Stop Raising Adult-Children: Break the Cycle of Blame and Take Your Life Back

By: Haron Marlee

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Stop Raising Adult-Children

Break the Cycle of Blame and Take Your Life Back

If you feel trapped supporting an adult child who won’t launch, paying their bills, absorbing their anger, and sacrificing your own peace, you’re not failing as a parent. You’re caught in a cultural pattern no one warned you about, and there is a way out that doesn’t require abandoning your child or yourself.

Today’s parents are raising legal adults who still expect to be treated like children, while blaming their parents for every struggle. The result is exhaustion, guilt, resentment, and a quiet fear that setting boundaries will destroy the relationship altogether.

This book asks the question no one else is asking:
If blame keeps passing from one generation to the next, where does healing actually begin?

In Stop Raising Adult-Children, licensed psychotherapist Haron Marlee challenges the modern narrative that turned parents into perpetual scapegoats, sponsors, and emotional caretakers. With clinical insight, clarity, and humor, she reframes healing away from endless blame and toward accountability, forgiveness, and sustainable connection.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

• Recognize manipulation, guilt cycles, gaslighting, and trauma bonding, without demonizing your child.

• Understand how parenting swung from harsh control to overprotection, and why that shift backfired.

• Set boundaries that protect love without triggering estrangement.

• Reclaim your identity outside of parenthood using practical tools, including Boundaries-in-Action scripts, Parent Reflections, the Reciprocity Clause, and a 30-Day Parent Reset Plan.

• Apply these insights in family therapy, counseling, or parent support groups.

Whether you’re a parent drained by demands that never end or a therapist seeking a clearer framework for helping families reset, this book offers a compassionate but unflinching roadmap.

It’s time to stop raising adult-children.
It’s time to break the cycle of blame.
It’s time to take your life back.

Regain of emotional health from adult child abuse

My wife and I are in our late 60s. We have a 40-ager daughter who seems to have very deep layers of emotional issues that started from her teenage years. She lies, manipulates, punishes by withholding time with grandchildren, always wants more money, interrogates us regarding our affairs, speaks to us like she knows everything about everything. She has never been on her own, held down a long-term job or career (even though she has two college degrees), or created anything such as a successful business. We have done all those successful things. Interesting. Our other daughter loves us and treats us like people with goals, dreams, and feelings, and we reciprocate like grown-up friends--beautiful. This book helped us regain our self-esteem and recognize what has been going on. We are now setting boundaries. It feels great. There was not one single wasted line in this book. If knowledge is power and the right knowledge for the right situation can help you be mentally and emotionally healthy, then this book is a must read. When I told my wife about it, she said, "Could you please get me a copy." I am going to do that as soon as I type the last word of this. Thank you, author Haron Marlee.

Therapeutic for parents

Read it 3 times and keep learning more about healthy family dynamics! I was in need of a lot of help w my 33 yr old son that won’t move out and dominates my household! This book helped