New Place

My friend Treva (Audrie's aunt) commented on her 14 year-old doing something without any thought or regard to her parents feelings/opinions and then told her that she didn't count. It was very hurtful to Treva, but some behavior that you might expect from a teenager testing boundaries. That kind of thing doesn't feel any better when it comes from an adult child. It isn't the doing of something that causes the hurt. It is the saying you don't count and your opinion means nothing. We all do what we want to do within the confines of our lives, but hopefully we listen once in awhile.
If I offer my opinion or unsolicited advice to one of our children, I am not doing it to be mean or rub faces in anything. I do it out of genuine love and concern for them. Some of that advice just comes from life experience. I know that all of our children absolutely have to learn things the hard way. And I know that I have to let them, no matter how much grief could be saved if they might heed advice. Sometimes in the advice there might be a nugget of truth that they do take to heart and make the lesson not quite so hard.
As parents we give our opinions and advice all the time. It shows we care. We aren't playing games. We aren't undermining anything.
So here I am in this new place where my opinion doesn't matter. Trying to figure out what that means exactly. Trying to figure out how that changes the relationship and where it goes from here. Trying to get past the pain that it causes and the total disregard of it. It's not the kind of relationship I thought we had, but I guess it is.
And if this is read I will probably hear "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings", but yes that was the intention because we do what we want to do within the confines of our life. If you don't want to think about how that action is going to affect everybody else then you hurt feelings to keep them from telling you about it.
And let me tell you it is hard not to offer up opinions. I have opinions on everything.