Parenting doesn’t stop when your child turns 18—but the challenges change. Join us live on March 21st for an open and honest conversation about supporting adult children through mental health struggles, shifting dynamics, and the emotional toll it can take.

This is a space to ask questions, share experiences, and gain insight from experts and fellow parents who understand. Share your questions below so we can capture all sides of this conversation - it is just the beginning!

If you’re like me and thought it would be a great idea to move back in with your boomer parents during an election year—congrats. You hate yourself. Just kidding!!

It’s hard to talk about moving back home without acknowledging the political climate and the stark generational divide we’re living through. Books are being written about us, as if millennials are some kind of mysterious species—not the generation raised by boomers and the messes they created. At this rate, I think we’ll be dissecting these differences for the rest of my lifetime.

Soooo I’ve been moved out for a couple of months now, and with a little distance, I can finally reflect without being clouded by the intense emotions of that time. I wanted to share the lessons I learned the hard way.

Lesson Number 1: They Aren’t Changing—But I Am

I used to think that if I made the perfect argument, presented the right research, or framed things just so, that generation would finally get it. My friends and I talk a lot about how, if boomers were forced to really examine certain things, they might have to change their entire belief system. And that’s revolutionary.

Take women’s happiness, for example. Studies keep comparing our financial stability and life satisfaction to the "good old days"—when women had no real choices beyond marrying the guy down the street. Now, we do. And the shift is unsettling for people who built their identities around a different set of rules.

I’ve learned to adjust my expectations. If that’s not good enough for you, I get it. But I recommend reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents because odds are, this struggle is all too familiar.

Lesson Number 2: Patience Is a Skill, Not a Virtue

I used to think patience was something you either had or didn’t. Now, I see it as something you build—like endurance. If you never practice sitting in discomfort, you’ll never get better at it.

My mom used to tell me to “pick my battles,” and I would huff back, “I pick ALL the battles!” I came out as queer later in life, at 25, and looking back, I realize I was still working through so much shame. Any offhand comment could set me off. Honestly, it still does. But how I handle it has changed. I leave the room. I spend less time at the house. I go to places where I feel like I belong.

You have to keep that patience glass full, or you’ll end up throwing it at the wall.

Lesson Number 3: Love Doesn’t Equal Understanding

This one was tough. I want to believe that if you love someone, you’ll try to understand them. I remember watching Ellen years ago when Portia gave her a gift, and she said, “It’s good to be loved. It’s profound to be understood.”

But that’s not always how it works. My mom loves me. She wants the best for me. And yet, she doesn't always get me. And that has to be okay. Only you can decide if that’s enough for you.

I’ve had what feels like hundreds of conversations with my mom. Some days, she is the only person who truly sees me. Other days, I am gobsmacked that she is the one who raised me. I’m lucky she tries to understand me at all.

Lesson Number 4: Good Intentions Are Not Enough

I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation, but intention versus impact matters.

I’m a hugely action-oriented person. When I worked in corporate, I used to vent to my mom for hours about the problematic systems I saw. She would always ask, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” Not in a dismissive way, but in a let’s get going, let’s do something way.

Now, she doesn’t ask me that because she sees that I’ve built my entire career around the change I want to see. But here’s the thing: certain opinions do matter. Certain jokes aren’t funny. There will be ignorance and it isn’t cute and silly. The purposeful misunderstanding is annoying at best and hateful at worst.

So again, it’s up to each of us to decide what works in our relationships. And this stuff runs deep.

Final Lesson: Preemptive Grief Is Real

Watching the people who raised you get older feels like a million tiny paper cuts. I recently learned about preemptive grief—the mourning that happens before the actual loss. It sneaks up on you in small moments, like noticing how my mom moves a little slower and that I can beat her on the tennis court any day of the week now.

I save every card my mom sends me because one day, they’ll stop coming. I already feel the ache of that future absence, like a shadow that follows me around. And even though I couldn’t wait to move back out, even though I needed space to breathe, I know there will be a time when I’d give anything to sit across from her at the kitchen table again, listening to her tell me, one more time, to pick my battles.

I can love her deeply and still know I can’t live under the same roof as her. Both things are true. And both things break my heart.

These dynamics are messy. There’s no easy way to navigate them. Moving back out has given me space to breathe again. But I also feel the tug of what I left behind. If you’ve just moved back in or are still trying to move out, let me know how you are doing in the comments!

Would I do it again? Absolutely not.

But am I glad I did? Yeah. In a weird, complicated, tangled-up way—I am. 

I recently was talking to my therapist and realizing I do have more "quirks" than I thought regarding sensory overload. I am still learning the wording of all this but I do struggle with being overstimulated with regard to noise and smells and I think I have always felt this way.

I considered myself mostly "normal" and these sensitivities have kinda thrown me for a loop. I mean clearly they have been around for at least the last five years of my life but I never thought about them in this way. Smells really bother me and it is honestly hard for me to not feel ill if there is an overwhelming smell for a long period of time.

Sound is something I have recently realized too...if it is consistent it grates on me. People's pets and their noises really seem to bother me and maybe I do not actually dislike dogs they just overstimulate me if I am with them for too long. Does that make sense?  I feel kinda crazy.

Anyway, I dont really like the wording of "Highly Sensitive Persons" because it makes me feel weak. I am such a strong and resilient person in every other way and I have been sensitive emotionally but this is different. I feel this in my body and I cannot control my reactions for the most part. I want to learn more about this from others and understand how this is not a bad thing as my therapist says but just another puzzle piece on how I can better take care of myself. 

Women are taught to shrink—to be small and stay small. Recently I was watching Say Yes to the Dress reruns and I was thinking about how different women's bodies can be and  how we all have to shop for the same exact type of jeans to fit us all or we are not "skinny enough"

I have always been obsessive about my calories and my exercising since I can remember and looking back running miles around my neighborhood at 10 years old feels really gross to me now.  I wasnt just being “healthy,” I know it was much more than that...still is.  I guess what I am trying to say is I have an eating disorder and it is very real even now well into my thirties. I know now it is something I will always have. 

Anyway, hoping to share on here for other people like me. You deserve to take up space, to be nourished, to exist fully. 💛

Moving back to California has been one of the most defining transitions of my life. As January fades and February settles in, the rush of resolutions gives way to quieter reflections. It’s in these moments that I often think about the times I’ve left something behind, only to find my way back to it.

The first time I moved out  west, I was chasing sunshine, adventure, and the promise of freedom. And it delivered! California didn’t just offer beautiful landscapes; it gave me the space to discover who I was. Away from everything and everyone I knew, I had to ask myself: “What do I want?” Not what I’d been told to want, but what genuinely mattered to me. And the answers surprised me.

I realized I didn’t want the traditional life I had always imagined. In California, I met people who questioned the same things I did–women who weren’t sure about having kids, who pushed back against societal expectations, who fully embraced their sexuality and autonomy. It was refreshing, liberating, and necessary. I cannot imagine who I would be today without that shift.

But even as I was finding myself I felt like something was missing. I wanted to build something real, something that felt like mine. And to do that, I needed a reset.

So I made the tough decision to leave. I moved back home to Florida to start my business–the seed that would eventually grow into saymore.

Moving back in with my parents was harder than I expected. I had just started feeling like the most me I'd ever been, and suddenly I was back in a space that brought up old patterns and family dynamics I thought I had outgrown. It felt like rewinding when I was supposed to be moving forward. But I knew it was a necessary step.

Starting a business from scratch wasn’t just a logistical challenge; it was an emotional one. Every day, I had to remind myself that I was planting seeds for something bigger, even if all I could see in the moment was dirt. There were days it felt like nothing was happening, like I had hit pause on my life while everyone else around me was fast-forwarding. But growth isn’t linear, and taking a break sometimes feels like failure when really, it’s all just part of the process.

I always knew I would come back to California. There was never a question about that. But surprisingly, coming back wasn’t as seamless as I imagined. I expected to step back into my old life but instead, I found myself standing in the middle of something familiar that no longer fit me in  the same way.

Nostalgia is tricky like that. It makes you miss versions of yourself that don’t exist anymore. I found myself longing for the person I was when I first arrived on the West Coast years ago: the excitement, the fresh start, the sense of possibility. But I wasn’t that person anymore, and that was both unsettling and empowering.

Coming back has been an adjustment in ways I didn’t expect. It’s been a mix of collision of past and present —a reminder of who I was and proof of how much I’ve changed. I can’t just pick up where I left off, and that’s okay. Maybe that’s the whole point.

Moving west taught me to be honest with myself. Leaving taught me resilience. Returning has taught me how to hold space for every version of myself–the one who was searching, the one who was building, and the one who is still figuring things out.

Maybe you can always come home, but you can’t ever go back. Maybe you’re also not supposed to. Life has a way of bringing us full circle, not so we can relive the past, but so we can see how far we’ve come. I’m proud to say that every part of my journey—the highs, the lows, the moments of doubt, the breakthroughs—has shaped me into the person I am today.

Leaving a place you love and coming back to it can be confusing, but maybe life’s only certainty is that it will rarely look like what we imagined. Personally, that has been revealed to me over and over again.

Have you ever returned to a place that deeply shaped you? What was it like to revisit it as someone who had grown and changed? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.