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How to let go of mothering grown kids?

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  • balletshoes
    balletshoes Posts: 16,610 Forumite
    I'm having a bit of an inner battle with letting my baby (soon to be 21!) be responsible for himself. He is at uni but has been home for the last 2 weeks for Easter hols. The problem is he really doesn't take care of himself and part of me wants to get involved and keep being his mummy!
    He has asthma and eczema so I always worry about him, but I've noticed that he really eats so little - just one meal a day. He is always partying and boozing pretty much nightly which I suppose is expected, but he puts having money for booze above food. He tells me sometimes all he eats is noodles and crisps. He's painfully thin (always has been) - about 5ft 7 tall but 7 stone in weight, but at least at home I was making sure he was fed. Now I've noticed he doesn't even feel hungry until about 5pm.
    I said to him the other night that it was important to eat probably and I literally only got that far and he snapped back "Yes alright! I know!" Do I try to keep bringing it up and hopeful get through to him, or do I let it go? I know he's a grown up now, but I find it hard to let go when he's not taking care of himself. I do worry about him when he goes back.

    I don't think you have much to worry about to be honest regarding the eating - you say yourself he's always been painfully thin, so thats normal for him. You've mentioned it, now leave it. He's 21. He's not starving himself, he is eating, even if sometimes its crap and it may only be one meal a day.

    Young adults all over the country put their social life before food, they don't have to be students or having problems either ;).
  • pigpen
    pigpen Posts: 41,152 Forumite
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    I'd back off and let him get on with it. asthma and eczema are hardly a reason to restrict his development into adulthood. He is a man not a boy. At 21 I was married with a mortgage and 3 children! I'm sure I was not the only one!

    He needs to learn for himself and discover who he is in a whole new arena. The first year many students do tend to go a bit haywire then rein it in for the second year then spend the third year panicking because they've not done enough work the first 2 years and need to catch up! They behave like twits because they are away from home and have to do all the things mummy and daddy disapprove of.. hence the multi coloured hair, growing it to their knees, change of dress style.. they usually return to normal human beings again further down the line! I live in a predominantly student area and it is quite entertaining watching these prim and proper young people turn up then they devolve into other things and then become nice respectable people once again.. it does seem to be the norm!

    My friends partner went to uni weighing about 20st by the end of the first semester he weighed 10st.. he was living on one ham sandwich a day, cereal if he had any in and drinking alcohol and tapwater. When he left and moved in with my friend he has regained most of the weight.

    What did your son weigh before he went to uni? If it was not a great deal more than it is now then I wouldn't be at all concerned, you say he has always been thin so losing a little weight isn't going to help.

    I know a lot of the younger students living away from home would take food from home and be sent food packages by their parents so they could ensure they were eating. I also knew students whose parents had Tesco/Asda deliveries sent to them .. avoiding fridge and frozen stuff they stuck with packets and pasta and jars and tins which could be kept in their room there is a massive problem of housemates scoffing the food they buy so they don't buy anything that needs to be kept in a kitchen because it disappears. A table top freezer/fridge might help with frozen/fridge foods. If the food is there the chances are he will eat it IF!!!!! he knows how to cook it.. a large proportion have been waited on at home so simply do not have the knowledge to feed themselves!
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  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
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    pigpen wrote: »
    My friends partner went to uni weighing about 20st by the end of the first semester he weighed 10st.. he was living on one ham sandwich a day, cereal if he had any in and drinking alcohol and tapwater. When he left and moved in with my friend he has regained most of the weight.

    I might have to go on that diet if he lost 10st between September and Christmas! I'd only need a couple of weeks and I'd be at my fighting weight! ;)

    I agree that getting a Tesco delivery sent every couple of weeks is a really good idea. You're making sure the food is there to be eaten without being too involved and getting accused of sticking your nose in.
  • System
    System Posts: 178,374 Community Admin
    10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 14 April 2013 at 4:36PM
    If you nag them too much it pushes them away. If you dont drop comments in every so often then i feel i'd be ignoring my Mothering instincts.

    I dont have to resort to making comments to my daughters as they seem pretty good at making their own way in life but my sons... i despair!

    Even my youngest i have issues with. Take Fridays conversation between us for example.

    Son: Mom my trousers are falling down. I need a belt
    Me: No you dont need a belt you need to eat
    Son: I do eat
    Me: If you call 3 bowls of cereal that lasts you till tea time eating then i'm not surprised you need a belt.

    I'll be damned if i am going to spoon feed him and he's got a pair of arms just like i have.
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  • 7st does sound very thin, my boys are 10/11st (and there's no fat on them at all) but some people are just very lean all their lives.

    When our DS1 was away at Uni, I did him a Tesco shop once a month to stock him up with the basics, so at least I knew he had something in his cupboards - he's still a lazy cook, they all are, and would rather have something they can reheat or have ready in a couple of minutes, that seems to be the deciding factor, rather than something nutritious and tastier that takes a bit longer. I've had some nice chicken pies in my freezer for weeks (they love chicken pie) but because they take 50 mins to cook, they've left them there!

    Staying up til the early hours playing X-box is par for the course here too!
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  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 14 April 2013 at 12:37PM
    7st does sound very thin, my boys are 10/11st (and there's no fat on them at all) but some people are just very lean all their lives.

    He's only 5'7" remember.

    One of my exes was that height and only weighed 8 stone, he was fit and went to the gym and ate well which is why he's got an extra stone on the OP's son, but men aren't meant to carry as much body fat as a woman of the same height.
  • marisco_2
    marisco_2 Posts: 4,261 Forumite
    At 21 your son is a grown man, not a baby who needs you to still be a mummy to him. He should be more than capable by now of standing on his own two feet, going out into the world and finding his own way.

    His lifestyle choices dont sound very healthy but they are just that, his choices. A man gets to choose what he eats, how he cares for himself and how he manages his finances. The difficult part of parenthood is reconciling with yourself when to back off and let them get on with it.

    I do appreciate that you are a loving mum who has no doubt put every effort into raising him well and caring for him. You will have tried hard to instill in him positive messages over running his life and taking care of himself. If he decides to take only some of this onboard that really is up to him.

    You may not like how he lives and worry about the effects it will have on him but for his own sake you need to leave him to it. If you fuss over him and try do it all for him, all you achieve is to enable him to stay as he is and to end up resenting you.
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  • silvercar
    silvercar Posts: 49,936 Ambassador
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Academoney Grad Name Dropper
    Errata wrote: »
    5'7" and 7 st, plays on a PC until 3 or 4 in the morning, drinking every night and putting booze before food? Sound like something far more serious is going on than 'normal" student behaviour.

    Sounds normal to me!

    My son is at uni. 6'1" and weighs about 9 st 7 lb. BMI is about 17.5. Eats when he feels like it but often has a meal at 6pm and another at 11pm.
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  • DUTR
    DUTR Posts: 12,958 Forumite
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    Person_one wrote: »
    He's only 5'7" remember.

    One of my exes was that height and only weighed 8 stone, he was fit and went to the gym and ate well which is why he's got an extra stone on the OP's son, but men aren't meant to carry as much body fat as a woman of the same height.

    My daughter's Mum is only 5'1 and 7st 7, I like mine slim to medium, and at that height is in the 'normal' range but only just, my ex is 5'4" and at 8st was below a size 10, I'm not much taller than the OP's son but when I went down to 11st 5 people said I looked ill, I can't imagine a bloke below a 28 or 30 waist :o
  • valk_scot
    valk_scot Posts: 5,290 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    My 11 year old DD is 5'1" and weighs almost eight stone. There's not an ounce of excess fat on her at that weight btw, it's all swimming muscle. I would have thought at aged 21 a young man should have at least a little muscle mass, surely? It's one thing not carrying any excess fat, it's entirely another thing to be so underweight that you're nothing but skin and bone.

    Also if you're only eating a very restricted diet of only a couple of items then you're not getting essential nutrients for things like blood production, bone renewal and soft tissue repair. The short term solution to this is a good multivitamin pill with iron and trace minerals, also some calcium. At least it will stave off the scurvy!

    But long term near starvation can do long term damage to organs and to the immune system. Yes it's all very well saying it's his life, let him get on with it. But if he was my son I would be making darn sure he knew what the potential negative consequences of his self neglect were before I stepped back and said "...but your choice, son." It's actually quite appaling how little the average person knows about food intake and what qualifies as a healthy diet, I've read "advice" on these forums about nutrition that's just so wrong it makes your toes curl. Unless he's been taught about nutrition by parents, a sports coach or during some sort of class at school then he may simply not know what he needs to eat to stay healthy. My advice is to make sure kids know these facts before they head off to start cooking for themselves, and how to go about shopping, cooking and feeding themselves an acceptable diet. Then he can choose not to, but at least he won't be doing it out of ignorance.

    I had a flatmate btw that ate nothing but wholemeal bread and peanut butter and drank nothing but milk and orange juice. (And beer.) As diets go it wasn't actually that bad and it was quicker to make than noodles. Actually I do tell a lie, he would also eat anything that anyone cooked for him and was often to be seen scraping out the remains from his flatmates pots before we washed them. In his case it was just being lazy but he had put a bit of thought into how lazy he could be and still stay healthy!
    Val.
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