I have something to say that will be unsettling for some of you: your kids are not yours.
Technically, sure, if they’re under 18, you’re responsible for their well-being. But they don’t belong to you—not in the way too many parents like to think. They are not extensions of your identity, nor are they vessels to carry out your unfinished dreams.
Yes, your kids may have your temperament, your talents, your quirks. You might even see flashes of yourself in them—how they move, how they think, how they react. And sure, you can claim a little credit. But the real trap is believing they are yours to shape in your image rather than allowing them to become who they are meant to be.
The Parent Trap: Expectations That Aren’t Theirs
I’ve lost count of the number of parents who lament that their kid didn’t take over the family business or didn’t love sports like they did. But here’s the reality: those are your wants, not theirs. Your child might have a completely different molecular makeup that calls them to be an artist, a scientist, or someone who travels the world with no fixed address. You might want them to go to law school, but they’d rather tattoo people for a living.
If you push hard enough, they just might do what you want—but it won’t be out of love. It’ll be out of guilt or fear.
The Harvard Study on Longevity found that, when reflecting on life, many people regretted not living true to themselves—instead, they lived according to what others expected of them. Imagine spending your whole life checking someone else’s boxes, only to realize too late that none of them were yours.
And yet, we keep doing this to our kids.
Disrupting the Cycle of Obligation
Here’s the hard truth: we hate feeling obligated to do things we don’t want to do—yet we impose that same weight onto our own kids.
Think about it. How many times have you groaned at the thought of attending a family event you didn’t want to go to? How often have you done something solely because you were guilted into it? You tell yourself, I wish they’d just let me live my life.
But then, without even realizing it, you turn around and do the exact same thing to your own kids. You expect them to show up, to fall in line, to uphold traditions that may not even bring them joy. That’s the cycle we need to disrupt.
Disrupters challenge systems, and parenting is one of the most ingrained systems there is. But if you want to raise independent, confident, resilient adults, you have to be willing to let go of the illusion of control. Parenting isn’t about raising clones—it’s about raising people who are strong enough to break cycles, carve their own paths, and live a life that isn’t dictated by guilt.
The Consultant vs. The Advisor
One of my most shared posts was about not spending Christmas with my adult kids this past year. This part resonated most with people:
When your kids grow up, they form their own families, their own traditions, their own obligations. They are no longer solely yours. And that’s a tough pill to swallow. But isn’t that what we raised them for? To build full, rich, meaningful lives? To be so busy with things they love that they aren’t tethered to us out of obligation? If you shift your mindset, it’s not a loss—it’s proof you did your job well.
Too many parents fail to make the mental shift from advisor to consultant.
Advisors dictate. They push an agenda. They expect to be followed.
Consultants? They get called when needed. They offer guidance, wisdom, perspective—but only when asked.
My father taught me a lot, including how not to parent. I saw what I didn’t want to pass down, and I did things differently. And now? I’m still learning from my own adult kids.
Last week, my stepdaughter went into labor three weeks early. She had planned for me to be in the delivery room, but I was speaking at a conference. My wife got there first and was by her side during an unexpected emergency C-section. I arrived a day later, pacing the NICU halls as we waited on an MRI to confirm that our grandson was okay.
My step-daughter handled it all with incredible poise. And then she said something that stopped me in my tracks:
“You’ve always taught me about mindset, and I tapped into it.”
We share no genetic connection, but damn if my influence didn’t show up in that moment. They are listening. They are watching.
That’s why anxious parents raise anxious kids. If you constantly impose your fears, expectations, and anxieties onto them, guess what? They absorb that. But if you model confidence, resilience, and self-assurance, they absorb that too.
Let Go. For Their Sake.
My other daughter serves in the Air Force and often vents to me about bad leadership. My gut reaction? Mama Bear mode. I want to tell her to come out swinging. But she handles things her own way—more maturely than I probably would have. That’s why we should consult, not advise.
At the end of the day, your kids don’t belong to you. If you did your job well, they’ll take the best of what you taught them and apply it to a life that serves them.
So stop trying to make them fit into your traditions, expectations, or way of doing things. If they want to, great. But if they don’t, let them be.
You’re not the sun in their universe anymore. You’re in orbit. And that’s exactly how it should be.
Onward and upward, my fellow disrupters.
KZ
You can watch Chris and I discuss this blog post here:
