Daughter Uncommunicative

[pulley]

My wife and I have been married for 33 years.  Our (only child) daughter is 24 and has been married for about 18 months.  We thought we did a good job bringing her up, and we have always received many compliments from others about what a great job we did.  My wife quit work in order to be a 'stay-at-home' mom, our daughter was involved in many activities, we attended all functions, and our daughter was certainly a 'good' child.  We always encouraged her to be independent, and since she was an 'only', we tried to avoid too much doting.  But we have gotten a new idea of what 'independent' can mean.  

She calls every several months (may be 4 or 5 months) if she feels like talking.  If we should call her, she is quite unpleasant, responds to conversation with one-word answers, and is quite put out with the whole thing.  I write her friendly emails, which she never answers.  We don't try to impose our wishes on her in any way, shape, or form.  We have nevr been intrusive in her life in any way, and we just can't figure it out.  I understand that many children carry 'chips', I still have a few myself, but neither my wife or I ever treated our parents this way.  To be honest, her parents were quite intrusive in our lives and we still never treated them like this.

We have tried to keep the lines of communication open, but it has been a one-way street.  The question is, should we just sit and hope that this 'phase' will end, or should we take some kind of action?

Thanks

[Jason Greenberg, Ph.D.]

This sounds like a tremendously frustrating and upsetting situation for you and your wife.  You want to be let in to your daughter's life, to her world if you will, and she will not let you, which hurts a great deal.  In your question about what to do, you seem aware that your options for taking action are limited, about which I agree.  At the same time, I was wondering if you had asked her if she felt you were being intrusive, if she was upset with you about something in particular, or if something was bothering her that she didn't feel she could or wanted to talk to you about.  If you haven't already done this and decide to try this approach, you may not get any response.  I think that if this is the case, it is then up to you and your wife whether or not you want to continue to convey to her that you are "there for her" unconditionally no matter how she acts towards you, or whether or not you there are limits to your patience.

[bluesky4]

Dear Parents of uncommunicative daughter,

Please see my post of July 1, from Bluesky4.  We have many similarities with our adult kids, in fact I even used the same term--uncommunicative--to describe my son.  We both were very involved, loving parents that provided warmth and care throughout their childhoods and with many fond memories of when they were wee little ones. And then--BOOM--out of the blue, they become distant, barely talking and in effect, shutting you out of their lives.  I could try and attribute this to adolescence, but I, like yourselves, would NEVER treat my parents with such unkindness and disrespect and, yes, I was once an adolescent myself !

I have tried everything to get some form of communication from my son---giving him "lots of space", being nice, being funny, being distant, being someone other than myself (now that was the hard one--what if he liked that person better!! ).  There are plenty of times I just found myself in tears.  So I finally, in desperation, was at the book store browsing through parenting books ( I thought I was over needing advice at this stage of our lives), when I came upon a book titled:
"When Parents Hurt--Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along"  by Joshua Coleman, Ph.D.

Did I ever think I would need a book like this when my son was growing up and I was the center of his universe and he was the apple of my eye?  Never.  But here we are.  I totally understand the pain and hurt you are going through.  The one thing you have to remember is that it is nothing you did as parents--it is most likely something that your daughter is going through and all the issues of growing up.  So read the book ( I got it in the public library) and realize that you are not alone.  Although it is very difficult ot talk to friends or family about your pain, especially if they had the good fortune (through nothing they did as parents) to have a close relationship with their grown kids.  I sometimes look at my friends who were not there for their kids growing up anywhere near as much as I was--and--wow--their kids are just great to them.  So, yes, it hurts, but I think they will mature and come back.  In the (hopefully not long) meantime, take good care of yourselves--do something fun everyday, find new interests--you certainly deserve a good life.

My very best to you, good parents,
Bluesky4