Demie Kurz is a Research Affiliate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the former Co-Director of the Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies Program at Penn and a Co-founder of the Carework Network, an international organization of researchers, policymakers, and advocates involved in various domains of care work. Her books and articles have focused on challenges facing contemporary American families and social policies that would better support families.

AMW: Why do you believe that parenting teens and young adults is especially challenging, and how are mothers particularly affected?

DK: While parenting is one of the most important tasks of any society, popular narratives fail to reflect the challenges of raising children, teens, and young adults. Some parents, particularly mothers, who do the majority of the work of parenting, are viewed as too involved in their children’s lives, as helicopter parents micromanaging their children and teens; others are viewed as not involved enough. Often parents are blamed when their children aren’t viewed as successful. Adolescence is widely seen as the most difficult stage of parenting. Yet despite its importance, we have a limited grasp of what it actually takes to guide teens through adolescence and on to young adulthood.

AMW: What does “letting go” look like in parenting, and what challenges come with it?

DK: Based on over a hundred interviews with an economically and racially diverse group of mothers, and some fathers, I describe what mothers identify as a key challenge of parenting—what they often call “letting go.” Parents are expected to supervise the lives of their teens on an ongoing basis and ensure that they safely transition to young adulthood and on to adulthood and gain the credentials they need to succeed in an era when reaching adulthood has become more demanding. At the same time, parents must pull back and “let go,” turn over more control to their teens and young adults who must learn to take more responsibility for their lives. As they balance the tasks of maintaining control and letting go in these arenas, parents must continually make difficult decisions. Often, they have to make these decisions without much information; communication with teens becomes more challenging as they make more decisions on their own.

AMW: What broader resources do parents need to raise children, teens, and young adults successfully?

DK: Mothers’ accounts of their experiences also show how vitally important resources are to the process of parenting. Parents cannot rely solely on their individual actions to ensure that their teens progress successfully on to adulthood. They require good neighborhoods, safe schools, and funds for extracurricular activities. As the mothers I interviewed make clear, parents are continually searching for resources that will improve their children’s chances of success. Policies that provide resources for lower-income families who live in underresourced neighborhoods with underresourced schools are particularly important for reducing the stark inequality of opportunity that currently divides lower-income from higher-income families.

Alicia M. Walker is Associate Professor of Sociology at Missouri State University and the author of two previous books on infidelity. She is the current Editor in Chief of the Council of Contemporary Families blog, serves as Senior Fellow with CCF, and serves as Co-Chair of CCF alongside Arielle Kuperberg. Learn more about her on her website. Follow her on Twitter or Bluesky at @AliciaMWalker1 and Instagram @aliciamwalkerphd