Q: My son, who was diagnosed with a borderline mental disability and ADHD, is now in his 20s and spends most of his time at home watching YouTube videos and playing computer games. I have asked him to move out in a month’s time, thinking that living at home isn’t really helpful for him, but I’m not sure if it’s right to make my son, who has disabilities, move out and I’m also worried that something might happen to him when he’s on his own.”
P: When a hen is raising chicks, she attacks anyone who comes close instead of running away. When protecting her babies, she doesn’t run away even if she is beaten with a stick. She risks being beaten and keeps attacking. Such a nature ensures the survival of the species. If a mother runs away, abandoning her babies in the face of danger, they won’t survive.
In normal times, however, the chicken is not the kind of animal to attack people. If a person approaches when they are not raising chicks, they run away. They run away because of their survival instinct. It is a self-preservation instinct. But when they have chicks, they act totally differently. The instinct to preserve the species takes precedence over self-preservation. It is because the survival of the species depends on it.
However, when the chicks start to lose their down feathers and grow adult feathers, the mother hen no longer protects them, even if they are not yet fully grown. They are still her babies, but she doesn’t protect them even when people try to catch them. When the chicks have the appearance of full-grown chickens, both the mother hen and her offspring behave based solely on the self-preservation instinct. They go their separate ways, as if to say: “I am I and you are you.” All animals risk their lives to protect their babies from danger. But when their babies grow past a certain point, they go their separate ways. Even if the babies are not yet fully grown and just past puberty in human terms, mothers don’t risk their lives to protect them even when predators attack.
Humans should be the same. When a child is very young, the mother should protect him at any cost. When he grows up, she doesn’t have to take care of him. But until the child reaches the age of three, she should take care of him no matter what, and should continue to take care of him until he becomes an adult. But once the child becomes an adult, the mother and the child should be independent of each other. This is the law of nature. Anything against the law of nature is a disease. Not providing loving care to a very young child is a disease, and attaching to and overprotecting an adult child is also a disease. If a parent has this disease, it could result in the parent hating the child or the child hating the parent. There is no such thing in nature. In the animal world, no parent complains that being a parent is tough. The child must be protected, so even while the mother is dying in order to protect the child, she doesn’t think, “I am dying because of my baby.” A mother dog doesn’t think that raising six puppies is hard.
Anyone experiencing a difficult parent-child relationship has a hard time psychologically, not physically. Especially these days, more parents seem to lack the instinct to protect their young children, and seem to be unable to stop being attached to their adult children. As a result, the relationship between parent and child is becoming more difficult.
When a child is very young, the parent should take care of the child. A parent who complains that raising a child is difficult is either lacking maternal or paternal instincts, or not wanting to fulfill the role of a parent. On the other hand, a parent who is carrying the heavy burden of caring for an adult child is overprotecting the child.
If we use nature as a baseline, humans should do as animals do and a little more than them. Animals risk their lives only for their own babies, but humans take care of their children even if they are not their own. Animals don’t take care of their aged parents but humans take care of old people even if they are not their parents.
Taking care of someone because he or she is your child and taking care of someone because he or she is sick, old, or young is different. Taking care of an adult son because he is your child is attachment. Taking care of him because he needs care and not because he is your child is not attachment.
If you can take care of your son as if you take care of a child next door who needs help, it is all right. No suffering will arise in you if you can take care of him like that, thinking: “I shall take care of him since there is no one else.” But I think you haven’t reached that level yet. You are suffering because you are attached to the idea that he is your child and worry, “Should I take care of him?”
If you decide not to take care of your son and tell him, “You are a grownup now and you need to be independent,” you shouldn’t care whether he leaves home and dies or gets sick. Only then, you won’t suffer. But you worry about if your son gets hurt or has an accident when he leaves home, so I think you are not ready to make him move out yet.
If you decide to get a divorce, you shouldn’t regret it even if your husband dies in a car accident the day after your divorce. If something like that happens, most of us feel regret: “If I had known things would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have divorced him.” If the path you have chosen is the right one, you shouldn’t feel regret, no matter what happens after that.
“Even if I had to choose again, I would make the same choice. My husband died because of a car accident and his death had nothing to do with the divorce.”
If your position is clear like this, you won’t feel regret. It is all right for you to help your son when he is in need. It is all right if you can help him, thinking, “I will help even strangers if they are in need, so I will help my son when he is in need.” But I think you haven’t reached that level yet because you are worrying already, “What if something happens to him?” At your level, there is no other way but to carry him on your shoulders.
Should you live with him and carry him on your shoulders or should you make him move out? There is no right answer to this question. If you decide to protect him and live with him, you have to accept the consequences of that decision, and if you decide to make him move out, you have to accept the consequences of that decision. You want to make him move out because it is a lot of work to take care of him, but you hold onto him because you are afraid that something might happen to him when he leaves home. Because of this, it will also be difficult for him to come to his senses.
When a problem like this occurs, you ask: “Should I make my son move out or let him stay?” But this is not the point. The point is that you shouldn’t regret whether you make him move out or let him stay. If parents continue to take care of their adult child, wouldn’t he or she want to be under the protection of his or her parents until they die?
Q: Yes, maybe that is why he plays games without doing anything else?
P: If someone has broken their legs or is blind, you need to protect them even if they are not related to you. Anyone who has disabilities severe enough to require care, you need to take care of that person, then why can’t you take care of your own child? While taking care of someone like that, however, you shouldn’t say: “This person only plays games without doing anything else.” If you are going to take care of your son, you have to accept him as he is. If you are going to make him move out, you shouldn’t feel regret, no matter what happens, and see him as another human being.
When I say this, you will say, “Sunim, how can a person do that?” You are right. You can’t do that and that is why your life is hard. So you can’t help but live in fear all your life.
Q: Then, should I pray, “I will accept any situation as it is”?
P: Why do you need to pray? What you need to do is make a decision. As you use the word “pray” like that, you tend to seek blessings. Seeking blessings is to think that if you do certain things, good things will happen to you. What you are asking is the same as asking like this:
“If I pray, ‘Spring is good, summer is good, winter is good, all seasons are good,’ then will it be always spring?”
It is just as your head knows that summer is good and winter is also good after listening to my Dharma talk, but you think, “Still spring is the best” in your mind.
Your worry never ends because you think: “If I take care of my son, his illness should be cured and he should listen to me,” and “There should be no accidents when my son lives on his own.”
I don’t know the exact condition of your son, so ask an expert. If the expert says, “His condition requires care,” either you can take care of him or send him to a care facility. If the expert says his condition is not that serious and he can live independently, albeit with some difficulties, you can make a decision based on the diagnosis. A person who has lost a leg or eyesight in one eye doesn’t necessarily require care.
But if you choose to take care of someone who is perfectly normal because you like to, it has nothing to do with his or her condition or situation. However, most of us take care of someone and then begrudge them later. This is because our perspective on practice is wrong.
I am not saying, “You should do this because you are a child,” or “You should do this because you are a parent.” You yourself can decide. My point is not about whether you should take care of someone or not, it’s about asking yourself: “What do I need to do so that I can be free from suffering?” There is a way—even for a parent with a disabled child, a widow, or an elderly person living alone—to live without suffering. I am talking about the way to live under any circumstances, whether it is spring, summer, fall, or winter. But you seem to interpret what I say as you please.
The reason I am having this conversation with you is to talk about liberation and nirvana. I am talking about how we can attain liberation and nirvana and not about the way to be rich, to have a harmonious family relationship, to be successful, to be famous, to be healthy, or to live long. However, assuming that there are fixed ways to do things, you ask questions such as “What do I need to do to live long?” So if my Dharma talk agrees with your opinion, you say, “Sunim is great.” But if it disagrees with your opinion, you say, “Sunim says unreasonable things.” So I don’t pay too much attention to what you say about me. I don’t pay much attention whether you clap your hands and say ”Sunim, you are great,” or if you criticize me. It is because you say whatever you want; it has nothing to do with me. Even if you now say, “Pomnyun Sunim is great!” if I happen to say something disagreeable to you, you will say right away, “That is not right!”
If you think, “Parents should be such and such,” and “Children should be so and so,” your life will be caught in the net of ethics and morals. In life you make choices and take responsibility for the choices you make. If you give birth to a child, you should take care of her until she becomes an adult, making whatever sacrifice you need to make. If you can’t take care of her, you need to get help from others. And when she becomes an adult, you have to respect her as an adult and an individual. You don’t own your children. People mistakenly think that they own their children, so things like killing one’s own children happen.
People yell at their five-year-old child or hit their seven-year-old child because they are upset. Your child shouldn’t be the target of your anger. The problem is that people mistakenly think that their children belong to them because they gave birth to them, just as they consider the things they made theirs. Parents can’t let go of their worries until they die because they are attached to and feel anxious about their children, even after they’ve grown up.
When you ask a question, you should know of whom you are asking the question. You are asking me a question. I am a person in pursuit of liberation and nirvana. I am a person whose goal is to move toward a state of no suffering under all circumstances.
Q: Yes, thank you.
