Parents, grandparents, siblings and good friends often enable destructive bahavior. Letting go is quite difficult, but more often than not is the right answer.
The Declaration of Independence jumped into my head:
…a long train of abuses and usurpations…
We forgive, cover-for, assist, fret, lose sleep and so-on while they flit in and out of acceptable behavior.
It is a show I watched from ringside a generation ago, though then I missed darn near every clue while I struggled to make my business feed and house us all. I am one row back today, but able to play reruns in the face of similar behaviors.
Most likely, there was nothing I could do then to change the trajectory. I’m pretty sure there is nothing I can do now, but let her go.
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Your footprints on my back are begtinning to wear.
Walk somewhere else. I will try not to care.
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You have to choose your path.
All we are allowed is a choice of seats in the stadium.
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Ours is not an uncommon story today. That is exactly why I am sharing it here. If you or someone you care for is enabling themselves into a muddle, help them out. Al-Anon, Narc-Anon and others have plenty of advice for enablers. Help them find it.
Here is a websearch on “enabling”, followed by a quote from the first site that came up on my list.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Al-anon+enablers&t=lm&ia=web
Mothering or Enabling?
When I first came to Al-Anon, I spent a great deal of time wrestling with the term, “enabling.” I am a mother. Surely a mother’s role is to enable her children, is it not? It has been a struggle to understand, let alone accept, that the behavior I viewed as that of a good mother was actually unhealthy! All my life I have held the belief that a good mother encourages her children, fixes their problems, fights their battles and cooks and cleans for them. Surely a good mother is in service to her children.
With the help of Al-Anon, I have begun to learn that being a good mother means loving my children but also allowing them to live their lives. My children should have the right to learn life’s lessons in their time, their way. I owe them that. Doing everything for them, unintentionally or not, would do more harm than good! By placing my children’s lives ahead of my own, I was doing everyone a disservice, especially myself.
What a phenomenal moment when I realized that what I was doing for my children was actually the opposite of why I was doing it. Wow—the freedom of that weight being removed from my shoulders! Not only could I stop the exhausting experience of doing it all for everyone, but it opened the door to self-exploration by allowing my children the freedom to live their lives. I found I now had the time and desire to look at myself, take care of myself, and define myself.
Life / Art
While in the mood depicted above, I saw a potted plant of mine in ‘failure to thrive mode’ as a metaphor for moms enabling their kids. Look at this plant. It is dead. It knows it is dead. Yet its last dying breath produces offspring that looks and, barbarian that I am, tastes good.
