Carolyn Hax: Anger could drive son away even more

Dear Carolyn:

My 20-year-old son wants to enlist in the Marines. He is a very smart kid who was accepted to several good colleges and chose not to go. If he wants to go into the Marines, I would like him to go in with a college degree, but he refuses. I have also asked him to consider another branch of the military, but he refuses. He knows I am dead set against this, but he says it is his life and he gets to make the decision.

Saying “It’s my life!” and expecting us to support his decision seems unfair, in the same way that if I were to head to Africa and start working with Ebola patients, admirable as that might be, my family would be justified in feeling angry, worried and sad. Help me frame this issue in a way that I can get through it. – Aching Already

Worried, of course; sad … OK. Angry?

If someone you loved risked his or her life to help others, someone who wasn’t shirking other life-and-death responsibilities to offer that help, you’d be angry?

I’m sorry, I just can’t join you there.

Anger is for mistreatment. Recklessness. Inconsideration. Defiance. And the people who volunteer for hazardous duty in service of causes greater than themselves, to my mind, are models of conscientiousness and respect.

Anger also exposes a boundary issue: He does something for himself, and you see it as something he does to you.

Your son may have other objectives here – yes, possibly to escape overbearing parents – and you may be able to see that better than he does.

But since you’re clearly terrified of losing him, please realize you can’t stop him – but in trying, you can surely drive him away.