When Kids Go Off Script :: Vela Tomba [Ep 595]

Heather welcomes back her friend Vela Tomba, whom she has known through church for more than two decades. Vela has three adult daughters, four grandchildren, a Master of Social Work, and a Master of Christian Studies. Her new book, The Prodigal’s Mother, imagines what the mother in Jesus’ prodigal-son story might have experienced. Vela says she wrote it while watching her children take “prodigal-ish” journeys—not necessarily abandoning faith, but failing to follow the scripts she had written. The book focuses less on changing children and more on helping mothers focus on God and their own response.

Vela explains that she homeschooled partly because a friend said she wanted to raise “thoroughbreds.” With a five-year-old, Vela embraced the idea that her children would become unusually accomplished, develop all their talents, and live the remarkable lives she envisioned. Her daughters are still “lovely” and gifted, she says, but none followed the exact paths she imagined. Heather connects this to recovery language: expectations become unspoken resentment when children fail to fulfill them. Vela agrees that mothers can turn children into idols, then resent them for not providing the fulfillment those mothers expected.

Vela had learned about codependency as behavior surrounding someone else’s alcohol or drug addiction, so she initially assumed it did not apply to her. She later saw the same pattern in rescuing her children academically: helping too much with school, delivering forgotten projects, and preventing them from failing. She also tried to remove discomfort, unhappiness, and consequences, sometimes rushing in with a “pillow” so a child would never really fall. Vela says mothers may be trained to rescue, but rescuing, fixing, and controlling keeps them from allowing children to experience natural consequences and develop responsibility.

Heather asks how parents should respond when a child’s path involves gender identity, sexual orientation, mental-health risks, or other choices outside the family’s expectations. Vela says believing parents can hold their convictions while still welcoming, respecting, and loving a child. Children usually know their parents’ beliefs and values by adolescence, so repeated reminders are not necessarily useful. Love does not require supporting every choice or providing financial assistance to an adult child. Heather adds that parents must work on their anxiety so they can remain steady rather than following the emotional highs and lows of the child’s journey.

Vela traces her hula-hoop metaphor to a family-therapy session where she was complaining about one daughter and the therapist said, “That’s not your hula hoop.” Vela realized she was leaving her responsibilities to manage her daughter’s. A mother’s hoop contains her own beliefs, emotions, actions, and responsibilities; the child’s hoop contains the child’s choices and consequences. Vela says children have their own hoop from the beginning, though a mother overlaps with very young children because she is responsible for them. Parenting rules are different from rescuing, fixing, and controlling.

As her children moved toward adulthood, Vela learned that stepping back is not abandonment but an acknowledgment that they are capable. She jokes that “he who holds the gold rules,” yet even financially dependent children make choices when their parents are not present. Marriage became a major boundary marker: Vela realized she could not simply give married children advice. She began asking, “Do you want my feedback?” or “Would you like to hear what I think?” If they agree, they are more likely to listen; unsolicited advice pushes them away. Heather notes that advice-giving can be easier than doing one’s own emotional work.

Vela describes a long, recurring season of grief over children’s paths. At times she wore sunglasses to church so people would not see her crying and wondered whether she would ever smile again. She says mothers need to acknowledge and bring their brokenheartedness to God rather than pretending it is not there; only then can God transform it. For Vela, joy is not the same as happiness but a quiet assurance that God remains God and that she can trust a story whose ending she cannot yet see. Psalm 34 is her suggested meditation for a mother in unresolved pain.

Vela says friends helped most when they walked beside her through similar struggles, reinforcing the podcast’s “don’t mom alone” idea. When another mother shares pain about a child, Vela recommends listening without immediately offering advice, a comparison, or a story about someone else. Heather suggests asking, “How does that make you feel?” to move the conversation from the child’s behavior back to the mother’s experience. Using “I” and “me” statements also helps mothers own and process their emotions instead of repeatedly telling their children’s stories. Vela says people sometimes made strange comments, but no friendships ended.

Vela’s fictional prodigal’s mother uses Facebook, stalks her child, creates fake identities, and even hires a private investigator—comic examples of maternal control that Vela says are part of the invented story, not her autobiography. She also recalls cleaning her daughters’ rooms so they could attend parties, then becoming angry because she was fulfilling her own social expectations. For mothers still waiting for resolution, she recommends Psalm 34 and the book’s stories from women whose situations do not all end neatly. Heather and Vela conclude that acceptance does not mean denial; it can bring joy, surrender, and a bigger imagination for an unfamiliar future.