At what point in life is it okay to say you are giving up on ‘parenting’? 

For many - if not most - parenting is something that has no end date, only the final release of death brings it to an end. 

The amount of work required likely reduces as the years continue, but it is nevertheless ongoing. 

However, on Lunchtime Live, writer and broadcaster Barbara Scully said she radically scaled back her responsibilities when her youngest child finished school. 

“I'm always going to be their mother - that doesn't change,” she said. 

“But I stopped parenting as soon as the last one, the youngest one, finished school, which was in 2019.” 

Barbara has three adult children, one of whom emigrated years ago, another who is currently travelling and a third who is living at home. 

“I have a very clear memory of probably within a few days of her finishing school, I had a realisation that I had suddenly completed 28 consecutive years of school runs, making lunches, washing uniforms, going to parent teacher meetings, dealing with head lice notes, yada, yada, yada,” she recalled. 

“I suddenly realised that was all over and I remember calling a meeting and saying, ‘Right, I'm out now, it's job done. It's over now’.”

Barbara that she “did mean it” and has stuck to that resolution. 

“I mean, by the time they've left school, they're 18, they're adults,” she explained. 

“I'm not kicking them out; I still provide their board and support them in lots of different ways. 

“But I don't, I don't parent them anymore; I'm done with that. 

“They are now adults and I am not going to design my life around them unless there's a crisis.”

Main image: Parents with their children. Picture by: Alamy.com.