On Mothering – Part 7

5.     What should a grown child do when Mom is too entangled in their life?

The words love and limits comes to my mind here. When a grown child is feeling that their mother is too involved in their life – whether that be physically, emotionally, or financially, for example – that grown child will be helped by explaining to their mother the ways the mother can and can not be helpful to them now.
This is really what we call setting boundaries. Those boundaries can include stating what they do not want as well as what they do want from the mother: “You are welcome to come by and visit us on Wednesday nights, but please do not clean my house while you are here. I want to visit with you. Thank you for your help, but I want to take care of the house in my own time and way.”