Robert Frost tells the story1 of a young girl, tiny and fierce, who followed her brother into the woods to pick wild grapes. Pulling down the tops of flexible white birch trees, he with his boyish heft was able to pick fruit from vines at the very top of the forest. The trouble started when he pulled a tree down to earth and put it in his sister’s hands so she could pick her own grapes.
“Hold on with all your might when I let go,” he instructed her, which was exactly what a tiny girl should not have done. The tree “caught her up as if [she] were the fish and it the fishpole.” When her brother bent the tree down, and her feet once again touched the earth, she knew, as a child, what all parents eventually learn: the real trick is knowing when to let go.
If we let go too soon, we fail to provide needed guidance to creatures whose prefrontal cortex is yet undeveloped. But if we hang on too long, we’re likely to feel the whip of the birch tree taking us off our feet and into midair!
Gaye B. Clark, herself a mother of two adult children, shares wisdom for Christian parents who are navigating the liminal space between parenting teens and living alongside fully functioning adults. We want them to place their hope in God, but we also want them to know that we’re battling alongside them. We feel their pain, we long for them to experience good things, but we must not seek from our children what only God can give.
Parenting adult children, we feel their pain, we long for them to experience good things, but we must not seek from our children what only God can give.
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Loving Your Adult Children probes deeply into the topics of faith, repentance, grace, and hope. Clark admits, “One of the most shattering realizations we parents must face is that what our kids need most isn’t us but Christ. Our job is to point them to him. It is an ironic God blessing that we do this best when we’re at our weakest.” Parents and our adult children are fellow students in God’s classroom.
Most helpful of all is Clark’s understanding that relationships are complicated and things will not always go well. Even the church, which God designed to be a support and encouragement to the family, can at times be an obstacle to be overcome. Staring down the staggering statistic that “1 in 4 U.S. adults have become estranged from their families,” motivates me to be thankful for all that’s going well. and to be mindful that strong relationships with our grown-up kids are just as likely a result of our kids’ willingness to forgive as it is of our success as parents.
Loving Christian parents are called to be “instruments of sanctification” in the lives of our adult children. And, to our great surprise, we discover that in the process of letting go, our adult children have begun to serve the same purpose in our own following life as the warm welcome of the gospel opens our hearts to a greater and more godly love for our family.
In Loving Your Adult Children, Gaye B. Clark admits, “One of the most shattering realizations we parents must face is that what our kids need most isn’t us but Christ.” @crossway
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What Other Reviewers Are Saying
“We never stop being parents, but what does parenting look like when our children are grown? Gaye Clark’s book, Loving Your Adult Children, is a gospel-saturated, grace-infused, and Christ-exalting look at parenting adult children. She points our gaze to the one who loves our children best. As a parent on the cusp of being an empty nester, I needed this book. You will too.”
―Christina Fox, author, Who Are You? A Little Book About Your Big Identity
“Our friend Gaye Clark has written a wise book on a weighty topic―long-term parental love. With engaging illustrations and biblical examples, Clark helps us care for our adult children more meaningfully. And even better, she helps us look to our Father God as we love our adult children. We―and they―are not alone in this journey.”
―Ray and Jani Ortlund, President and Executive Vice President, Renewal Ministries
- “Wild Grapes” by Robert Frost ↩︎
Holding You in the Light,
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Looking forward to reading this since I soon will be in this season.
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Oh, good timing! Love it when the right book comes along at just the right time.
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This sounds like a good resource. As our children become less dependent on us, may they become ever more dependent on Him.
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Oh, yes! We need his wisdom!
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That statistic about 1 in 4 adults are estranged from their families is heart-breaking. One of the greatest pleasures of getting older has been discovering our children-turned-adults have also morphed into friends. How sad the numerous families are missing out on that joy.
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I can’t think of anything more devastating either!
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