Dear Frustrated Mom

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Dear Ally,

I’m a single mom, raising my young adult son. Our road has been rocky since his dad left. Lots of acting out, including bouts of alcohol and drug abuse. Now my son’s back in a sober program, receiving therapy and the right medications for his mental illness. He’s definitely thinking clearer now and reviewing his life’s decisions.

Because of this, we’ve had lots of spirited discussions, often resulting in verbal arguments. I know I should be the adult in the room, but I still feel the need to correct his false assumptions about my actions.

The last fight was about my long-ago decision to transfer him out of his private school and place him in a public school to get help with his learning disabilities. At the new school, he was fiercely bullied. This same group of boys continued bullying him at the public high school as well. 

To my surprise, he blamed me for the bullying because I changed his school. I was speechless and too exhausted to respond but stayed quiet to avoid stress and more disagreement.

I’m grateful that he’s sober. But need to stop these endless arguments where he blames me for his problems and gives his dad a free pass.  Will he ever realize how much I’ve done for him? Please help.

Frustrated mom.

Dear Mom,

From one mom to another, you are doing your best. Moms get blamed for everything. Your son will probably appreciate you, only when he has children of his own. He still has a lot of maturing left to do.

You did the right thing when you remained quiet and allowed your son to blame you for his bullying.

If you would have defended yourself, he would have become even more determined to unfairly blame you. Your silence was powerful.

I’m sure you’ve heard this expression before: we can never control others’ actions, but we can control how we respond to them.

You will never be able to control your son’s actions or thoughts about his father. All you can do is control how you respond.  Sometimes, silence is the best reaction. 

I’m reading Mel Robbins’ book, Let Them. She takes the topic of our inability to control others and helps us better understand it.  She also gives options to Let Me choose how to handle the situation. Her analysis provides lots of possible actions that we can control.

Let them is not an original concept. We’ve heard about it through Buddhist writings and the Serenity Prayer. But Robbins packages these concepts in a way that makes it easy to readily adopt them into one’s life.

According to the book, Robbins asserts that the major stress in our lives is caused by the actions of other people. Emotions are very powerful and come up automatically. Most people don’t know how to process their feelings. Even as adults, they sometimes act like 8-year-olds and have temper tantrums. Does any of this sound familiar?

Robbins claims that “we give people’s opinions too much power over us.” That’s why, we can Let Them go. The concept of Let Me “shows us what we can control: our attitude, behavior, values, needs and desires. Let Me takes responsibility for what can control and what you can do next.”

Tell your son how proud you are that he is now sober and starting a new life. Let him know that you wish to listen and emotionally support him. However, you will not engage with him over his interpretations of your actions. You did the best you could with the information you had. Tell him that if he’s authentically curious about the motivations of your past actions, he can ask you questions, with the intent of a discussion, not an argument.

You need to take care of yourself now. Your son’s sobriety offers you a new chance at life too. That means you can choose not to participate in his life’s review. He can talk to his therapist about that. As Mel Robbins says: “You can always choose what you think, say, or do in response to other people, the world around you, or the emotions that are rising up inside of you. That’s the source of all your power.”

Here for you,

Ally