21/08/2025
I have not read this book as yet but I know it speaks to many I’ve walked alongside.
The text mentions a wonderful acronym: FOG- Fear, Obligation, Guilt. When we have loved ones with repeat patterns we become lost with them due to ‘FOG’. More often than not FOG has is enabling these patterns, not helping them. This is going on my to read list for sure. ✔️
If you’re struggling and want to break out of the ‘FOG’ I am a well experienced Clincial Psychologist using an amazing Brainbased technique called BWRT. Differs from other therapies as it does not require you to talk or practise changing your thoughts. There’s no therapy in the world that suits everyone or can fix everything but if this resonates with you, please have a look at the BWRT website or mine www.shelleyhall.co.za for more info.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of my own car, my grown daughter at the wheel, driving me back to a house that no longer echoed with her laughter. The silence between us was thick, pregnant with words unsaid and years of conversations we’d fumbled or avoided. She had just relapsed. Again. And I had, again, bought the groceries, paid the phone bill, offered help she half-wanted and half-resented.
I looked at her, beautiful, fierce, haunted, and I remembered the child she used to be. All fire and promise, reading books far beyond her years, swearing she’d change the world. I used to believe she would. I used to tell everyone she would.
But something went sideways. Somewhere between growing up and growing older, we lost the rhythm of our relationship. And not because we stopped loving each other. But because disappointment quietly moved in between us, bringing grief, confusion, shame, and the kind of aching only a parent can feel when their child stops thriving.
This is the ache Jane Adams speaks to in When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us. It is not the book you reach for when you still believe parenting ends at 18. It is the book you clutch when you realize that letting go is the hardest, holiest part of love.
1. Grieving the Child You Imagined While Loving the Adult You Have
One of the book’s most tender truths is that many parents are quietly grieving. Not because their child has died—but because the version they dreamed of never came to be. Adams gives language to that grief, not to shame it, but to normalize it. She says: it's okay to miss the child you thought you'd raise. It's okay to ache for the adult they’re not. And most profoundly—it’s okay to love them anyway, without pretending you're not in pain.
We carry unspoken dreams for our children. We imagine them steady, happy, purposeful. But when addiction, unemployment, estrangement, mental illness—or just sheer distance—interrupts that vision, we begin to doubt our parenting, our worth, and often, our very sense of self.
This book offers a soft place to land. A place where grief is not judged, but held with dignity. It reminds us that “We may be disappointed, but we’re not responsible”
2. Letting Go of the Illusion of Control
Perhaps the most devastating and liberating lesson in Adams’ book is this: we do not have the power to fix our adult children’s lives. We raised them. We sacrificed. We tried our best. But once they're grown, they become their own authors. And while we may scream silently into our pillows, beg them to change, or intervene with our last breath—it’s not ours to write anymore.
Adams compassionately walks parents through this letting-go process, not as a one-time act, but a daily practice. Not cold detachment—but clear-eyed love.
3. Moving Through the Emotional Fog
While the book doesn't explicitly use the acronym FOG (Fear, Obligation, and Guilt), its spirit runs through every page. Parents remain stuck not because they are weak or enabling—but because they are afraid: Afraid of losing their child completely. Afraid of being seen as a bad parent. Afraid that love looks like endless sacrifice.
We feel obligated. "She's my daughter, I can't just let her fail." We feel guilty. "Maybe I was too harsh when she was younger... Maybe I missed something." Adams gently dismantles this emotional paralysis. She shows how FOG distorts reality—how it keeps parents stuck in patterns that serve no one. She doesn’t shame us for getting stuck. She just quietly offers a map out.
4. The Courage to Redefine What Support Means
This is one of the most revolutionary aspects of the book. Adams challenges us to shift from rescuing to respecting. From intervening to witnessing. From fixing to faithfully loving from a distance.
Sometimes support is a soft bed and a warm meal. Other times, it’s a boundary. A “no.” A “not this time.” A “when you’re ready, I’ll be here.” It doesn’t feel like love. But it is love—just a version shaped by wisdom and pain.
5. Healing Ourselves While Holding the Relationship Loosely
Perhaps the most unexpected gift of this book is how Adams gives parents permission to turn toward their own healing. So many have spent decades hyper-focused on their child’s drama, their child’s wounds, their child’s choices.
But what about you? She reminds us: You are allowed to have peace. You are allowed to stop walking on eggshells. You are allowed to laugh again, breathe again, live again—even if your child is still lost.
Healing doesn't mean abandoning them. It means reclaiming the self you lost in the process of loving them.
Jane Adams, in this book, offers something far more important: perspective. Compassion. Language for the ache. And the reminder that you are still whole, still worthy, still allowed to be okay, even if your grown child is not.
If you’re sitting in the passenger seat of your own life, aching beside the adult child you barely recognize, this book is for you. It doesn’t fix the silence. But it teaches you how to live inside it, with grace, with love, and maybe, one day, with peace.
BOOK:https://amzn.to/3JfXiWq
You can also get FREE Audiobook using the same link use the link to register Audible and start enjoying it
