Some years ago, I sat in a quiet school library with a high school senior and her mother.
The student was preparing for college, and her mother—earnest and anxious—kept interrupting to explain her daughter’s feelings. The student finally looked at me, exasperated, and said, “I love her, but I just wish she’d let me become who I am.”
In my three decades working with students and their families, I’ve seen how the parent-child relationship evolves—or struggles to.
What we rarely acknowledge is this: the bond between parents and children doesn’t magically stabilize once the children become adults. In fact, that’s when a second, more delicate chapter begins—one that determines whether aging parents will feel admired, appreciated, or increasingly invisible.
Culturally, we say we revere elders, celebrate wisdom, and honor the journey of aging.
But in practice?
We often marginalize older parents, treating them as outdated advisors or emotional liabilities. The contradiction is stark—and for many aging parents, quietly painful.
So what sets apart the parents who feel genuinely loved and respected as they grow older? Psychology offers useful clues—but the most important answers lie not in tactics, but in how we reframe the purpose of parenthood itself.
The Comfort of Control, The Cost of Closeness
The parents who reach out to me in later life often ask the same question in different ways: Why don’t my children call more? Why don’t they seem to care? These aren’t isolated concerns. They reflect a larger emotional undercurrent—a slow erosion of intimacy, often masked by politeness or holiday rituals.
What’s behind this?
Part of the issue is that our cultural scripts around parenting are riddled with contradictions. We’re told to “sacrifice everything for your children”—but also to “let them go.” To “be their rock”—but also “don’t burden them.”
Parents absorb these ideas like gospel, rarely pausing to ask whether they foster the kind of relationships they hope to have decades later.
Conventional parenting advice, especially from the past few generations, has leaned heavily on control and performance.
Be the disciplinarian. Be the example. Be the provider.
What it rarely emphasized was mutual evolution—the idea that parenting doesn’t stop when the child turns 18, it just shifts into a different kind of growth.
When I worked as a school counselor, I often watched parents bristle when their grown children made decisions they disagreed with—career paths, partners, parenting styles. And yet, the aging parents who ultimately felt most loved weren’t the ones who convinced their children to listen.
They were the ones who learned to listen better themselves.
The Subtle Power of Growing With, Not Ahead Of
Let’s return to that mother and daughter from the library. Ten years later, I heard from the daughter—now a mother herself.
She shared something unexpected: “I talk to my mom almost every day. Not because she always gives great advice, but because she asks me about my life like it’s unfolding for the first time. She makes me feel like I’m still becoming someone—and she wants to know who.”
This is what we miss when we focus on how to “get respect” from our adult children.
Respect isn’t extracted; it’s grown—like a shared garden that needs ongoing tending, not just an old oak tree under which we assume they’ll always want to sit.
The most loved and respected aging parents aren’t those who did everything “right”—they’re the ones who never stopped growing alongside their children.
This principle is echoed in developmental psychology: relationships thrive when they remain dynamic.
Harvard’s Grant Study, one of the longest-running longitudinal studies on adult development, found that emotional attunement—not authority—was the strongest predictor of long-term relational closeness between parents and their adult children.
Behaviors That Build Enduring Love and Respect
So what does “growing alongside your children” actually look like in practice? Across research and lived experience, six behaviors consistently emerge among parents who feel deeply loved and respected as they age:
- They update their identity.
Rather than clinging to their parental role, they allow it to evolve. They see their adult children not as extensions of themselves, but as separate, sovereign people—equal participants in a mutual relationship. - They stay curious, not corrective.
Instead of advising or evaluating, they ask open-ended questions. They express genuine interest in their children’s evolving values, experiences, and beliefs—even when they differ from their own. - They share vulnerably.
These parents talk about their own fears, hopes, and mistakes. Vulnerability invites closeness, especially when it breaks the myth of parental infallibility. - They respect emotional boundaries.
They don’t demand emotional caretaking from their children, nor do they guilt-trip or over-share in ways that place a burden. They understand that emotional intimacy is built, not expected. - They model continued growth.
Whether learning new skills, exploring passions, or evolving their worldview, these parents continue to grow. This invites admiration and maintains relevance—not in a performative way, but through authentic engagement with life. - They offer love, not leverage.
Instead of keeping score or invoking past sacrifices, they give freely. Their generosity isn’t conditional. This creates a relationship grounded in freedom, not obligation.
What I’ve learned about human growth through counseling is this: we are all in process, always.
The myth of the “finished parent” is just that—a myth. When parents embrace the idea that they’re still learning, still stretching, they not only keep their children close—they model what lifelong development truly looks like.
A Legacy of Connection
One of the greatest privileges of my work has been witnessing intergenerational relationships bloom late in life—often because a parent chose to soften, to open, to grow again. It’s a quiet kind of heroism, and it rarely makes headlines. But it shapes lives.
If you’re an aging parent wondering how to stay close to your adult children, start here: not with what they owe you, but with what you’re still willing to learn.
Because the most enduring love isn’t owed. It’s inspired—by those who never stop showing up, not just as parents, but as people worth knowing.