Parenting involves setting and enforcing limits

Her presentation belied her years. Her dress, hairstyle, way of speaking, mannerisms and posture, even the lack of years etched on her face, all suggested a young woman just entering adulthood. Yet she was in her early 30s and had lived in a short time a life more full, and in many ways more tragic, than many of us twice her age.

She had done drugs from nicotine and alcohol to coke and heroin, and most everything else in between, starting out as a party girl during her early adolescence and ending up an addict by her 20s. She'd sworn off drugs a dozen times, and had been successful in the last two years, she stated, only because of her pregnancy and the birth of the 15-month only who played at her feet.

Her relationships with men had been equally as destructive. She had found herself attracted to the wild, risk-taking, on-the-edge types. They were also the types who inhabited the party and drug scene she frequented. They were also the types who wound up using and abusing her.

Despite all this, she had done well in school, or at least as long as she was able to remain focused on school. Ultimately it proved to be simply too staid, too boring, to hold her attention. She had also held a series of jobs, even successfully managing a retail store until her pregnancy and personal conflict with an area manager led to her decision to leave. Returning to her parent's home, drug free, she now considered the course of her life - past, present and future - and pondered how she had come to this point and where she might go from here.

I suspect that most of us reading such a tale would imagine a childhood without love or with abuse. But this was not the case. She was the youngest of 10 children born to her parents, with seven years separating her from her nearest sib. She remembered a home characterized by love and affection where she felt treasured and affirmed. Though there were times when things were a bit tight, they lived in a middle class neighborhood with food on the table, and she seldom really felt deprived.

The one thing missing from her youth, she remembered, were limits. She was by her own assessment the spoiled baby of the family whose every desire was fulfilled by her parents and older sibs. As her parents aged and her brothers and sisters moved out, she began to realize that, for her, there simply were no boundaries. Perhaps worn down by a lifetime of caring for, sacrificing for, and disciplining such a hoard, her mother and father were simply too exhausted to impose such limits on the strong-willed, intelligent, energized, risk-taking, and soon out-of-control daughter who remained to be raised. Though loving and encouraging still came easily enough, the energy for setting and enforcing limits was simply not there.

Though some children by their very nature will find their own healthy limits and adhere to them, this young woman was certainly not one of them. And, as the above story indicates, her lack of limits, both her own or those taught by her parents, eventually led to a disaster of a life.

Setting limits for our children is a parental art form none of us masters fully. Our kids need limits that protect them from themselves and the world around them, yet limits also must allow them the freedom to learn how to live on their own as adults. Such limits need to change over time based on their growth and development. So such limits need to be firm, yet flexible; consistent, yet refined over time; and always enforced with love and understanding.

It is clear, however, that not setting such limits - whether we fail to do this job because we are too tired, or because we aren't sure how, or because we are afraid of our children's response, or even, perhaps, because we are just too self-absorbed - is a recipe for catastrophe.

• The Rev. Ken Potts is a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist with Samaritan Interfaith Counseling Centers, Naperville and Downers Grove. His book, "Take One A Day," can be ordered at local bookstores or online.