CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Parenting Doesn't End

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Whitney responds to a question from a recent controversial TikTok post: Are you a parent forever? What does it mean to be a parent across the entire lifespan? Should parenting meaningful shift at age 18 or at some point beyond? Do parent-child relationships become equal peer relationships in adulthood? Then Whitney answers a question from a parent who isn’t sure how to interact with her adult son and daughter-in-law who have a newfound faith that has taken a more fundamental edge. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. November at Calling Home is all about parentification. Learn more at: https://callinghome.co/topics Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466 Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoices This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 03:08 Are You a Parent Forever? 07:04 What It Means to Lead as a Parent 14:39 Hierarchy in Parent Child Relationships 19:01 Q&A: Navigating Religious and Value Conflicts with Adult Children Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to the calling on podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. Today we are going to answer some questions that I got on a TikTok video, two TikTok videos that I posted about what I think is, I guess, kind of a controversial topic. The question is, are you a parent forever? So let me backtrack a little bit. A couple of weeks ago, I answered a question on my TikTok. An estranged parent wrote this to me. Funny how my comment is the only one you respond to because it doesn't fit your, in quotes, the estranged parent is always wrong in narrative, so extremely predictable with like a, that hysterically laughing emoji. So I recorded a video. It is like seven minutes long. You can go watch it. And the title is, I don't think

estranged parents are always wrong. And in this video, I talk about how I don't think the adult child is always right and the estranged parent is always wrong because I don't look at these relationships as like, who do we pick sides with, who's right, who's wrong, who did what. I'm looking at them more as issues of perspective taking, not being able to see each other's side, have conversations, repair, et cetera. Now, there are certainly caveats to that where there are situations that I hear something and I'm like, you know what, the parent is clearly in the wrong here. There's a very clear path of abuse, mistreatment, et cetera, that has led this adult child to saying, I cannot have a relationship with you.

But sometimes it's not that black and white or that clear. Now, all that being said, I did say in this video that I do think it is always the parents' responsibility to lead. and this is where the controversy comes in because apparently that is like a crazy thing to say to some people that a parent should always have to leave and lead and so the comment and so the comment that I received back was the parent always has to give more and be the leader forever till the day before they die the parent of the adult child always gives until their very last breath, is that what you believe as a therapist with like a thinking face emoji?

And I promised that I was thinking like of a longer response to this. And so that's what this episode is. But I do think, I do think that. I do believe that the parent always has the ability to be a leader. I absolutely think that. that they have the ability to set the emotional tone for the family and to really make some very positive change if they do lead. So let's dive in to this question. Are you really a parent forever? I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a parent, not just when your kids

are little, but across the entire lifespan. Because I think what we're seeing come up in these comments is one of the biggest misconceptions that tends to hold estranged parents and their adult children back from reconciling or having good relationships. And it's this idea that parenting somehow ends when your child turns 18 or you suddenly become equals and are in this peer relationship. And that doesn't happen. I still see adults really looking to their parents to be a source of. to be a stable presence and to even offer them advice or closure on things from childhood or just to set an

example. And that just means that your role changes as your child ages. It doesn't mean that you still don't have this important place or that you don't have influence in their life. You really go from making decisions for your child to being a guide, a leader, like this quiet presence that can kind of hang out until they're needed. But during that time, you can set the emotional tone for the family. And often you go from managing behavior to modeling it. And this can be one of the hardest transitions in life. I follow this pediatrician who has seven kids online. I wish I could remember his name, but I follow him on TikTok and he does these videos about like things that he doesn't do as a pediatrician with his kids, with his seven kids. And yesterday he was saying that

he does not lecture his children on behaviors that he is not willing to model himself. So he's not going to lecture them on getting up early and like exercising or doing all if he's not doing that he's not going to lecture them on being kind if he's not being kind you know and i was like wow this is exactly what i'm talking about that oftentimes when our kids are really little we just set these boundaries and we instate these rules don't hit don't do that you're not allowed to do this and it's easier to do that with a young child but as our kids get older they start looking at us and being like, you're lecturing me on all of this stuff and you don't do any of that. Like, you're telling me not to drink and drive, but I see you drinking and driving. You're

telling me not to do drugs. I see you doing drugs. You know, you're telling me, don't hit, don't be violent, but I see you hitting mom. Like, we're so quick to set rules and be these, like, authoritarian types of parents without actually thinking about my kids also watching me and what are they seeing me doing and how is that directly like contradicting what I'm telling them to do and so I think that is a really important transition point instead of thinking about what am I going to tell them and make them do and be this authority how am I going to model the behavior that I want to see in my children especially as they get older. And that's where this concept of like being in charge shifts into modeling leadership,

setting the emotional tone, showing what repair looks like, what respect sounds like, and how to hold boundaries without control or shame. This is the evolution of parenting across the lifespan. When I talk about parents being leaders, I am not talking about the parent being like a dominant force in their child's life or that they should always be the one in control. To me, being a leader means, again, being accountable for the tone and the energy of the family, especially when relationships get hard. I think a lot of times what happens in parenthood and adulthood is really coming back to this

place of like, how do I stay grounded in who I am and be the parent I want to be? even when the other person won't meet me there. And so let's talk about what it means to lead, even in the most difficult family relationships and how you can learn to do that. I think I see a lot of parents who have difficult relationships with their adult children meeting their child's behavior with more of the same. So when they see their kid doing things that they don't like in adulthood, let's say they're getting in trouble with the law, they're using substances, they're yelling at them, they're

angry, they're not listening, they respond with the same anger, contempt, and vitriol back. It's sort of this like, oh, I'm going to match your energy type of feeling. And that creates this self-fulfilling cycle. it's usually the same emotional culture that's been in the family for generations. When we see adult children, you know, yelling at their parents, calling them names, cussing them out, that didn't come from nowhere, right? And I'm not saying that you as the parent are always the one that created that in your child. It could have been the influence they had from another parent. They witnessed domestic violence in the home or verbal abuse.

and they've learned that, oh, that's what men do. That's what mothers do. I am like that, so I should be that way too. They see that within their communities or there are other important adults in that child's life that are modeling that they were exposed to over time. And so we have to really be honest about what our family systems look like and feel like for our kids when they start exhibiting certain behavior. It can't just be this attitude of, well, I never taught them that. I don't know why they're doing that. They're just bad. I think that some kids also have a temperament, right, where they're more prone to intense emotional reaction, but that's still where leadership in teaching and modeling is so important. And I know that this might feel kind of

burdensome, especially if you are a parent to young children, but leadership as a parent is a lifelong role. I think we all know people in our families, like the matriarch or the patriarch of the family. They're the people who everyone rallies around. And those people set the tone for the family, whether that's good or bad, they are the people that we are revolving around in some way. And when those people are able to model the characteristics of healthy relationships, they are being leaders. And they're not doing that through control. They're doing that through consistency, showing people what it looks like to listen, repair and respect no matter how old their children are. And that doesn't mean that you accept, you know, mistreatment or put up with

abusive behavior because setting healthy boundaries is also a part of healthy leadership. So you can say things like, I will participate in this conversation if I'm being yelled at or I love you, but I can't keep talking to you if we're going to be insulting each other. That is leadership. So this is not about just allowing people to walk. all over you and saying, well, your kid is allowed to treat you any way they want because they're your kid. It's really about setting boundaries and modeling what that healthy treatment looks like. Now, there were a lot of comments about there being a power shift in the relationship between child and parent down the line, particularly when that hierarchy changes and a parent is

aging, sick, or disabled. And this might be a moment in the relationship where the adult child starts handling like finances, caregiving decisions, where that parent is living, you know, their access to money, all of that. And I want to validate that yes, of course that happens. An elder abuse happens in this country and around the world and we know that this is a thing. But most people have so much runway. We're talking like 50 years sometimes before you get to this point. And so I don't want to focus on these last few years of the parents' life as them saying, well, this is where my child has power over me. And I can't be a leader. And this is no longer equal anymore. And I'm not going to spend this time until my last dying breath,

you know, like taking care of them because they're not taking care of me. You have so many years before that power shift happens, that I want you to really think about it, unless you're in a situation where, of course, there are parents who get sick, who have cancer, et cetera, when they are younger. But most people are dealing with this big power shift when their parent turns like 75, 80 years old, even older than that. And those adult children are in their 50s, 60s. So we need to think about this across a very long lifespan and trying to embody that leadership of emotional awareness, empathy, boundaries throughout your relationship so that when your adult child gets that power over you and you see that role reversal happen, they don't want to exert power

over you in this abusive way because that's never been the culture of the family. And of course, I will acknowledge that they're outliers. There are adults who have mental health issues, who are addicted to substances, who have joined, you know, high control groups that will take advantage of their parents in these moments. And we need to take that seriously because elder abuse is on par with child abuse. Those people are extremely vulnerable and they need care and help. But I don't want us to assume that that is just the norm. It's what happens. Every adult wants to take advantage and hurt their parents when they're old because it's not.

And I think that that's something that can be avoided through lifelong leadership that includes emotional awareness, empathy, and really healthy boundaries throughout the course of the relationship. Something else I want to mention is that there is a higher. hierarchy in these relationships between adults and their parents, no matter what the age. And equality isn't just struck in a family because someone turns 18. Because being on equal footing as in like we are both adults doesn't erase the history of that relationship. Your child is always going to remember being dependent on you. They're always going to remember being told what to do.

being shaped by your choices, what you did when you had that immense power over them. And that does not go away. So when you as a parent want to repair or reconnect, you have to consider that full history. It's not just about the moment you're in right now. And that is really why I don't see these relationships in terms of like right or wrong or parent versus child because I see them as systems that have been part of this sort of like, we are both reacting to each other. And one of us has much more power than the other in that system for an extended period of time. And those systems are influenced by things like trauma, illness, financial stress, generational wounds, the community that we grow up in are access to resources. But everything that's ever happened

between you and your child when you reach adulthood or between you and your parent is in the room with you when you were talking about these adult issues. And that is such important context when we're talking about hierarchy and equality. We cannot just say, well, now we are equal. We are both adults because that history exists in the context of your relationship in a way that it really doesn't exist in any other relationship that you are a part of throughout your life. I really want parents to think of themselves as being the lighthouse, okay? And sometimes that means that as a parent, you give more than you get back, even in adulthood. It can mean validating when you're not being validated. And listening when your child is defensive,

or they're not listening to you. It can mean repairing even when you're not the one that caused all of the harm. But you are the leader. You are steady, grounded, and visible. And you get to have boundaries in all of that. You can say, I love you, and this is how we can safely have a relationship. You are allowed to have steady, sturdy leadership as a parent in an adult relationship with your child and have self-protection.

That is true whether you're the parent or the adult child trying to protect yourself from an unsafe or unreliable parent. So when I say parents always need to lead, I really mean that someone has to hold the emotional structure and the safety of their relationship, and ideally, it's the parent. but when that doesn't happen, when the parent can't lead safely, the adult child often ends up being the one who has to model boundaries, empathy, and self-respect. And that is a heavy burden, but it's also how you can start to change the cycle. And so if you have a parent, you're listening to this and you're like, I have a parent that

cannot do this. They will not do this. You can set the tone. you can be the leader. And that doesn't mean that you lead them or that you have a relationship with them unless that's what you want to do. But it's about saying I take responsibility for what happens from here with me and with my own children or my own marriage or just my own life. You are taking responsibility for creating safety and repair in your own family now. And maybe that includes your parent. Maybe it doesn't. But I think that that's something that we

all do and we can all model. Now we're going to jump in to the Q&A segment of the episode. I received a really interesting question via email that I am going to read you and then we'll talk about it. Okay. This is a mother of three boys. I'm going to leave out her name just for anonymity, but I am contacting you today about our youngest son. Our son is 27 years old and has been married for a year and a half. They have one son, almost three together, and one son that his wife had before they got together. When my son first introduced us to his wife, everything was great for a while, but then she decided to take the boys and move out of the apartment they shared together because she was in the process of giving her life to the Lord, and it was a sin to live together before marriage.

Our son was devastated, so they ended up getting married. Before they got married, he was unsure of where he was in his faith, but he is now a Christian, which I am very happy about, but our relationship is broken. You see, I believe in God, but I don't go to church every Sunday, nor do I read my Bible a lot. I do pray, but I like to listen to country music, and I still enjoy going to a good haunted house, which are all things my son disagrees with. It's been months since I have seen them or my grandkids. I don't understand why he can't accept us the way we are. I tried having several talks with him but he won't have a conversation without his wife being there because he says they are one now and all she does when I try to talk to them is quote scriptures instead of talking about the problems

so nothing gets resolved. In the past when they did come over, I felt so uncomfortable in my own home because I was trying so hard not to do anything wrong while they were here. I make sure Christian cartoons are on the TV for the kids and I'm busy worrying about my husband's language. I just wish we could repair the relationship where they are comfortable coming over without feeling like they are judging us. I miss them so much. We are good people and have always helped them when they need us, but now he doesn't talk to us, which absolutely breaks my heart. I am in counseling and hope to find ways to cope with this. I have just started listening to your messages and a lot of them hit home. Can you please do one of your messages for me on Christian adult children not accepting their parents

or your advice will be greatly appreciated? Thank you and please keep doing what you're doing. right, thank you so much for writing me this and for asking for some feedback. As always, I'm going to speak generally about these topics and not specifically to this person. But I think that this is a really interesting dynamic. And I have a lot of empathy for this mother and for the adult child involved in this. I think a lot of the time we hear stories, at least from the community that listens to my show about parents who are more religious than their children and parents who are upset about their children leaving their religious affiliation or becoming less religious. It's much more rare for me to hear of this dynamic of adult kids

becoming increasingly more religious than their parents and asking their parents to conform to that or to adjust, you know, how they're living their lives. I do remember in, there was a show, oh my gosh, I have to look up what this show is. I don't know if you guys saw this show with Steve Corell that I remember he is a therapist and his son. Oh my gosh, what is that show called? I'm going to find this. Oh my gosh. Yes, the patient. So Steve Correll in this show is a therapist and his son becomes like an orthodox Jew. And it's a very difficult dynamic for the two of them because, yes, he was raised Jewish, but they did not like keep kosher and do all the prayers. And like his son becomes much more involved in the religion and has a lot

more rules for the parents. And his wife is highly religious. And so it's reminding me of that dynamic and how hard this can be for parents when they feel judged by their adult children for how they're living their lives. The first thing I want to say is that it seems like there's not a lot of clarity around expectations in this relationship. And that might be one place where I would want to start is that if I am not as religious as you or I don't have the same beliefs, what do you think our relationship can look like? How do you see us moving forward? having a relationship because are there certain things that you want to make sure are not happening in my home when your kids come over? Are there certain places that we could meet up,

you know, that feel more comfortable? Are there things that I could do that would help you feel more trusting of me? The way that this story started out gives me a little bit of insight into what's going on here, I think, if I make some assumptions about the relationship, you have a couple who had a child before being married and was living together before being married. And the woman had a child from a previous relationship. So if I make some assumptions about entering a more, let's call it intense form of Christianity, there's more rules and there's more shame around those rules, right? So one being divorce is bad, could be one of them. Another one could be shouldn't have sex before marriage. Okay, you guys have done that. You shouldn't have

children out of wedlock, okay? And you shouldn't live together before you get married. So we have a couple of areas here where these adults, this woman's son and his new wife, could feel like they are not performing their faith in a way that is admirable or correct. And that is wrong of them. And they need to figure out a way to be better Christians. So they start. kind of doing things to fit into that community better, moving out so that they're not living together with the kids, then deciding to get married, and maybe now not spending time with people who are not quite as devout as they are. And I'm wondering if this is just kind of like an entry level phase of becoming more religious of being part of a community. I don't know

how they're being treated within this community or what they're being told. It's possible that they could be receiving messages like you're wrong if you do X. Your parents are this bad thing is going to happen to them or they're going to harm your children in this way. They might be getting a lot of messaging from people that they love and trust and want to be associated with. And so that kind of puts you at odds with them. And I recorded a video about this the other day on TikTok about how if you feel like your adult child has married someone that is changing them, if they are part of a community, whether that's a religious organization or some other type of community that you feel like has really influenced them in a way that makes it difficult

for you to have a relationship, you do not want to go toe to toe to with that community or with that person. And what I mean by that is if you start bashing your son's wife, who he has decided to marry and have children with and listen to, or their church or how they follow their religion, you're likely going to lose. Just given how immersed it seems that this person might be in that community. So you have to come back to this place of, I want to have a relationship with this person. What can that look like? If I'm not changing my beliefs and they're not changing theirs and they're going to be a part of this community and he's got his wife, who the only way she can talk to me is by quoting scripture. And so it feels like

we just cannot establish anything. How can we have a relationship? And so I think if you start from that place, and it's, guys, it's so hard to do this. It's so hard to do this. When we're talking about a family that has different religious beliefs, different value systems, different political beliefs, like, you really have to enter this state of like, this is what they believe. I cannot change it. Do I still want to have a relationship with them? Okay, if I do, I'm going to have to swallow some stuff. I'm going to have to come to them and say, I really want to find a way for us to have a relationship. I'm not trying to change you. I'm not trying to criticize what you're doing, but I want us to find a way to connect and get along.

Even if there's some things that you would want to change, there's some things you don't agree with. There's some different things you'd want them to do. The relationship has to be more important to that than that. If that is true for you, then you got to move forward like that. Because coming to them and saying, I think you guys are insane for how you're raising these kids and the rules you're putting on us and that we can't have a real conversation, I feel like you've changed a lot. It just doesn't work. You know, it's like that saying, like you get more bees with honey, right? Or I think that's the saying. I don't know. But you get what I'm saying, that it's just much more likely to work. And you can have conversations

about how difficult it is for your son to be living this very different life and believing things that are different than you and having these sort of judgments towards you on your own time with your partner, with your therapist, with your friends, like, you're allowed to have those feelings. It's legitimate. I get it. I think for a parent, it would be, you know, I put myself in your She was like, it'd be hard for me for my kid to become, it's one thing to become much more devout in some area or maybe to be part of a certain group that I'm not a part of and still be able to have a relationship with me. It's another when you feel like they are also saying, hey, you need to become like me

if you want to be in my life. And that's another thing that you might have to contend with, that there are certainly people who go through periods in life or join religions or movements or communities where they feel like they are at risk something if they have a relationship with you because you are not like them. And that really sucks because this is why I'm so firmly against any type of community. I don't care what it is that tries to tell you that siding. with them and their beliefs is more important than you having a relationship with your children. Like, I will never support something like that. Anybody that tells you, like, if your kid is

like this, you need to get rid of them. You need to excommunicate them or exclude them from the family until they decide to change until they come back to X, whatever that is in your community. I don't like that. I think that that really. really is awful. And it is such a fear-based way to live to say, like, you need to avoid your gay child or your mother or whoever this is. You cannot love them if they don't accept the same teachings or beliefs that you have accepted. That's something I'm never going to be able to get on board with. And so I know for a lot, some of you, maybe this podcast won't be for you. And that's okay. But I do think that hopefully there is a way,

for you to come together with your son and have these hard conversations about how can we have a relationship if we don't agree? If we don't follow the same belief system, what does that look like? Is there a way that we can try to build trust between each other or have moments where we see each other, you know, that fit, that makes sense? Are there things that you're both willing to give on. You know, could your son be okay with his kids coming over to your house and spending time with you guys? And could you be okay with making sure that, you know, like you mentioned, you play Christian cartoons for them when they watch TV instead of something else? Like, can there be this healthy give and take? And I also want to validate that like for anyone in these

types of situations, having a family member that joins, I think, any type of movement or group It feels very at odds with what you've always done as a family is hard in any direction. And it causes clashes and value conflicts within families. And I think in some cases, it's still possible to have limited surface level, at least some type of relationship. I hope that's helpful for anyone that has this type of issue. And thank you so much to this listener. for sending in your question. I really appreciate it. Thank you again for listening to the

Calling Home podcast. If this episode resonated with you or if you're navigating boundaries with a parent, I hope it helped you see that leadership and protection can coexist. If you would like to go deeper to unpack these patterns and actually practice new ways of relating, come join us inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club. Is our therapist-led membership community where we take these ideas off the podcast and into real supported practice at callinghome.com. Next month inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club in November, we'll be talking about parentification, which is what happens when you had to be the adult long before you were ready. If you grew up keeping everyone calm, fixing problems, or taking care of your parents,

this month will help you understand how that shaped you and how to finally put down the responsibilities that were never yours to carry. You can join at callinghome.co. New content and groups for this topic begin on November 3rd, 2025. Thanks, and I will see you all again on Tuesday for another episode of Calling Home. Bye. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist patient or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Holm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.