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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'll repost something I commented on the other failure to launch thread:

I am a therapist who specializes in "failure to launch" young adults. Most of the clients on my caseload have a Cluster B personality disorder (either BPD or NPD), or become very close to meeting diagnostic criteria for one of them. One of the key components to raising a failure to launch young adult is that they have very little sense of self and self-direction because their own desires, emotions, and wants have been railroaded by their parents during their childhood and adolescence.

A very common scenario in my therapy practice (in an UMC neighborhood not unsimilar to, say, Mclean or Bethesda in the DMV) is that the parents pushed their (temperamentally sensitive) kid to elite private schools or public schools in competitive, wealthy school districts so that their kid attends a T20 college. The innately sensitive kid is then pushed to a high-paying career path such as tech, medicine, or finance, and when they can't hack it, they move back home as a 22 year old (or a 26, or sometimes 30 year old), and the failure to launch spiral begins.

The parents usually alternate between intense pride and shame for their kid (this is called "splitting" by clinicians, and I see a lot of this black-and-white thinking on DCUM). On one hand, they are filled with intense pride that their kid is an elite college grad and feel as if it reflects on them as parents. OTOH, the parents have intense shame for their kid because he/she failed to live up to the high expectations that they placed on their kid.

But wait, you might be wondering, why weren't these parents able to pick up on the fact that their kids are characterologically more sensitive and thus not well-suited for a path of Harvard and then McKinsey? These parents are unable to notice their kid's sensitive nature because they lack emotional attunement (which, to be fair, many first-gen UMC people who had to "pull themselves by their bootstraps" are deficient in).

One of the first things I do as a therapist is to ask my clients to describe themselves, and ask my client's parents to describe their kid. Oftentimes I'll notice that both the failure to launch young adult and the parents are unable to provide an accurate, fully-fleshed out description of their kid to me because all parties lack the ability to "mentalize" -- in other words, be attuned to the emotional states of themselves and others.

It's actually quite sad when I ask parents to describe their adult child to me, and they'll say some version of "Oh, you know, she's smart and hard working." I'll ask if there are any other traits, and they'll just give me a blank stare. The parents are unable to mentalize any other personality traits besides "smart and conscientious."

And I really feel for these parents. It's difficult being in this situation. But I think even the most loyal and well-adjusted of children would admit that they would rather be understood than be loved but misunderstood.[/quote]

I’m not the OP but wanted to say thank you for posting this. I tuned into my child around the late teenage years and got myself off the Type A Ivy bound track that I had her on. It’s made all the difference in our relationship, and in her growing more into herself with self awareness about her talents, her goals, and the future she desires for herself. Tbh I wish I did it sooner. But I was the pick yourself up by the bootstraps gen x kid so it took time to unravel from that parenting style. [/quote]

PP here. Do you mind telling me more? DH and I are also Gen X kids who really pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps (we went from poor to UMC, both first in our families to graduate from college). We have a DD we push in school to excel in. We want her to attend a top college and have all the opportunities that we never had!

But DD complains relentlessly about everything. She's a real debbie downer. Sometimes I wonder if DH and I are pushing her too hard (in 5 APs as a junior at a W school), but since she's so negative and pessimistic, I wonder if she would ever be happy in any scenario. [/quote]

I’m the PP. We came from similar backgrounds, by the time we started our family, we’d made it, and we were going to give our kid everything we never had. It was fantastic, up until about 14 years old. She didn’t want our vision of success. Wasn’t going to be a recruited athlete. Didn’t want Princeton anymore. She started pushing back and we called it ungrateful. A mental health crisis reframed it all for us. Long story short, we eased up. On everything but also we were clear on direction, kept her on the rails. College was non negotiable. In the end she got into a selective university that was right for her. And more importantly we still have a healthy open relationship with her. There was a fork in the road during those teenage years. If we chose differently, I think we would have lost her.[/quote]

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