From birth I welcomed every step my children took towards independence, from sitting up unaided, to feeding themselves, to not needing babysitters.
I am fortunate that both mine grew up very sensible adults, and a part from a few teenage incidents, I have never felt any need to interfere or give them Good Advice.
My motto has always been that the less you interfere and constantly try to be in your children's lives, the closer you stay. We are in contact weekly and all are on Facebook and we recently had a very happy week, all 7 of us sharing a cabin cruiser on the Norfolk Broads.
Our children do talk things over with us, about things where they respect our judgement, but all of us have busy lives, including DH and I, but we all know that we can turn to each other in a crisis.