Final offspring is within 3 months of graduating high school and turning 18. He is a good kid. He’s bright and geeky and alarmingly attractive (as evidenced by his many female admirers). He has a strong sense of right and wrong and has avoided many of the pitfalls that tend to attract the underdeveloped male pre-frontal cortex.
The big issue is that his grades are in the toilet because he missed a bunch of school due to the flu and he hasn’t gotten his act together to make up the work.
Consequences have been discussed and he knows what he needs to do. I am trying mightily not to nag.
As valiant as my efforts have been not to nag him, I cannot seem to get away from being nagged by my inner Queen of Guilt.
The Queen taunted me for years that I was not a good enough wife. Now that she can’t use that line, she is taunting me that I am not a good enough parent. She’s trying to tell me that if I had stayed married, this son wouldn’t be struggling. She smugly reminds me that I worked too much and was not available enough for my kids. She shows me examples of kids who excel in everything because their mothers were better than me. She tells me I have failed.
I have paid for enough therapy to recognize this bitch for the fraud she is. Yet every time I try to smack her down, she keeps coming back.
The sad truth is that I have become lax in maintaining the basics that keep me in my happy place—writing, feeling all my emotions, being mindful and practicing affirmations.
Maybe the Queen Bitch has done me a favor by forcing me to refocus. I hate it when that happens.
Incognito 
I gave up my career and was completely present for my kids and the Queen still wins every hand of guilt poker. It’s a rigged game. I vote we throw in our cards and walk away. We’ve done our level best and that’s gonna be good enough.
I agree! Thanks for the feedback and support.