Kinda depends on context. Because, if you’ve ever been around toddlers it means something different lol.
But I suspect you mean when the kids are adults.
It’s typically going to be a blend of things. Wanting to see your kids find their groove. Part of the job of being a parent is getting your kids to adulthood in a state where they can survive, and hopefully thrive, on their own. That’s because nobody lives forever, so they’ll have to do life without you at some point.
You also want them to have stability and success. Not everyone has the same criteria for those things, but it’s the hopeful part of parenting. Ideally, you set your kid up to have a better life than you.
The problem comes in when success and stability don’t have the same criteria for the parents and the kids.
Settling down usually does mean that a person has found their groove, and they’re also likely to be on a career path of some kind. They’re also not likely to be partying too much or engaging in risky behaviors.
So, if the parents value that kind of life as “success”, of course they’ll wnat their kids on a path to that life before the parents age out of being able to help with that goal.
That does sometimes come with parents obsessing over it. Even more common is parents thinking that it has to be reached on a shorter timeline than the kid wants. So it can be a source of conflict, despite it starting out as something positive.
Of course, parents are humans. Humans are assholes. So you run into parents that believe their kids are extensions of themselves rather than independent humans. Those parents want their kids to reflect well on them, to extend their own sense of self. Thus, the child fulfilling the parent’s ideals becomes vital to the parents’ goals.
It’s like anything else, really. Complicated.
Me? I tend to just want my kid to find their groove no matter what it looks like. I may or may not be able to assist them in life, depending on what that groove is, but I just want them to have as fulfilling a life as possible in the world we’re stuck in. Anything else is icing on the cake
MNByChoice@midwest.social 8 hours ago
“Settlings Down” can mean different things.
It could mean:
I think the first is often used as a polite way to say the second.