[Soapbox] Being a parent
I'm not a parent, but I do have suggestions for parents. There are two people I'd like to have read this but they won't. Figure I'll put it somewhere anyway... No, this has nothing to do with my parents. My mother and father are both very awesome people.
Being a parent is hard, and some people are not cut out for the job. When parents raise a child, many instill in that child their values in the hopes that the child either retains those values, or derives their values from the originals. If they do, great, you must be proud. However, if they do not, this does not give you an excuse to act like a child yourself. Your kid, no matter how old they are, expects you to act like an adult and when you avoid them because you're too afraid, or too emotionally unstable to talk about the topic, you're not helping them. When you tell them they're not welcomed home because you just can't agree with their opinion or what they've done with their life YOU ARE NOT HELPING THEM.
Part of being a parent, hell, part of being a human being in a country where there is freedom of speech is that you'll at least (read: at bare minimum) sit your ass down for someone you claim to 'love' and listen to them talk about something you would normally never want to talk about. Why? Because you're a parent, and if you love someone, then you'll be a big boy/girl and talk to them about the issue instead of trying to ignore them, or play the blame game, or try to transfer your negativity to them. If you think that talking to them won't help, I guarantee that locking them out of the house is not going to make them better.
tl;dr
You're an adult whose child needs to talk to you about something? Grow the eff up and talk to them about it.
[/Soapbox]
Being a parent is hard, and some people are not cut out for the job. When parents raise a child, many instill in that child their values in the hopes that the child either retains those values, or derives their values from the originals. If they do, great, you must be proud. However, if they do not, this does not give you an excuse to act like a child yourself. Your kid, no matter how old they are, expects you to act like an adult and when you avoid them because you're too afraid, or too emotionally unstable to talk about the topic, you're not helping them. When you tell them they're not welcomed home because you just can't agree with their opinion or what they've done with their life YOU ARE NOT HELPING THEM.
Part of being a parent, hell, part of being a human being in a country where there is freedom of speech is that you'll at least (read: at bare minimum) sit your ass down for someone you claim to 'love' and listen to them talk about something you would normally never want to talk about. Why? Because you're a parent, and if you love someone, then you'll be a big boy/girl and talk to them about the issue instead of trying to ignore them, or play the blame game, or try to transfer your negativity to them. If you think that talking to them won't help, I guarantee that locking them out of the house is not going to make them better.
tl;dr
You're an adult whose child needs to talk to you about something? Grow the eff up and talk to them about it.
[/Soapbox]