I was just talking today with someone about the journey all families go through as children age, particularly the parents/caregivers.  As I was reflecting on these things I was surprised to find a 1959 New Church Life article by the Rev. Geoffrey Childs which speaks in remarkably frank terms about the spiritual need to shift from parent/child to adult/adult as our children age.

It is included (in slightly edited form) in the hope that it stimulates thought - both for our homes and for the church - about what constitutes true spiritual family.

Love and Peace,

Ethan

With adulthood, a person comes into their own liberty and rationality; where before their parents were their guides and mentors, we are now on our own. We are to guide ourselves according to our own conscience. 

The Lord suffers deeply when we choose evil, yet [God] does not interfere with our basic freedom to do so; and although parents [and caregivers] may suffer deeply when those of [entering upon] adult age err, they must not interfere if they would heed Divine revelation. If they do interfere, their inner motive is not from heaven but from the love of dominion; for in all such tampering there is a denial of the basic qualities that make a human being: liberty, or free choice, and rationality. 

Enforced denial leads only to rebellion, to bitterness and to much heartache.  Is there nothing left, then, when children become adults? Is the deep family relationship simply broken upon the rocks of independence and pride? [Not all ties are broken]. One tie is to be broken, the bond that is forged by parental government and the resulting submission and dependence of the child. That is the bond in childhood, and it rightly belongs to the period of childhood. But other ties, very basic ones, remain, and these are all ties of affection.

After death families meet again, and the same deep bonds of affection hold throughout external states. But when the spirit comes into internals, their inmosts are dissociated from the things of time and space and person. Love of the Lord and the neighbor are felt as they are in themselves, dissociated from any parent/caregiver image. In this way depths of innocence are separated from their attachment to one's own children, and innocence is then felt as it is in itself.

In this internal state association is according to loves, and to loves alone. If parents and their adult children still dwell together, it is because their spiritual loves are very similar. But the relationship is that of adult with adult; and the earthly parent-child relation is not only dissolved, it is actually forgotten. The relation of angel to angel is much deeper and far more sensitive than any family relationship on earth.