And then, at the other end of the spectrum, there's my son.
Might as well turn this into a generic Parenting thread. I think I'll go back and change the thread title (if I can).
My son is 26 years old and still lives at home with my wife and me, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. He and some of his friends are preparing to move out of their respective homes and into a house together. This is a moment I've been looking forward to for 26 years.
So of course, my wife and I managed to get into an argument about it this morning while I was trying to leave for work. I see a kid moving out as a major milestone, probably the major milestone of parenting. Our job is to prepare them to be functioning adults, self-sufficient in all the important ways. Moving out, paying your own bills, managing your own finances, buying your own food, getting your ass out of bed and to work/school on time, basically doing all the things that Mommy and Daddy used to do, that is what makes you an adult. Not some arbitrary recognition of surviving 18 years on the planet. We had a job to do, a huge one, and we've done it. This is something to celebrate!
My wife sees this as a "loss" of some kind. It saddens her that her child will no longer be in her care. When he told her that he probably won't be in contact a whole lot, at least for the first couple of months, she didn't take it well. Why can't he call her once a week, just to let her know how he's doing? His sister does. Hell, at this point, he hasn't even shared the address, even though he knows it. He's told us the general geographic location, the neighborhood where the house is located. That's good enough for me. My wife wants to know exactly where he will be. Sorry dear, but he's 26. It is no longer any of your business exactly where he is at any particular time.
I told her that's it's completely normal. A young man striking out on his own has achieved independence. He no longer needs his parents to feed and clothe him or wipe his ass for him, so why should he call them for no reason? A young woman moving out, from what I can tell, faces more anxiety and uncertainty. Not just because the world is generally more dangerous for women, but the idea of doing everything by yourself is not necessarily a positive thing. Forgive the obvious sexism here, and yeah it's a generalization, but it is also generally true. That's why it's called a generalization. Because, in general, it is true. Guys want to be their own person, independent, lone wolves. Girls, not necessarily.
So anyway, I defended our son's right to not have to call his mommy once a week to "check in" with her, and maybe get together for holidays and birthdays and stuff, but otherwise live his life like... an adult! I don't call my dad once a week, and I didn't call my mom once a week back when she was alive. Wife pointed out that my sisters did and still do. She and her sister did. Did her brother? No. Did my brother? I don't have any brothers. Correct! So in our small sample pool, all the females called, and none of the males did.
But her family is weird and I'm a self-absorbed asshole. True, and true. But I still think it's perfectly normal, I would think it's part of the natural separation process, for a young man to establish some "distance" between himself and his parents, socially if not geographically, at least at first. Then after a while, you fall into the new version of the relationship, which is between adults who happen to be parent and child. This seems 100% natural and correct to me. She says it's not natural at all, that a child should always want to keep in contact with their parents. The examples we'd just gone over seconds earlier apparently have no bearing on that. I told her that it's different for guys. She told me to go to work. I told her to do some research.
And since I'm so certain of it, maybe I should do some research, too. But... I'm right, right?