Hold The Door Open

have happened in the past. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jada Pinkett Smith about her new book Worthy, and in that book she talked about her challenging relationship with her father. As we go through this call today, that book will be in the back of my mind because sometimes we have expectations of our parents that they cannot meet because because of who they are, what they've learned, or what their life experiences have presented

for them. Even though there are parents, it doesn't mean that they're great at the job of parenting. So as we listen to this call today, I want you to think about what are your expectations of your parents and what expectations do they have of you, Because sometimes it can be the child that releases the expectations, but the parents can hold on where you're my child, you're my son,

you're my daughter, and you should. So let's think about what truly is happening with all of these things that I want or what they want in the relationship, and actually can we even meet each other's needs in those ways. Let's start with today's call.

at all. It's respectful. When I see him, I greet him, I ask him how he's doing, and then that we leave it at that. It's not, you know, combative, it's not tense when we see each other. It's just we greet each other and then we leave it at that. We were okay in the same spaces. He would like to try to build back into trying to fix it, but I feel that there's already been so many chances at trying to reconcile and try to be heard and try to really talk things out that I don't think

I want to give another chance on that. So and also it was just hiring emotionally mentally, I just felt myself like or often when I would interact with him, I wasn't sure if it was going to be like an annoying conversation or something I wasn't really trying to engage with. So that's kind of where it currently stands. He did have a recent tragic event happened in his

life which is causing me to reevaluate my boundary. He recently lost his sister in law to cancer, and I'm not sure if the right thing for me to do is send like flowers or a card or something that lets him know that I'm sorry for your loss something to that effect, right, or would that be me not honoring my own boundary to myself and kind of bending or breaking, you know, a sense of respect for myself. I'm just not sure how to handle that and what

the right decision to be. I asked my mother what she thought I should do there, because me and her have actually rebuilt our relationship after me moving out of the home, and she thinks that maybe it would be helpful to send something. She just doesn't know what it should be. She wants to lead it up to my own decision making what I feel. But I told her I wasn't sure if I was going to send anything. I didn't know.

my condolences. Some time ago, I had a friend and we stopped our connection and she lost a parent and I called her and I just wanted to offer my condolences. You know, her mother was in my life and I wanted to say I see you, I see your pain. It's not about re establishing the connection as much as it is like, wow, I understand that this must hurt. It can mean whatever you want it to mean, it's

your boundaries. So if you want that to be a token of hey, let's rebuild, or if you just want it to be a symbol of kindness, it can be that as well. You get to determine what that looks like with your father. Being kind should be a part of all of our boundaries, right, Like, we don't want to be so harsh in our boundaries that when things happen to people we have no compassion for them. We

can be compassionate and hold our boundaries with people. I hear that you know, with your mom, it sounds like there is some trust and that you feel more comfortable with re establishing that connection. But with your father, there is a lack of trust. So let's keep listening to find out a bit more of what happened in the relationship.

making a whole lot of time for us. They were available and they were engaged, but I felt like as we were getting older, I would have really liked them to be around more often, but they were a lot of times helping other family members and you know, taking other people places and helping them with their situations, and it felt like over time that we were just kind of like kind of put on the sideline a little bit, even as I continue to like kind of race towards

you know, getting a career in stem you know, setting up myself as an independent, you know, young adult, just having a stable relationship, taking care of my own you know, bills and finances and trying to just be stable and work towards those things. I would go off to college, get my degree and you know, my STEM field, return home, and after I returned home, it'd be definitely became a lot more combative because while I was away, I was able to like develop my own voice a bit more.

You know, I became much more comfortable with having like debates that had differing opinions and just like being comfortable and disagreeing and just talking things through and not kind of shying away from those conversations. Not that I wasn't before college, like in high school or anything. I just became much more confident, so I leaned more into those things. I didn't shy away from, you know, speaking my mind and give me my honest opinion about stuff versus like

what they might want to hear. But getting back to when I returned home from school, I would, you know, try to find a job in my field. That that took longer than I thought, which is you know, the post college or undergrad experience. I would go on to working like a best buy for a little while. And that's around the same time they started asking for rent.

Now at my house, it was me and my brother who didn't finish college, and my cousins and some aunts uncles right and my parents who kind of took care of everything. There was no established number for rent. We just knew at some point we had to pay it.

But for me, that said this weird dynamic of not knowing what is the right number to pay, especially since I wasn't making that much money and at this point I was taking on those bills that my parents were covering under, like family plants and stuff like my phone bill, or my car insurance. All those things were now in my own name, and I had no problem with with that. So I knew that was coming and I was paying knows,

no problem, All good and no issues. But the issue became when I started asking me about rent and not just kind of accepting what they were asking me or asking of me. They would ask for like a number such as like three hundred dollars. I know that's not a lot, but I wasn't making a lot, and I would say, hey, I'm much more comfortable paying like one

fifty or something. I know that's very low, but again, I had my bills and I wanted to save so I could move out to have my own place while also looking for a job in my field, my first job officially in my career. So they took offense to that. They would say things like, oh, as your parents, if we ask of you of something, you should be more than willing to get it. While you're asking about how much rent is for other people in the house, you

shouldn't be asking about the people sending those situations. That's none of your business. People who can pay what they can, whether that's more or less what we're asking you that's a different scenario, different situation. But as a young man, you should want to move out as soon as you can, and you should want to pay whatever you can help out your parents. I told them I had no problem paying I just didn't want to pay that much. I'm

more than willing to help out. I'm more than willing to do what you're asking me, help around the house, take care of my own bills. And this became this ongoing thing for a number of years. I would go on to find my first, you know job in my career, you know, intry level job somewhere. I enjoyed that, but that gave me just enough money to qualify for some interr level housing in my area as well, like my

first one bedroom apartment. Me and my parents get into more having more of these conversations about you know, rent and you know, what's expected, and my dad is coming at it from this angle of you know, religion and as a man of God and these kind of things. My mom is saying, like, you know, as a son who wants to bring to his parents and no honor,

he should do this. And I'm letting them know that, while you know, we were raised with faith, i am a bit uncertain about faith generally speaking as a person who leans more into my science spring. Now, I don't know how I feel about that. So I don't really want to have every conversation revolve around what my duties are to you in terms or in context of religion. I just want to help out as a child in

the home period. You know, it doesn't have to be you know, in terms of religion or something along those lines. I just want to help. But also I don't want to like give more than I can give to meet my own goals. I have my own dreams, my own things I want to accomplish, and those are things you wanted us to accomplish when we were younger. So here I am still trying to do that path, trying to you know, pay it back by trying to be successful and things I want to you know, pursue.

something that makes sense for everyone. But if they're singling you out and saying, well, you are the person with a certain type of character that will pay this, and maybe you know they won't pay it, and these sorts of things, it sounds like a really uncertain, unclear situation.

And I hear that you wanted that clarity. And I'm wondering if your parents demand it rent from the person who they most thought would pay it, not the person who made the most money, not the person who used the most things in the house, but the person who demonstrated a type of character who would pay the bill. Is that fair? Probably not, but it's certainly something that I'm hearing, you know, in this situation, and that can be really unfortunate because we all want to be treated fairly.

You know, if I wait five minutes, I want the other person to wait five minut and is I don't want to wagh five and then they wait too. It's like, oh my gosh, so I stood in line for five and they get two. We have this need to be treated as other people. So I hear that, particularly when it's other family members. When it's your brother, you're like,

where is the equality in this situation? And I hear your your parents were like focused on equity or something like, well, it's not fair, but you know this person can do this or not do this, and this is how we're deciding.

And they didn't give you that chart. They didn't give you the graph of how they decided this and came to this conclusion of that, and it created a lot of chaos between you and your parents about what to pay now as an adult child, you know, some parents do it differently, right, Like some parents will say, hey, give me such and such and I will put it towards, you know, the money that you'll have to move out, or some parents need that money, right they're like, hey,

we have bills, you're here, there is more lights being used. There are some who will just give you money to move out. In your situation, it sounds like your parents came to you and said this is the dollar amount, and maybe for them there was no room for negotiation, and for you it's like this should be something that we can work out, This should be something we should

talk through. Should it just be this amount and that's it? Well, your parents were saying, yeah, it should just be this amount the tactics that they use, you know, saying you honor your parents and you're a good kid, and you're all of these things, and you know this, this is what you should do. Those sort of things that manipulating and pulling out the heartstrings. It can really tear you down because you're like, oh, my gosh, I do love

my parents, Like is that in question? Because I don't want to give them three hundred dollars out of my six Like do I love them less? Of course not. But when it comes to money, and when it comes to our expectations around what people should do with their money, it gets really tough. It gets really unclear, and when we can't come to an agreement on what that should look like, what happened to you is typically what happens.

It becomes an unfortunate circumstance that in the moment, from both folks perspective, it is like, there's no there's no other way. This is the only way. It's one point fifty or it's three hundred, there's no other way. When many of us go off to college, or when we move away from our parents, we start to discover these parts of ourselves that we could not be or didn't feel comfortable being while we were in our parents' home

or under their care. And so was very normal for us to find our voice in different ways, to be able to say what we like and what we don't like, and maybe present in those relationships a little different because we are different. There is something that happened while away that we are now bringing back to the family. We're bringing back to the relationship we have with our parents.

So certainly, you know, being away, yeah, it takes away that shyness and your voice is you know, maybe before you had a little baby voice like oh, I want to go, and now it's like, no, I'm not going over there. And that could be quite shocking because for your parents, they haven't done that growth while you were away.

They weren't thinking, oh my gosh, this person is going to come back and they're going to be all changing these ways you've been doing that work, and so for them it is like they are getting to know you in this new way. Parents don't have the training or education to even realize that that happens. They think the person that they dropped off at college is the person who's going to come back home. And what happens is

you have a higher level of exposure. It's like, you know the things your kids pick up when they start going to school and you're like, where did you learn that word? What did you get that? It's happening again when you go off to college again, when you get this job in this new career. You're learning all these new things from all these other people, and it's going to reflect in the relationship with your parents. That is

a very normal part of growing up. I'm hoping that I'm guessing not maybe I'm in my Hallmark movie mind when I'm saying this. I'm hoping that there was some middle road that you all could come to. And if not, you know, we will talk through this. Let's keep listening.

and these kind of things. Meanwhile, we just had an issue of talking we were on the same page, and I didn't, you know, do the things that didn't want to want me to. I tried to stay out of trouble. I tried to you know, not hang outside too much because I didn't want them to think I was just outside spending all my money on fun things, not paying them the money that they asked me to. But long story short, we had this really big argument right before I was asked to leave the house, and me and

my father almost came to blows. It didn't happen. We decided that we shouldn't do that. But that was a moment that let me know that maybe I actually take a step back from this relationship. Maybe this isn't healthy for me to continue to engage with. Maybe I need a break from this. We would talk that next morning, meet my father and my mother, and I would ask them for an apology. I told them I was sorry about

what I did. I gave my mom an apology, and then I gave my father an apology, and I asked them could they give me one because I would appreciate that, just so I know that we can move forward and we can recognize that no one was right last night and let's try this again. They both refused to give me an apology, which I was actually hurt by. That didn't feel good to know that my parents didn't feel that they needed to give me an apology just because

they were my parents. Even though I pay them rent and haven't missed since I agreed to pay them their number and rent was increased a couple of times, they have always gotten the rent from me. They have never had to pay a bill that was put in my name, like my phone bill and my car insurance, just you know, taking care of just the basic responsibilities on my end,

doing what was expected. And I thought that since I was, you know, doing what was expected, that I could get at least a little grace, a little I'm sorry for what happened last night. We're taking it that far, but they didn't see it that way. And then my father would tell me, well, what is my plan? And that was his way of saying, I need you to leave the house. Essentially, he said it to other people in the past, and I was well aware that this is

something he said before. It's just his kind of go to line of when he doesn't want to like talk plainly, he kind of wants to like soften that kind of conversation a bit, and I told him my plan was as it always was. It was to move out from my own place, you know, take care of my own bills, kind of grow in my career. He said, all right, great, I need you to move out by the end of this week. And I asked him, well, that's soon, but let me get this straight. You want me to move

out this week. I just paid your rent. You need to move out this week. He said yes, because I don't think you can stay here anymore. Again, we had was an argument. We didn't cross blows. You still got their rent money, but tensions were high and communication was pretty bad at the time. I would agree, but I immediately

responded with I'm not ready for that. And I do fear that if you do decide that I can't stay here anymore and I have to go find my own place, that I might not be able to make it because I don't have that much savings. I have a credit card, and I might run up a lot of debt in the first few months trying to establish myself, and that might really derail the hard work I got up to this point. I just got my first job in my career. That's not going to be enough money to take care

of my responsibilities. I might need to get a second job, which might take away from my energy for my first job, my main career job. All was to say I was nervous by moving out, and I also I wasn't ready for that. But if he wants to do that and had me take those risks with my livelihood and well being, this is going to really affect our relationship, and I'm not sure when I have one with you if you do this. He took a moment to think about it. He said, no, I still think that you need to

move out. I said, okay. Thankfully my credit score and a little bit of my savings and checking was enough to move out and cover first months. But from that moment on, I haven't spoken to him and we have had no relationship.

situation between father and son. I hear that you apologize to them, and I'm assuming here that your apology was based on you know, maybe I took it too far. Can you agree that you took it too far as well? Oh, and your parents are like, no, we didn't. We didn't take it too far. We did exactly what we intended to do with that dispute last night. And that can be really tough to hear that a person sees no error with their behaviors, that they're doubling down or as

I like to call it. Sometimes, you know, people will unapologize, Yeah I said it in that probably wasn't nice, but I said it anyway. It's like, whoa, what just happened? Was that an admission of doing something wrong? And then you're saying, who cares? Anyway? That happens too, you know where people will you know, unapologize like yep, that was

bad behavior, and oh will or outright refuse. I'm not gonna apologize because I don't have anything to apologize for, you know, I've even had people say to me like, that wasn't aggressive. If you want to see aggressive, you know, it's like, oh, well, there's more, you know. So there are times that people aren't ready to be accountable for their behaviors, or they feel like those behaviors were warranted

given the situation. This is how I should act in this situation, or you made me do it, or this is what I feel is appropriate. It takes time. It takes time for people to see themselves, especially when the situation hasn't been given in that that room to reflect. It can be years, it can be months, and for you it sounds like it was the next day, like oh my gosh, I woke up and I'm like, oh,

what terrible behavior. And for other people it could be like no, I don't think so, and then years later they might be watching a movie and something happened they're like, oh my gosh, I did that. Oh what terrible behavior I had eight years ago. Who knows. Hopefully they get to the place of wanting to apologize, of seeing how they showed up in a situation, maybe harshly, inappropriately, or

not prepared to really deal with the situation. I'm going to jump out here and say, you know, when your parents were asking you for the money, they had no doubt that you would just say okay, right, So all of these things that they did afterwards, it was like, Okay, what do we do next. I don't know, let's pull something out of the air. Okay, this is where we're going to to say. This was not very practiced. Therefore it wasn't very intentional. I think these were in the

moment things that were said. These were in the moment behaviors. It was like you were catching them off guard with intellect, right, You're like, well what about these other people paying? They're like, oh wait, we didn't think about that. These are all things that they had not work through, and you were asking them to work through. And so you're saying, hey, see your unfairness, see your harshness, see how there's a better way for this. And parents sometimes want to be right.

Wanting to be right can be a bigger goal than actually being right. It's like, no, I want to be right so bad I can't even incorporate another perspective. I refuse to see anything else because this can be the only thing. I truly think that one of the cornerstones of I don't even want to say good parenting, but decent parenting is the ability to admit when you are wrong and to readjust. So many parents are afraid to do that because there's this idea that you lose leverage.

Oh my gosh, I don't have this leverage anymore. I'm not right, But you lose respect when you're wrong and you double down, And that happens far too often where parents are wrong. They have been unfair, they have shown some favoritism, they are not paying attention to some things, they are being rude or whatever, and they're like, Nope, I'm going to double down because I can't be wrong about what I said. I have to back it up. So in this situation, I hear that there's a bit

of hurt. Trust was lost, and there is now, you know, probably a lack of respect given how your father handled this situation. Keep listening.

get my own experience. Even though I stayed out of trouble, I got the degree that they wanted wanted me to get in the stem field. I'm working in my field now, I'm paying all my bills on the time, you know, things like that. I thought was you know, checking the

boxes that they wanted me to check. Up to this point, I've been in a long term relationship at that point I still continue to be and it's I thought I was doing the right thing, and I'm not sure how if I want to re engage this person just because they're going through something you know, dramatic and something really

like difficult to deal with. Because I've been able to actually even find myself currently at my dream job quite a bit earlier than I was going to ever be here, and I'm really proud of the hard work I've been able to do to like establish myself and grow. Not only am I you know, my housing situation, but in my career as well. And that was no help for my parents, who haven't helped since I left the house.

And I come by occasionally, but it is difficult because I know they're kind of getting older and they're dealing with stuff, and like I said, he lost a sister in law. But I'm really uncertain with how to manage the situation. Do I engage with him, do I send something out? Maybe not engage with him, but do I reach out and send something or do I continue my boundary. I'm not really sure what to do, and I would really appreciate any advice that you could give. Thank you so much.

able to work through it. And I want you to think of this situation as, let's say, in your work environment, in this dream job that you have, and you have a dispute with a coworker over a project and I mean, it really gets nasty. Both of you will have to continue to work there. Will you not speak to this person? Will you ignore them? Or will you choose to at some point work through it. Now I don't know your personality.

Maybe you will be like, you know what, I'm gonna walk past that desk every day and I'll never say anything to them again for the next twenty five years. Perhaps that is what you will do. But I'm gonna guess here that you would just figure a way to move beyond it because you have to be in that space. I'm not saying you have to be in that relationship with your father. But what I'm hearing here is some willingness and desire on your part. I'm not hearing you're

completely done. I'm hearing that you're trying to figure out a way to live with this situation that has really hurt you and maybe even be in a relationship. Maybe that's why we started with you wanting to send this gift right like, oh, they're getting older, I'm thinking about these things. There is still something there for you. What that is, I don't know. I don't know what the moving forward looks like. It can look like anything you know, a relationship doesn't have to be close. It could just

be a relationship. I see my dad on holidays, you know, once a month we get together and we have dinner together, you know, every fifteenth Sunday, I call them. I don't know, you'd get to decide what that looks like. It could just be sending this thing. But you will forever and always be in a relationship with your parents, whether you're talking to them on a regular basis or not. They live in your heart, they live in your head. If

they had those memories, they have you. So there is no getting out of the relationship, right, But it's what will the relationship look like? That's what you're working on. Do you want the relationship to be tense? Do you want the relationship to be characterized by this situation of you moving out? Or do you want to create some new memories with your father? Do you think this is a thing that he could do again? And in what

way you live with him anymore? Right? So, how could these things impact you in the future or is this so impactful that it impacts you in the future. Right? I wonder this, if you were to stay in this relationship, what could it look like? And if you wanted to truly leave and be out of this relationship, what would it feel like. There is some processing of your hurt and your disappointment in your father that needs to happen. I didn't hear any feeling. I heard a lot of behavior.

I heard a lot of what was said, but the feeling around how your father responded and how he didn't acknowledge it, how he didn't seem remorseful. And I know you have the words if you could just write a paragraph. I mean, it doesn't even have to be, you know, anything of significant length, but just a paragraph of how that made you feel. Sometimes we call that an impact statement. Right when this happened, I felt in that situation, I would have hoped right now I feel impacted by it

in the following ways. It could be really hopeful for you to just acknowledge what's going on with you as a result of that situation. I would love to hear an update on this because I think this is a situation where the door is not closed. I hear I'm seeing it. I'm hearing a little crack in the door. You know, you're wanting to do something there, and you're trying to figure it out. I wonder what you'll do. You need to hear this. We cannot make people apologize.

We can desire an apology, we can feel like we deserve an apology, but when someone apologizes just to appease us, it is typically an authentic and their behaviors may not change. We cannot make people apologize. You need to hear this is an iHeart production hosted by Mendra Glover to wab Our executive producer is Joe L. Bodique. Our senior producer and editor is Mia Don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and relationships that you

need to hear this at iHeartMedia dot com. Right now. I'm really interested in hearing more stories from parents who are strange from their children, also people who are having marriage issues. I don't know about you, but I feel like I am in this space of life where I'm hearing more and more about, you know, marriages and women initiating divorce. So I am really interested in hearing more about some of your marriage issues and self sabotage. What

are you struggling with? What are some of the things that you find really hard to do? What are your barriers. What are your blocks. I'd love to hear more on three things estrangement, marriage issues, and self sabotage.