Kristy Kelly: Living with Adults (Who Used to Be Your Kids)
Living with adult children is the fastest path to prison for a parent just trying to stay sane.
This morning, I woke up and there wasn’t any coffee. Last week, there wasn’t any creamer. Life was so much easier when my kids drank milk instead of caffeine and didn’t have access to my K-cups. What kind of monster takes the last pod in the house and doesn’t at least leave a note or a replacement? These are the same people who once brought me dandelions and gummy bears. Now they leave behind a dry Keurig and chaos.
Adult children are the worst. One of mine calls me twenty-five times a day—literally. Another disappears off the face of the planet for weeks at a time. There's no balance, no consistency, and no clear signal when they’ll need a mother or when they’ve decided they’re too grown to be parented. The audacity of growing up and still acting like a child—impressive.
Eventually, my son found the box of coffee pods. It was tucked into a cabinet under the microwave, nowhere near the coffee pot. For reference, I have both ADHD and OCD—a tragic combo that means I obsess over organizing things I can’t always remember organizing. But even I know where the coffee lives. Because some things are sacred, and because there are laws against mayhem. Also, orange isn’t my color, and I don’t think I’d last long in a cell.
Everything about my morning spirals when the coffee ritual is disrupted. I get up, I drink coffee, and I go to work. It’s not complex. So when I finally got in the car and my dashboard lit up like a pinball machine on tilt, I was already hovering near DEFCON 1. If I didn’t leave at that exact moment, someone was going to regret their life choices—most likely me.
There are exactly four blocks between my front door and the office. That’s not enough time to recover from that kind of chaotic morning. Not even close.
To add insult to injury, adult child #3 had been put in charge of getting two new tires for my car a few months back. He drives it more than I do, after all. But instead of springing for new tires, he went the budget route. We’re now riding around on five tires and three patches, because apparently used tires from a guy down the street “work just fine.” Every morning this week, the low-pressure light has greeted me like an unwanted alarm clock.
This isn’t a column asking for advice about how to live with inconsiderate adult humans. These are my monsters. I created them. But for the love of all that is holy and caffeinated, would it kill them to leave the coffee for Mom? It’s not just for my sanity—it’s for their safety.
I don’t expect perfection. I don’t expect them to pay bills, manage global crises, or revolutionize society (at least not before lunch). But I do expect them to put the coffee pods by the coffee pot. I expect them to notice when the tire pressure light is on and do something about it. You know—basic adulting.
I’ll always be their safety net. That’s what moms do. But they don’t need me to hold their hands every time the trash needs taking out or the refrigerator needs restocking. At some point, it’s fair to ask whether they’re living with me or just off me.
So here I am: mad as a hornet on a Tuesday morning, paying bills and grocery shopping online for a houseful of grown people who still seem to think the grocery fairy delivers essentials out of thin air.
When those groceries arrive and all they find are coffee pods and Fix-a-Flat, maybe—just maybe—they’ll begin to sense the full extent of my maternal wrath. Will it matter? Probably not. The coffee still won’t magically appear next time, and that tire won’t inflate itself.
Like everything else around here, I’ll handle it. I always do.
When they were little—squishy, adorable, sticky-fingered cherubs—I couldn’t imagine wishing anything for them except sunshine, rainbows, and lives filled with joy. Now? At 5:30 in the morning, uncaffeinated and running late, I am much more creative in my well-wishing. And let’s just say, none of it involves rainbows.
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