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From Trauma to Triumph: Parenting Adult Children · ABCs of Parenting Adult Children

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the podcast ABCs of Parenting Adult Children.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Please join us as we discuss parenting adult children and the unique struggles that it comes along with.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to ABCs of Parenting Adult Children podcast.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, James Moffitt.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is the podcast where we explore the joys and challenges of parenting our grown-up kids with wisdom, patience, and a little bit of humor.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is about From Trauma to Triumph: A Journey of Resilience, Redemption, and Hope, with the guest, Dr.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Greg Linkowski.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Greg, thanks for being here.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you'll do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, James, first of all, let me say thank you very much for this podcast appearance.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm pretty new to this.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and the question is, who am I?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I am I'm a retired MD diagnostic radiologist.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: That was my livelihood and my career.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: I am a husband of 41 years and married to my current and only wife, Lynn.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we've lived through pretty much, I would say, looking back on my life, we've lived through almost everything that one can live through.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I've I've lived the equivalent of essentially two lifetimes.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: I have two, what we have, two living children and four lovely grandchildren.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: My who I am really is at age 71, I realize I'm in my last quarter, and I've determined to make this my best quarter, and to also leave a legacy of love and also forgiveness, and also interjecting with my New York sense of humor, which uh I thank God I got from particularly from my mom and also from my dad.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's awesome.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And being uh married 41 years is not a small feat.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Katie and I are my Katie's my wife, and we've been married almost 36 years.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we have we had four children, two of which are still living, and uh we lost two of them.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say that parents are not supposed to be bearing their children.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's supposed to be the other way around.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So unfortunately, we belong to the same same club, and as we said, as I told you, you know, uh on the phone earlier, you never get over grief, you just learn to live with it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the the pain and the raw emotions and the triggers uh subside and get less and less uh as time goes on.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: My Jessica died in uh 2001, and 24 years later, uh it took me a good 10 or 15 years uh before I could actually talk about her and her life and her treatment path uh without tearing up about it too much.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, uh and and as I told you earlier, I I started a new podcast called Father's Refuge, where I'm going to be sharing my journey with Jessica and my family.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a 14-month journey that we lived through.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'll be I'll be uh pursuing that that uh podcast in hopes of reaching other fathers that are have experienced that loss or are currently you know living through the treatment journey with their children and their families.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So can I call you Dr.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Greg?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Or you can even cut out the doctor and and just call me Greg, which is perfectly finite.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so uh could you share a little bit about your background and what led you to focus on family dynamics and parent-adult-child relationships?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I think well, I know the game changer in our family unit was well, having children, first off, we're blessed with a healthy daughter who has four children, four four little ones, for which I am over the moon in love with.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: She is thriving and doing well.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I am so blessed to be her dad.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Three years after she was born, we had a beautiful little boy named David.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if you crank the clock back to 1993, he actually believed David was a healthy little boy.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he had a couple of issues early on, had a little bit of what they call neonatal jaundice, and had to be uh treated under a UV light.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: But uh shortly shortly after that, my wife was breastfeeding, and we recognized that David was in a lot of pain and a lot of agony, and we finally found out that he wasn't getting his ability to suck the milk off the breast was very diminished.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so people were wondering, why is that?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and we just went on with life and gutted it out, and there were a lot of tearful nights, a lot of crying.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: All of us were crying.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then we finally found out at about roughly three and a half months of age, one of Lynn's sisters, who's also a physician, was very concerned that David wasn't making eye contact.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, out of an abundance of caution, we brought him to the pediatrician and we watched his facial expression turn from happy to very serious.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that began collapsing of our dream for David.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: It sent us on a trip which I have to say, I feel for you, James, and for other parents who have gone through the subsequent life and casting of any of their children.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's not how it's supposed to work.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: But but anyway, so David wound up having stat CAT scan, eventually a pediatric neurologist consult, and found out he had terrible undiagnosed seizure disorder.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: He happened to have some abnormality in the white matter of his brain, which was never actually diagnosed, even though even though his cells were analyzed with DNA and also reanalyzed about ten years after he died, uh, he had cells growing in a lab in New York from a skin biopsy.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: But our family was able to have David home with us for virtually his entire life, except for the last four or five days of his life.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: And the journey that we went on was, I I have to say, I lived a lot in denial.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: I've had to push down, in essence, the level of severity of how bad things were in order to make it from day to day.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, as it as it turns out, we met some amazing people along and including, including our pastor, uh Pastor Doug, who's been in our lives for the last 30 years.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was blessed that he happened to write the foreword of my book and shameless promotion, but this is my book, Dare to Thrive.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Dare to Drive Thrive, okay.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he's walked with us the whole journey, and we also were very blessed to have a uh Christian organization called Johnny and Friends, an amazing organization that ministers to families who have someone with a disability, and we've even gone on a couple of their retreats, you know, etc.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we got to meet a whole slew of people we never would have met otherwise.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: But it changed us, and David wound up passing away in uh October of 2002, you know.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of well, somewhat of a version of David's life.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: We loved him.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was such an amazing young young boy, couldn't walk, couldn't talk, but yet his smile, I I I would swear to people that if you looked carefully in his eyes, you could actually see God's reflection.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: And by virtue of him having been in our lives, God allowed him to help us become much better people, much much more empathic and compassionate, and you know, but uh some other things too, along with some scars, with plenty of scars.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but um David and his journey was the main driver behind what inspired me to write my autobiography.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um not to mention the family of origin that that I come from, which was very chaotic and very alcohol-laced, uh, you know, with that generational curse.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then I I I I would imagine the third thing uh is our youngest son, Sammy, who's now 27, we found out when he was about 15 years old that he was and is gay.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: That has been a challenge in many, many ways, but I will talk solely about my journey.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: He has helped me, a much more caring and empathic dad.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: But you could imagine, I mean, for the people in the audience who could be evangelical Christians, you know, people are like, oh God, he's going to hell in a handbasket.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here to tell you, I don't believe that anymore.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: I believe God is the judge.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: And part of my mission by writing my book is to bring as much honor and glory to God as I can with the life that I've led.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I also hope to inspire and bring a message of hope and encouragement for others who were going through it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And believe me, there's no shortage of pain in this world.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate you sharing that deeply personal story about your sons, and I'm sorry for the loss that you have experienced with David.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: You and I have more in common than I realized.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I lost I lost my son Jeremy, who was 38, uh, in at the end of the January of this year.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was an uh intensive care unit at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he had RSV of lungs and uh he had a weight problem.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So he and I were uh I don't want to say estranged, but we weren't close.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um many years ago, he he announced to his mother and stepdad and my wife and I that he was gay.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I guess uh fast forward to now, his his best friend's mother said that he identified as non-binary anyway.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a lot I had a conversation with my son, and I told him, I said, I'm not God.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I said, You're you're my son, I love you.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to be happy, I want you to be fulfilled, I want you to be healthy.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Your life and your decisions is between you and your maker.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's not that's not my role.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: My role is to be your father, to love you, encourage you.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I told him, I said, I I don't really understand what it is to be gay, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I I struggle, I'll be honest.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll turn 64 this year, and I'm I'm a baby boomer, and I'm somewhat uh conservative in nature and somewhat old-fashioned in so a lot of my views socially, you know, and uh, but again, to my listening audience, I'm I'm not here to judge anybody, you know, and there will, there are people of faith that you know interpret Leviticus and all the different Old Testament books of the Bible that identifies that if you're if you fall under those categories that they're spoken about in the Old Testament, then you're not gonna go to heaven.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: The nice, the neat thing about the New Testament is the New Testament is about grace.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus hung on the cross for the for the sins of mankind, past, present, and future, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, if you embrace that faith, which I do, and my wife does, then then grace covers a multitude of sins, right?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And stealing a penny is no more of a sin than being gay or being a murderer.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, humans and mankind as a whole are the ones who have placed levels on sin.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't place level on sin, he just says sin is sin.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sin is that which separates you from God, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's that's something that has to come between us and God.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have to evaluate our personal relationship with who Jesus is or who God is.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there's people in the listening audience that may not subscribe to grace, they may not subscribe to the evangelical Bible that we do, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: That we embrace.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: They may be Buddhist, they may be Mormon, they may be Catholic, whatever their the faith that they subscribe to, I encourage them.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't stand in judgment.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, who am I to say that my Bible is more correct than yours, or my God is more correct than yours, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I want, I want to do me, and you, you do you, I do me, and some we'll meet in the middle somewhere, and we can we can if we need to or want to, then we can objectively talk about our faith model and what we believe in, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Anyhow, I want to, when it comes to this podcast, and even in my writing and everything, I I try to follow the DEI model, you know, diverse diversification, and uh what's the other one?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: What's D, what's E stand for?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Equity, I think.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Equity, diversion, equity, and inclusion, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So so I want to I want everybody to have their own autonomy.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I want to respect where people are coming from or are at personally at this time in life.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, I'm not here to judge anybody.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my my role and my job, my mission is to encourage parents of adult children, you know?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And encourage parents, period.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: But this podcast is uh ABC is a parenting adult children, right?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the age of you know between 18 and 30.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So so having so having said that, let's talk about transitioning roles for parents, which is a which is a big thing for parents that who have been involved in the day-to-day happenings of of infants, toddlers, preteens, teenagers, and now they're becoming adults, right?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's difficult for parents to, we're both on a, we're the family's on a parallel track.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: The kids are becoming adults, and so the parents should be transitioning from the parent-child relationship into that of a mentor and an encourager, a support role, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so why do you think the shift from raising children to relating to them as adults is often so difficult for parents?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, part of it, I think part of it for us, and I'll crank the clock back to after David died in 2002.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sammy was approximately five years old.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: My hunch is that I, as a father, put extra hopes and dreams and essentially had Sammy's future planned in that he was going to find a a beautiful young woman someday, be married to a woman and have children.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: I initially, I I have to say, anyway, I mean, I have to be as transparent as I can be, but both my wife and I were crushed when we discovered that Sam happened to be gay.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: It took, I had to have some come to Jesus talks in my own personal reflection with God, in addition to ongoing psychotherapy, which uh frankly I'm a big fan of.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was blessed with having a therapist for approximately three decades, uh, which endured my entire career as a diagnostic radiologist.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And this particular therapist helped me to become the father that I never had, and helped me to become a much better husband.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom and dad, I mean, bless their hearts, they're both gone on to eternity.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm convinced they did the best that they could during the time frame in which they lived.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly enough.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it was a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: My dad, unfortunately, uh was really had a pretty pretty bad PTSD.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I know I'm I'm going back in time, but I have to say, he was also in the Navy, and he was at World War II at D-Day at Normandy, and I finally learned about who my father was towards the end of his life, and after he passed, and I have a lot more love and respect for him now over the years, even after he passed in 2006, because I realized he had very bad untreated PTSD and wound up falling into the generational curse of alcohol, which has been pervasive in our family units, and I'm very grateful I am nearly alcohol-free right now.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: That singular maneuver has helped me become a much better parent.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: And transitioning to the role, you know, James, isn't it about letting go?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: About and basically giving your children over to God.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's a lifelong process.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm I'm still doing that.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I will tell you, my my therapist helped me process okay, what are my beliefs?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was raised in New York and being gay, I mean, I I knew there were teenagers who would go to gay bars and would basically rough up and pick fights with people who were gay just because it was taboo.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I never thought that my son would be gay, and yet I'm coming from a place where we both have lost.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I've lost one child, you've lost two.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: I am I I am not going to turn my back on my son.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so therefore, I mean, that's helped me in essence become more affirmative.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm not like I'm not, you know, so affirmative that I am, you know, I'm going to, you know, go out, you know, with the LGBTQ community, but yet he's my son.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I love him.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and and and love, I mean, God is love.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I know we can agree on that.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I don't see my role anymore to judge or offer unsolicited advice to to my children.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm grateful to have the relationship that I have right now with them.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's really complicated for sure.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking from the role of a parent and a father, uh, I will say that, you know, we our our children are a gift from God.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: They are given to us uh as uh to sub to support them, raise them.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Protect them, all of that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they belong to God when they come into the world, and they belong to God when they come out of the world, just like the rest of us, right?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as parents, we're hardwired to parent our children the way we were parented before.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and unless we're we have some emotional intelligence and we can recognize the faults, the generational curse of the bad habits and bad bad parenting that our parents did.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I agree with you.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think our I think my parents did the best they could with what they had, right?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: I had a horrible childhood.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's only by the grace of God that I actually came through that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, as I became a parent, I re recognized that I didn't want I didn't want to be the heavy-handed, violent, alcoholic father that to my children that I had to endure, right?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as we're raising our children, we we want our children to have a better life than we had.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want our children to make the same mistakes that we made.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we want to we want to impart that wisdom to them, and we want to be transparent and share, hey, you know, when I was 21 years old, this is what dad did, and he was I was stupid.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and it's a matter of record that it wasn't for the grace of God, I'd either be in prison, dead, or in a hospital somewhere.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um literally, it's because of the grace of God and his hand on my life and me uh coming to terms with you know my uh mortality and and and who I am in the relationship between me and Jesus, right?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think parents, uh we have we have a vision of who we want our children to become, you know, and a lot of times we want them to become a mirror image of us, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like my dad was a TV, the TV guy in Quinlan, Texas, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: He graduated he he retired from the military in 69.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: We were in Leesville, Louisiana at Fort Polt.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: He retired, he moved us back to Quinlan, Texas, where he was born and raised.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he raised uh uh they bought a brick home and uh you know in 69 or 70.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so we were raised as as children and preteens and teenagers and then adults uh right there in Quinlan, Texas, and he wanted to give me his TV shop.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: He worked at Terrell State Hospital as a TV guy, electronics.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: He went to East Texas State University and got his four-year degree in I don't know what, electronics or whatever.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the degree path was, but so he worked at Terrell State Hospital as a TV person, and then he came home and he had a he had a storage building in the backyard where all his he worked on people's TVs from you know six o'clock at night until midnight or one o'clock in the morning.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I looking back in retrospect, I realized what he was doing was he he didn't really love doing that that much.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was paying the bills, you know, he was putting us through school, putting food on the table, paying the electric bill, you know, paying off the mortgage.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I get all that.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he he wanted me to be, he wanted to wanted me to inherit that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I have no desire to be a TV man.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: I saw what he was doing, and I was like, nope, I don't want to do that.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back, you know, hindsight's 2020, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I can look back and go, oh, geez, I probably just crushed him.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: When I when I said, no, I don't want to do that, you know, and that was his dream for me, right?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so and so I think all parents, all fathers, have a preconceived notion of where we want to see our kids go.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when you're when your children come to you and say, I'm gay, or they come to you and say, whatever, whatever it might be, whatever the shocking news is, you know, and teenagers are world famous for shocking their parents, right?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so we all have stories, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we have to when we're faced with that, we can we can react one of two ways.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: We can either react like our parents did, like my dad would have been.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: What the hell is wrong with you?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean you're gay?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because because the word gay to me, when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, gay means you're happy, right?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the word, the the definition of the word gay has been completely changed, right?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: It means something completely different now, you know.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so when when my son came to me and said, you know, I'm gay, I was like, I didn't even I'll be honest, I didn't even know how to take that.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I didn't know, I couldn't wrap my brain around it.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I told him that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: We had a conversation.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't understand your lifestyle.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not here to judge your lifestyle.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here to support you and encourage you, and I want you to be happy and healthy and all that stuff.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, now his mother was uh she she embraced the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC, you know, Southern Baptist.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: True blue, died in the wool, Southern Baptist, right?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And well, they have they have a very, very strict, stringent judgmental viewpoints on what it means to be gay and where you're gonna wind up in eternity, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she told my son, she says, if you marry another man, don't expect me to come to the wedding because I'm not gonna support that.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And of course that hurt him.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: That hurt his that hurt his feelings, and that caused uh somewhat of a friction in their relationship.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I get all that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I respect I respect her viewpoint, you know.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, so back to the back to the topic at hand, which is tr transitioning from the role of a parent-child relationship to that of a supporter, support system, and a mentor.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: What advice would you give to parents who struggle with letting go of the authority role?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you already you already talked about letting go.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's a that's a hard thing for parents to do, is to let go.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a that's a very tough question to answer.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: What I have found useful having trusted friends.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're at a place where you might benefit from a mentor, what a great idea to to get people in your life who may be older, have lived through more than what you have gone through, can even just come and put an arm around you and say, you know, I I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I'm here for you.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just just to have people in your court.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: And also I found it very helpful from my end to uh when I know I know my emotional state, and when I have really, really struggled, that's the time to seek professional help.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it can be therapy, it can be there's a variety of different therapies out there.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's also pharmacotherapy, including you know, a bunch of SSRIs, you know, and you know, it's fashionable these days to have anxiety and depression, depression and anxiety.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I happen to I happen to you know struggle on some level with both, but there are medications.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's there are things out there, and also I found it very helpful to get a th to get a faith walk if you don't have one.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: I truly feel for people who are confirmed atheists um in that I have no idea living through what I've lived through how one can remain atheist in this life.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean just the whole birth process going through that.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: I happen to have a high level of expertise in imaging ultrasound, CT, MRI.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen so many pregnancies, and in my professional career, I still remain amazed that that human beings can come into existence.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just absolutely miraculous.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say look around you, open your eyes, and um and do your best to stay in your own lane.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let's see now.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: One of my brothers says there's two kinds of business, my business and and mind your own business.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: I something like that.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't remember exactly what the phrase goes, but Why can't we all just coexist, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and why can't we just do our best to love one another?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, that's what Pastor Doug always says when he concludes a sermon.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Love one another, go in grace, go in peace.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: Great idea.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking to the the faith portion of that equation, whether somebody embraces a specific religion or or faith-based uh practice, right, in their daily life.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't, if you choose not to, you can still get therapy.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can still go talk to a therapist, there's family therapists, there's psychologists, there's psychiatrists, you can call 211, which is United Way, and they they are tapped into all the different organizations that are out there that provide social services to families that need them, right?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it and individuals, you know.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely, if you whether you embrace a faith-based religion or not, you s you still can benefit from a sounding board and somebody to talk to and to share your thoughts and feelings and fears and all of that.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that has become more and more available to people uh in 2025.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think in the eighties and nineties it was starting b to become more prevalent.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't speak to the 40s, 50s, and 60s because I was just a wee bit a wee toddler.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like one year old in 1961, right?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: So and I ask you these questions, Dr.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Greg or Greg, you don't necessarily have to have the answer.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're just kind of talking about this stuff, right?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're just we're just kind of we're just kind of wading through it and and trying to come to an understanding of how we understand this stuff, you know, and and hopefully is some of the stuff, our stories will resonate with parents that are listening.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So don't don't feel like you're under pressure here.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're not.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're just talking, we're just like a we're just a couple of you know, whacked out dads talking about life.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing there is one other thing that came to mind.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's tremendous value in support groups.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I agree.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: I have found great value in um a particular set of support groups.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in fact, there's a a woman out there named Annie Grace who has written at least a couple of books.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: One of them is This Naked Mind, and they also run an amazing program called The Alcohol Experiment.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's non-judgmental, and I I have found great comfort and support by even attending um a few of the different groups that they have that they have had and offer.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: And there's also programs there's you know, like Celebrate Recovery in the Christian Arena, AA, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: There is help that's available out there, and it's up to the individual to seize the moment.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: And but you can play the blame game all you want, but you know, it you still have to be the you that that's living your life.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, your life belongs to you and it belongs to God, in my opinion.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think as we're talking about parenting adult children, a lot of times we find that parents need to they need to recognize that they can't fix another individual.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Your adult child, you can't fix them.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: They are who they are, they're unique, they're gifted in ways that maybe you aren't, uh they have different visions, they have different mission for life, all of that.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so when a conflict arises in that relationship where there's a difficulty in transitioning from one role to the other as a parent-child relationship to that of a mentor and support person, a lot of times the best that we can do is to let go of that adult child and look inside of ourselves and figure out what's going on inside us and what how can we better ourselves as parents, right?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because if if our cup is empty, we can't pour anything into that other person.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: But if we if we've got issues in our life, if we got emotional or psychological, mental, spiritual issues going on in us, then we can't help anybody else.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to help ourselves first.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the topics that we talk about on this podcast a lot is self-care.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: So parents, um, I think sometimes the best the best antidote to some of this conflict that's going on between parents and adult children is to, you know, you've heard this, you're a physician, doctor heal thyself, right?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're a, you know, for for doctors who diagnose issues and prescribe medication or prescribe therapy, physical therapy, whatever.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of whatever therapy the doctor prescribes, a lot of times some of the doctors will have issues going on in their own life that that they see in others, but they ignore it in their life, right?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: So they're like, okay, physician, heal yourself.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna say that to parents.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you think you know the path that your adult child's supposed to be on, and you you think you know how they're supposed to react to the world around them, right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you you think all of these things, you you you're prescribing all of these actions and and action plans for them to be a successful adult.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe you need to look in a mirror.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we have to look in a mirror and go, oh crap, dad's got problems too.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so maybe, so maybe dad needs to figure it out too, right?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I still talk about this parallel path, you know, where our families are growing together and moving together, right?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's that's what we the best we can hope for.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and as we're moving in this parallel path, not only should the adult child be transitioning and becoming a better person and being more of an adult than a teenager, mom and dad should be becoming a better adult and becoming a better dad and a better mom, right?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and sometimes that requires us to look in a mirror and get get you know, get by ourselves and do some introspection and look at our hearts and our motivations and and find the therapy that we need.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we all, you know, like I told you, my doctor said I'd be fine, he just didn't say when, you know.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all screwed up, we're all broken.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we need Jesus, right?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's because we're all broken, we all need help, we all need the love of God, we all need the grace of God, and that's why we go to church, right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we can hear about God's word and we listen to spiritual leaders who can impart the timeless wisdom of the Bible to our hearts and our minds and our spirits, right?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, as parents, you know, the the number one job, the best job that we can do is to be the best parent that we can possibly be, right?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean we have to be perfect.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that we have all the answers.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: It means that when we fall flat on our face, you know, we get back up and dust ourselves off, which is a sign of resilience, and then we model that for our children, right?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're gonna fall flat on their face too.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're still living at home, we can help them dust themselves off and get back up off the floor and try again, right?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's the that's the lifelong struggle that we all live through on a day-to-day basis, right?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: We all do the best we can with what we have.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: So having said all that, let's talk about boundaries and independence.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about adult children here.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: How can parents balance being supportive while also encouraging independence?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do that as a parent?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: What I do, and this is ongoing.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is this is in real time.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: I am being what I what I might call Greg 2.0.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and and as I mentioned, the best me is the alcohol-free version of me.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one starting place.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: I also, in order for me to keep my boundaries, I take care of myself, I take care of my temple.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm I'm age 71.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: God has blessed me with some youthful vigor and and vitality.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I believe I got my mom's genetic makeup uh, and that my uh my my coronary arteries uh uh are are still good, at least according to what what um you know the testing that that's been done.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: So you take care of yourself, mind, body, spirit, and the body part.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: I do these crazy workouts with a group, um, and it they're paramilitary type workouts, but it is a tremendous stress reliever and also enables me to kind of just come down to earth and and and not spin my wheels or waste precious time uh you know on other stuff.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think also being real, I am the real me.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: I am very different from my wife Lynn.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I also, as I know, you are very different from your wife.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: I am doing my very best to encourage her to be her best self.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: That is different.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: Her journey is not my journey, and also I have to remind myself often that the journey that each of my children have, as well as even my siblings and grandchildren, is their journey.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I am just doing my best to be the best version of me that I can be for them.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of it's love, loving them as unconditionally as possible, and also using my wacky sense of humor, but also and I know you can resonate with this, uh Winston Churchill and who said, never, never, never give up.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's not in my vocabulary.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: I I do not give up.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and I and I think that's a that's a good attitude.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, what encouragement would you give to parents who feel discouraged or disconnected from their adult children?
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do much of what we talked about, recognize those feelings, don't try to push them under the carpet and say, oh, they don't exist.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't really feel that way, or next thing it's five o'clock somewhere.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Take take a drink or three or five.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: Be real.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, be real and do your very, very best to be that authentic person that God created you to be.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and it's just, you know, I mean, I wish I wish I could encapsulate some of the things that I've done.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: And mere words can't even just articulate it, but do what you have to do that doesn't harm yourself, doesn't harm other people, and you know, support groups, therapy, church, prayer, meditation.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things out there.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: Do what feeds your soul.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's that's it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if you could leave listeners with one key message about parenting adult children, what would it be?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: Parenting isn't for sissies.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just keep on, keeping on, and enjoy the ride and do your very best.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Be the best you you can be.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's it.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: And learn to love yourself, learn to love others, or learn to love more.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Look, you're back.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I have to call Apple and because you know what?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: My computer is uh it's behaving poorly.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna go ahead and do the outro, and I I can I can the gap that was there, I can get rid of.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Got it, got it.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: This conversation we're having, I can actually edit it out.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: However, yeah, your your audio and video tracks are uploading now, so that's good.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to lose everything.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: So to the listening audience, I want to say that's gonna wrap up this episode of ABC's Apparenting Adult Children.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: I hope today's conversation gave you some encouragement and practical steps you can try in your own family.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you found this helpful, would you do me a favor, hit that subscribe button, share this episode with a friend who's also navigating the parenting journey, and leave a quick review.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: It really helps others find this podcast.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'd also love to hear your stories.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: How are you working through these challenges with your adult children?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: Send me an email at talkpac at proton.me.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's talkpac at proton.me or connect with me on social media.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Links are in the show notes.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the privilege of your time and for listening.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Greg, thank you for being here.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing your deeply personal stories.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: Parenting doesn't stop when they turn 18, it just changes shape.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Please tune in next week for another.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Episode of our podcast on parenting adult children.