If your boomer parents always said "we'll see" instead of "no," you likely struggle with these 7 patterns as an adult

At thirty-seven, I spent months agonizing over whether to leave my six-figure job. Not because the decision was especially complicated, but because I'd never learned how to make one. My parents, well-meaning as they were, had perfected the art of the non-answer. Can I go to Sarah's house? We'll see. Can we get a dog? We'll see. Can I take that art class? We'll see.

What felt like gentle parenting was actually an absence of clarity. And decades later, I'm still untangling the patterns it created.

1. You overthink even simple decisions

Should you order the pasta or the salmon? Which brand of coffee should you buy? These aren't philosophical questions, but they might as well be.

Research shows that indecisiveness often stems from childhood where decision-making became associated with making errors. When parents repeatedly defer decisions with vague answers, children never learn to trust their own judgment.

Forty-five minutes in a grocery store, trying to choose between two nearly identical brands of olive oil. It sounds absurd, but when you've been conditioned to believe every choice might be wrong, even trivial decisions feel paralyzing.

2. You seek external validation constantly

Before making any move, you poll everyone around you. Your friends, your partner, your coworkers, that one acquaintance you barely know but who seems confident.

You're not looking for input. You're looking for permission to exist in your own life.

When parents consistently avoid giving clear answers, children internalize the message that they can't be trusted to make decisions. As adults, we compensate by seeking constant reassurance from others. We never develop the internal compass that says "this feels right for me."

3. You struggle to set and maintain boundaries

Saying no feels almost physically painful. You agree to things you don't want to do, tolerate behavior you shouldn't accept, and wonder why people keep crossing lines you never knew you were allowed to draw.

The pattern makes sense. Research identifies ambiguous parenting as having detrimental effects on mental health. When your childhood was filled with maybes instead of clear yeses and nos, you never learned where limits exist.

Boundaries require decisiveness. They require saying "this is acceptable, this isn't" with conviction. But if you grew up in a world where nothing was ever clearly acceptable or unacceptable, how are you supposed to know where to draw those lines?

4. You have a complicated relationship with authority

On the surface, you're compliant. You follow the rules, defer to supervisors, rarely push back on directives from above.

Underneath, you resent it deeply.

This contradiction stems from never learning healthy negotiation. When parents default to "we'll see," they create a dynamic where children can't advocate for themselves or understand the reasoning behind decisions. You just wait, hope, and ultimately comply or rebel.

As adults, many of us bounce between these extremes. We're either overly submissive with authority figures, or we're quietly seething with resentment about having to follow anyone else's lead. We never learned the middle ground: respectful disagreement, clear communication, collaborative problem-solving.

5. You procrastinate on important life choices

Career changes, relationship commitments, major purchases. They all get pushed to "someday." Not next month or next year, but to some vague future when things will be clearer.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the adult version of "we'll see."

Studies on childhood stress and decision-making show that adults raised without decision-making practice often become both impulsive and indecisive. The impulsivity comes from desperation to escape the discomfort of uncertainty. The indecisiveness comes from never having learned how to evaluate options and commit.

I kept my job for three years past when I knew I should leave. Not because I loved it, but because making the choice to quit felt impossible. The ambiguity of my next step was more tolerable than the finality of a decision.

6. You're either rigidly inflexible or you have no standards at all

Here's where it gets interesting. Some of us overcorrect.

Having grown up without clear boundaries, some of us create ironclad rules for ourselves. Everything becomes black and white because gray areas feel too much like the uncertainty of childhood. Others swing the opposite direction and have almost no standards, accepting whatever comes because we never learned it was okay to have preferences.

Many of us cycle between both extremes. Impossibly rigid in our twenties, organized to the point of compulsion, with unchangeable schedules and sacred routines. Then swinging wildly the other way, becoming almost shapeless, adapting to whatever anyone else wants.

Neither extreme felt like actually choosing. Both felt like reactions to never having been taught how.

7. You mistake waiting for wisdom

You tell yourself you're being thoughtful, that you're gathering information, that you're not rushing into anything. And sometimes that's true.

But often, you're just repeating the pattern. You're saying "we'll see" to yourself.

You don't need to make impulsive decisions. But at some point, more waiting doesn't improve the quality of the choice. At some point, you have to accept that perfect certainty doesn't exist and that you're capable of handling whatever comes next.

Research on parenting and child development consistently shows that children need practice making decisions, starting small and building confidence. When that practice is replaced with ambiguity, we carry the deficit into adulthood.

Final thoughts

The good news? These patterns aren't permanent.

Learning to make decisions without spiraling took work. It meant recognizing where these patterns came from and actively building new ones. It meant practicing small decisions until they felt less terrifying. It meant learning that making a choice and adjusting if needed beats making no choice at all.

Your parents probably weren't trying to harm you. They might have thought they were being flexible or avoiding conflict. But the cost of all that ambiguity was your confidence in your own judgment.

The permission you've been waiting for? You can give it to yourself now.