Failure to Launch

DEAR Mr. Pfister: My husband and I are struggling with our adult son’s life choices. He graduated from college three years ago, but has been unable to maintain employment, often being fired for not showing up to work or not doing the work that has been assigned to him. He takes multiple-month breaks between jobs, and spends his days playing video games online with his friends. He’s living at home and doesn’t contribute financially towards the family’s expenses or physically by helping out with household tasks. We’ve tried to support him and even offered to pay for counseling in an effort to help him ‘launch’, but nothing has worked. The situation is also taking a toll on our relationship with him. How do we handle this situation and help our son to ‘launch’?

We are reminded in the Epistle of Saint John that God is love, and because God has loved us so we must love one another (1 John 4:7-21). We do this through our thoughts, words and deeds. Love has traditionally been defined as “willing the good of another;” further, willing what is good for another is ultimately willing God for them because He is the Ultimate and Greatest Good. He is Goodness Itself, and only in Him can they find perfect fulfillment. Willing what is good for them – and what will ultimately lead them closer to God – is how we fulfill the precept of charity.

Throughout our lives we will be faced with many difficult and trying situations where truly loving another person – willing what is good for them – will be challenging. Whether this is because sharing the truth with others can be challenging because of their response or because in choosing to love them we are put out or caused to suffer ourselves. The situation you described with your son is one of these situations where choosing to love can lead to difficulty.

Your son is currently stuck and seemingly unable to pull himself away from the comfort of living at home without much responsibility or need for anything else in life. Now this can be for a multitude of reasons, but ultimately willing his good dictates the necessity of either helping him to become unstuck directly or indirectly by removing the obstacles to him getting unstuck that are currently in place.

If the comfort of not needing to work because his room and board, meals, and other expenses are being paid for by you, he will be hard pressed to let go of this comfort on his own. These are the obstacles within your control that are likely contributing to him being stuck. While letting him know that he will no longer have access to these without some sort of contribution to the family and family life may lead to conflict, it is how we must love our children in situations like this. It is one of those difficult and trying situations where we must choose to love despite the consequences for ourselves.

Conversely, allowing him to remain in your home without a determined effort to ‘launch’ is not willing his greater good because it is keeping him from living the life God is calling him to live and becoming the best version of the person God is calling him to be. As parents, one of the greatest responsibilities we are given is the entrustment of our children’s souls by God for their rearing and education. It is a beautiful and rewarding experience, but also filled with many challenges, and with these challenges comes the promise of an abundance of grace we must ask God for each day.