No mom wants to stand by and watch her adult child struggle.

Everything in us wants to step in and make it better. After all, that’s what we’ve done for most of their lives. We bandaged scraped knees, comforted broken hearts, helped solve friendship problems, and carried burdens that felt too heavy for their young shoulders. When they hurt, we helped.

But parenting an adult child asks something different of us.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is resist the urge to swoop in and rescue them.

That can feel almost cruel when you’re a mom. Yet every time we rush in to fix the problem, remove the consequence, make the phone call, provide the money, or carry a responsibility that belongs to our adult child, we may be taking away something they desperately need: the opportunity to discover that they can handle hard things.

The August sun beat down as we unloaded our overpacked cars and schlepped box after box to the third floor of my daughter's dorm. The sidewalks buzzed with nervous freshmen and parents carrying lamps, mini-refrigerators, bedding, and everything else that somehow didn't fit into a single vehicle. Everyone was smiling, but beneath the excitement lingered something heavier.

Our youngest daughter, Keziah, couldn't have been happier. She carefully unpacked her favorite things while her dad wrestled the refrigerator up three flights of stairs and lofted her bed. We arranged fluffy throw pillows on her futon, tucked little plants onto the windowsill, and admired the cozy room she'd soon call home. A warm breeze drifted through the open window, and for a moment everything felt just right.

We grabbed Chick-fil-A, made one last Target run, and returned to her room for a final look around. We didn't want to hover or make the goodbye harder than it already was. She sat on her futon, looked around her room with a smile, and simply said, "I think I'm ready."

She was.

I wasn't.