IS IT EVER ALLOWED TO JUST GIVE UP?

Three days had passed since Sally first told me that her daughter had run away from home. During that conversation she described her life, her daughter’s truancy, drug use, stealing, and lying.

Evicted by her landlord because of her daughter’s unruliness, fired as a result of absences (due to ongoing crisis with her daughter), she struggled to make ends meet. Sally’s life had become, like Sisyphus, a constant struggle to keep that boulder from rolling back and crushing her.

At wits end after fruitless efforts with therapy, the school system and probation department, she pleaded, "Is it ever allowed to just give up?"

I flashed back upon 6 years of upheaval with my daughter. Traces of my own impotence still with me, I pondered, "Who is it that we are seeking permission from, society, other parents, god, our own internal judge and jury?

Invoking, for both of us, freedom from niggling self-doubt, I told Sally, "Yes, it’s OK. You’ve used up every resource available to you, and nothing has changed. Your daughter makes life-threatening choices and blows them and you off. Within your permission seeking to give up, I hear genuine humility speaking."

And once again, like much needed rain soaking into arid soil, I reminded myself, that there was nothing more that I could have done, either.

I continued, "I know this is going to sound crazy, maybe even absurd, but the only thing you CAN do right now is align yourself with your daughter, even her bad choices. Love her even amidst being harmful. Demonstrate respect for her capacity to learn, all the while knowing that her actions are often, at best "misguided."

"She’s at the helm and sailing into a storm. Small craft warnings are posted, but she’s determined to sail--no matter what. So believe in her, not her actions, not her successes, but her desire to be at the helm. Demonstrate your faith in her capacity.

"You can’t talk to her. She won’t listen. She doesn’t want to let you in. She’s separating herself from you. So speak to her silently, from your heart. Say a prayer, "May you be guided by your choices, may they serve your greatest good, may they help you become, more you."

What you and I have called "giving up" isn’t a cop out, and it isn’t neglect. It’s the only thing left for you to do. Rest. And love her--as she is.