Every now and then, LinkedIn fills up with well-meaning parents publicly parading their adult children’s CVs, hunting for connections, or begging the algorithm for job opportunities on their behalf.
I know it comes from a good place. It’s natural for us to want to pave the road.
But I’ve realized my own parenting philosophy for my now adult children has been slightly different. My goal (or my way of surviving), both practically and emotionally, is to take a seat in the very back of a bus that happens to be driving in a completely opposite direction than the one my kids are on.
I’m there as a sounding board if they ask (and sometimes when they don’t). I’m there to cheer on and sometimes dish out overwhelming, unsolicited advice – the kind of long-winded lecturing where I can see how I lose them mid-sentence.
I am not holding the steering wheel. I am not calling the bus driver. And I am certainly not posting their names on the internet to pitch them to a network. Their digital footprint and their adult lives belong entirely to them.
Why I tell this? Because today, my (our) youngest accepted a job.
He didn’t get it because anyone pulled strings. He got it because, after returning from an exchange year, working the whole summer, he rolled up his sleeves and applied high and low. He invested in a forklift license on his parents initiative and did the actual, tedious work— finding openings, writing applications, surviving AI screeners, navigating the radio silence (which is completely mind-boggling), all while enduring a bit of maternal interrogation because I just had to check if he was actually doing it.
Because deep down, true pride can’t be handed to you by a parent—it has to be earned.
Knowing they’ve got this brings a tremendous sense of relief. Their route is theirs to explore and navigate—which means I can finally sit back, relax, and just enjoy my own ride.
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