How to Be Friends With Your Parents and Other Parental Problems

I really need to talk about this because it's something I've been dealing with ever since graduation. I've been living on my own for four years, so I knew moving back home was going to be a difficult transition. But it's REALLY hard! I think it's because once we graduate we're sort of in this weird phase where we feel like we're adults, but our parents haven't realized it yet.

And who can blame them? They've taken care of us for about eighteen years of our life and all those months in between college. Suddenly we're home and they expect us to do chores and give them IT help when they want to upload their photos of your dog dressed in a Christmas sweater and reindeer antlers. And the chores...I'm not a slob, I clean up after myself. But there's just something so irritating about being told to do something versus just doing it on your own. It almost makes you NOT want to do it. You know what I mean?

I think the worst part of living at home is that you realize you're not as independent as you once were. College is great because it's basically real life without the actual responsibilities. All you have to do is get good grades, go to class, and then the rest of your time is all yours. Meanwhile at home, Mom and Dad want you to go to the movies with them, make dinner together, and spend 100% of your time with them. I love my parents and I do enjoy spending time with them. But I can't spend every single second of my day with them. I'm an only child, I need to be on my own at some point. And when they want me to spend every single moment together, honestly, it drives me a bit bananas.

All I can say is, it's a learning process. I'm frustrated by the fact that I don't have a job yet, so I often end up taking it out on them by snapping at them when they ask me things and being very grumpy a lot of the time. Then I end up being mad at myself. It's not a healthy cycle. I'm trying to find ways to de-stress. Running is great for me because even though I hate running, I feel great afterward and this puts me in a good mood. Writing everything that's going on in my head helps a lot too. Just getting it out on the page makes me feel relieved. It's almost like all the anger, stress, and frustration are being sucked out of me.

Writing also helps you because later on you can look back and see how much you've changed and grown as a person. Growing up is really hard for you and your parents. They have to learn to let go and you have to learn how to be an adult, yet still respect them at the same time. I think the best way to go about this is to just think about how you want to be treated. Would you like coming home to someone grumpy who snaps at you all the time? No. So take a moment, breath, remember they're there to help and love you and then go. If you're having issues with boundaries or them being over-controlling, talk to them rationally, like an adult. Don't take the passive aggressive approach like I always do-"No, really, NOTHING'S WRONG!!"
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I'm trying to start doing this little exercise where I treat my parents like older friends but with respect included in that mix. It hasn't been so successful yet but I'm definitely want to try. My parents are very supportive and maybe if I didn't have parents who were willing to take me in so easily, I would realize that more easily. But I don't, so I have to learn the hard way-by getting over my problems and issues and just realizing that they supported me for 18 years and now it's time to give back a little. As my commencement speaker, Ira Glass said, "Don't be a d*ck!" See his whole speech here!