Why Giving Your Child an Ultimatum Isn’t the Answer

You may know that the person your child has chosen for themselves is “bad news”. You may know that it will be one of the biggest mistake of their lives. You may feel that in telling them that if they run off with them that you will disown them, that you are making an easy ultimatum for them. Of course they should pick you, you are their parent. However, when they don’t pick you, it is not only them who is left without a parent, but you who are left without a child.You may be doing this for their own good, but the reality is that in doing this you may be making one of the biggest mistakes in your life.

This very same thing happened to someone in my family. Jolie fell deeply in love with a man, James. Her mother is already the controlling kind and assured her that if she married him that she would never be welcome back into her mother’s house. But Jolie was in love and married him anyway. Sure enough her mother stuck to her word. James eventually did become her worst nightmare. He was a mean alcoholic, he cheated, and kept them in a state of poverty. All of the  money he ever made went  to liquor.She worked but it was hardly enough to pay all of the bills.Jolie, by now had had a child with him. And when I’ve asked her why she wouldn’t leave, she told me that she didn’t have anyone. That her whole family had turned away from her and all she had was him, her child, and no money to be able to move. She said that before him, her mother made all of her decisions for her and that she did not know how to do anything for herself and so she moved from clinging to her mother to clinging to her husband.Eventually Jolie did get away from him due to some unfortunate circumstances. She was lucky because many girls are not.

Another girl my family knows was given a very similar decision to make between her boyfriend and her parents. She too, chose the boy. She was very heartbroken as well over the decision but chose the boy. This actually made things very simple for him because he was very controlling and abusive. Without her parents in the picture he was freer to do whatever he chose. He eventually murdered her. Her parents would later say that they felt partially guilty because the girl had tried to call them a few weeks before but they ignored her call because “she had made her choice”.

Many children will not come home even after it doesn’t work out. They are scared of the “I told you so” or feel that they are still not welcomed. Some parents are never blessed with the opportunity to ever see their child again. The last conversation they may ever have with their child will end with “you are no longer welcomed in my house.” When left without their parents children often choose something else to lean on. This may be another person, drugs, alcohol,- anything to give them a sense of love.

I don’t think that when parents give their child this ultimatum that they realize that in doing this they are actually pushing their child closer to their boyfriend/girlfriend.They may be very right in not trusting or even liking this person but that is all the more reason to be able to have a close relationship to their child to be able to observe if anything bad does happen. This way the child will have somewhere to turn to. Many times the parents are wrong. There are many who do genuinely love each other and make it happily together. Perhaps you do not love or even like this person but be happy that your child does. Love is such a rare thing to find. People search this world over in an attempt to. If someone makes your child happy then be glad that they have found that. You may push them away and they go on to live happy lives together and have children etc. but you will not be around to witness any of these occasions.In any case, pushing them away out of anger,pride, or any other reason just leads them closer that person and away from you. A parent’s love is said to be unconditional, not on the condition that you don’t marry this girl(or boy).

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