For Sale” sign, the Realtors coming into the house, the potential buyers coming to look. This will get his attention and prove to him that he must make plans for himself now. Make it clear he’s not invited to your new home. Sure, to visit, but only once he has established his own new home for a period of no less than six months.
I’m totally serious here. The most successful cases I know of with parents getting their kids out of the house are parents who were planning to move anyway, and did so. It’s easier to break the ties that way. It might seem absurd. But your son’s life is literally wasting away, right under your roof. His mind is rotting, and his capacity to care for his own basic needs diminishes with each passing day. One day, eventually, you will die, and even if you leave him something, he’ll eventually spend it all and will, at that point, probably become homeless. Is this what you want for him? Don’t drastic situations call for drastic measures? And if you won’t throw him out, what other option is there? He’s not going anywhere, not without you doing something.
# 4 Talk with other parents who are going, or have gone through, the same thing. I’m a therapist, I’m a professional, and I have seen a lot. But so have people going through this very thing in their own homes. There are online chat groups. Google and you’ll find them. Tough Love is an organization providing support for parents, and other loved ones, who take the difficult step of throwing their children out. In the old days, this was primarily due to drug or alcohol abuse, or overt lawlessness, but in the 21st century it’s more a disease called Lack of Ambition.
I’m being tough on you and I’m holding you accountable for doing what your son’s well-being requires. At the same time, I’m telling you not to blame yourself for everything, nor to be too hard on yourself. Maybe you made mistakes when you raised your son, and maybe you didn’t. I doubt that anything you did would cause him to become a professional and permanent couch potato. His spiritual, inner crisis is that he does not value life, and therefore does not value his own life. Maybe this is your own fault, or maybe it isn’t. Regardless, it’s his responsibility now. That doesn’t mean you’re responsible for his failures now. The only blame I place on you is participating in (and enabling) his bad choices right now.
The culture is against you. Everywhere you look, whether it’s religion or psychobabble or social media or politics, everyone is ready to paint your son as a helpless victim. He’s told that it’s all society’s fault, and he is told — quite explicitly — by most of the candidates running for president, including the one most likely to win, that he is entitled to everything he wants in life, and more, and the only fault lies with those who don’t provide it for him. These profiteers of power have sucked the life and soul out of many young people who are vulnerable, evasive or just plain torpid enough to believe them. If you don’t subscribe to these views yourself, then don’t blame yourself. (If your son claims not to subscribe to those views, he’s a glaring hypocrite.) Just understand you’re up against almost impossible currents going completely in the opposite direction of what human self-respect, independence and ultimately human survival require. Sadly, our society and government are in the process of committing slow suicide, just like your son is, but neither you nor I can really do much about that, other than hope it reverses at some point.
So go easier on yourself, and harder on your son. Because the alternative for him is self-destruction. I don’t think you want that. So go ahead. Set him free.
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