LETTING GO OF OUR ADULT CHILDREN
Chapter 6: The Velcro Syndrome
Page 16
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Note: This online edition is reprinted with permission. A paperback version is available for purchase from Learning Place Online.
We Have Been Carefully Taught
We are born with no real sense of right and wrong, except perhaps an inborn fear of loud noises (which may be experienced as a wrong) and the need to survive (a right). Yet we soon acquire a long list of behaviors, opinions and attitudes that feel right to us simply because they are familiar and connected with comfort and love. Little things we learn in the home, like which way the toilet paper hangs from the roller or whether the glasses in the cupboard stand upright or upside down, are things that we take for granted as right, or at least best.
However, society also shapes our idea of what is right. Our ideals of beauty, for example, are arbitrarily defined by media and advertising, and we unconsciously accept these standards without realizing that we have allowed someone else to determine what face or figure will appear more attractive to us than another. Indeed, not long ago beauty contests actually defined the precise measurements of the "perfect" woman!
As a consequence of such nonsense, women have a great deal of difficulty accepting their naturally beautiful bodies. Few women, according to studies, can look in a mirror without focusing on all the things they'd like to change. With such an emphasis on looks, it isn't surprising that we develop lots of Velcro over how our children look. If our child is very much overweight or has some "flaw" that can't be hidden, we can try unceasingly to change that "defect" so that our child won't be seen as different, or less than normal.
The Fear of Being "Odd"
Having "normal" children. That is certainly the hope of most parents, although we may think a little individualism is okay and even to be admired. But there are not many of us who aren't at least a little concerned when our child has a characteristic, or holds an opinion, that definitely does not fit the acceptable standards of the group to which we belong, or to which she wants to belong. We want her to be seen as fairly normal, to fit in, to be accepted.
Understanding our own desire to be normal can help us deal with the concern that our child is not. Often, after I have worked over a long period of time with a client who has no psychosis or mental illness (but is in therapy merely to deal with the ordinary struggles that normal people often have), the client will, with some embarrassment, tell me about something he does or thinks that he considers terribly strange or weird. I am never surprised, for within nearly all of us there is something we keep hidden, something that we are sure others would consider "crazy" or "odd." It may not be a major concern for us, but we are nonetheless aware that we may be "different."
So it is not surprising if sometimes we wonder if our child really is crazy, or simply odd, when he expresses opinions or acts in ways that are considered abnormal by the average person. Maybe he is, if we insist on labels and our child fits the characteristics of mental illness as defined by psychiatrists. But often our fear that our child's behavior is dangerously out of the ordinary is fed by our inability or unwillingness to come to terms with the secrets that we fear make us different. Consequently, we can be very disturbed when we interpret some of our son's characteristics and opinions as not only different than ours, but weird as well.
When parents have a hang-up about what is or is not normal, any evidence of what they think is abnormal in their adult child (or in anyone else for that matter) can be extremely unsettling. For example, if such a parent has difficulty accepting a child whose sexual orientation is toward members of his own sex, the fact that she sees that behavior as aberrant, sick, or crazy will be the sticking point in the family rift. She will have to deal with her discomfort before she can let go with love. This does not mean she must view her son's behavior as perfectly normal. (If by "normal," we appeal to averages, it is not!) But she will need to understand what is so frightening to her about behavior that is not practiced by the "average" person.
What Will Others Say?
On the other hand, you may be a parent of a gay or lesbian child and not be terribly uncomfortable with the fact that your child's behavior and lifestyle aren't mainstream. However, you may be having a difficult time dealing with the opinions of others. What others think about you and your child is very important to you, perhaps because you don't have a solid sense of your own self. Then your beliefs concerning right and wrong do not matter as much as whether or not others view the behavior of your child as "right" or "wrong," "normal" or "abnormal."
You want your child to be accepted by your sister, aunt, or neighbor. You wonder what these people will say when they learn your child is gay, or in some other way falls outside the standards that they view as "normal." Your concern is legitimate. Clearly others may not accept your child (and may even blame you) for what your child is or does. But the heart of the matter probably has as much to do with the fear that your sister, aunt, or neighbor will reject you as it does with the fear that they will reject your child.
Focusing on what others will think only reinforces your own insecurity. If you want to get rid of the Velcro of opinion, the real question you will need to consider is, "Why do I let someone else's opinion control whether I fully accept my child?"
Temperament
We don't usually pay any more attention to our temperament traits than we do to our choice in sunglasses. Yet different temperament traits are like different colors of sunglasses. Each causes a person to experience the world in a slightly different way, thereby coming to slightly different conclusions concerning what each sees.
The following is a list of temperament traits, each of which will affect the way in which we and our child interact with the world. None of these characteristics is "better" or "worse" than the others. Each person's life contains some of the widely varied threads of human nature: with different temperaments we contribute spice and diversity to the tapestry of life.
Which of these temperament traits apply to you? Which apply to your child?
Quiet and shy or outgoing and quick to speak. Enjoy lots of physical movement and athletic contests or prefer less strenuous activity and a good game of checkers. Active or reserved. Down to earth, factual and practical or able to operate on hunches, imagination, and intuition. Musically talented or tone deaf. Artistically expressive or unable to draw more than stick figures. Compulsive or spontaneous. Able to work on one project at a time before going on to another or able to juggle many different activities. Easily distracted or very focused and concentrated on the task at hand. Decisive and quick or tentative and slow to respond. Emotional or rational. Easy-going or intense. Quick to anger or slow to anger.
Some of these basic personality characteristics can become Velcro for parents who are so used to reacting in one way that they accuse their child of an "unreasonable" stance when all he may be doing is expressing the view of the world as experienced through his temperament.
Temperament differences can also affect the probability, or improbability, that we will become entangled in the lives of our adult children, their spouses, and our grandchildren. For example, if your temperament allows you to be more reserved, if you need lots of time to respond to most situations, it will be easier for you to sit back and reflect on what your adult children say or do. This trait may allow you to see things more objectively. However, if you have always reacted quickly to what goes on around you (as I have a strong inclination to do), it will be more difficult to refrain from getting involved. Your temperament may encourage you to jump to conclusions that are inaccurate because they are based on incomplete information.
So temperament is a factor in how we react to our child. But we must be careful that we do not use temperament characteristics as an "excuse" not to change our behavior, claiming we're just naturally quick to speak our mind — and can't do anything about it.
The "Right" Religion
One area of painful conflict between parents and children — that of religion — can produce great quantities of Velcro. Even if we have not practiced our faith for years, we may be extremely disappointed because our daughter has chosen a different religion and is now very active in church activities that exclude us. If we are atheists, we may also be stuck on the issue of religion because our son is a born-again Christian, who insists we are damned.
There is something strangely tenacious about the way in which we cling to what we are sure constitutes the most correct theological position, even when we don't believe there is a god. Perhaps this is because we may have convinced ourselves that the greatest test of parenting is the ability to successfully pass on truths we hold so dearly. And if salvation is the main concern of parents, they may be distressed because they fear an errant child will not spend eternity with them. Most disagreements concerning religion, however, tend to focus on behavior, especially when a child denounces her faith or joins one that allows choices that the parents believe are immoral, harmful or irresponsible.
There is no question that all religions encourage certain behaviors and discourage others in order to build community and/or demonstrate allegiance to a deity. These behaviors are generally supposed to be ones of kindness, love, honesty, and hard work. However, during almost sixty years of observing the human condition, I have noticed that behavior often has less to do with outwardly spoken beliefs than with inwardly held beliefs.
There are members of the clergy, to give just one example, who are the kindest people on earth; yet there are also priests and ministers who have sexually molested children. Time and again the world has witnessed members of religions practice aggression, fanaticism, hate, and xenophobia in the name of their faith. Clearly the expression of a faith does not mean a life of service toward all people. I would trust my life with some friends who are faithful believers in an organized religion, with others who are questioning agnostics, and with still others who are atheists strongly opposed to all formal religion. There are also people in those categories I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them.
If the teachings of religion do not guarantee that a person will respect the rights of others, what does? Why do both religious and non-religious people live lives of deceit or of high ethical standards? I believe the answers are found in the way in which people learn to listen to — or ignore — the wisdom of their own hearts, to that part of us which some call the "soul" and others the "self."
In the center of our being is a quiet voice that says we are all valuable, lovable, and equal. Perhaps the psyche's recognition that every person should be treated humanely merely reflects years of unconsciously absorbing the most kind and nurturing teachings of parents and religion. Yet even people who have been raised by extremely abusive, dishonest, and narcissistic parents know, on a very deep level, that kindness, honesty and generosity are more desirable traits than those they have experienced. In any case, people who pay attention to that intuition generally adhere to the Golden Rule not because they are told they must (although the teachings of their religion may reinforce their behavior), but because to do otherwise would be incongruent with what they feel in their hearts is right.
Many people do not label the inner voice that leads them to choose behaviors that are caring, ethical and responsible as coming from God or even from a benevolent guiding spirit. Some of these people describe themselves as humanists. They view their actions as simply a response to inborn traits that assure the survival of the human race both physically and socially. Others are convinced that the inner voice directing them toward acts of kindness comes from a spiritual source that lies outside the limitations of a person's mind.
This discrepancy in interpretation is not surprising because the most important thing that happens when one meditates is the subjective experience itself. The essence of how one received a piece of intuition or had a shift in consciousness cannot be captures by description or reduced to a formula.
Nevertheless, an essential element of human nature is the desire to understand what we experience and to share that understanding with others. So the second most important thing about such experiences is what we think about them and the third most important is how we describe to others the conclusions we have drawn from these elusive experiences. In fact, dogma and creeds have arisen over the centuries in large part because the followers of those religions agree that certain explanations for these "spiritual" experiences make more sense to them than do other interpretations.
It is important to understand that every person decides, deep within his heart, which particular ideas and beliefs — out of many points of view available — best explain the mystery of the universe and his place within it.
Like millions of others, you may have unconsciously absorbed your religious philosophy from the culture in which you were raised. In that case your beliefs may feel especially comfortable and have a great deal of support from your community. On the other hand, your views may have grown out of a deliberate and conscious exploration of various doctrines until you finally found one that made the most sense to you. And while your ideas are far different from those of your parents, you may feel as strongly about them as your parents felt about theirs. It is even possible that through your own reflections you have developed a perspective that is unlike that of anyone you know.
If you are stuck in conflict with your child over differences in religious perspectives, you have already discovered that it is almost impossible to win an argument about religion. This is because religion is built not on logic but on beliefs: the belief that there is one god; that the power of the universe is shared by many gods; that there is no divine being; that we only live once; that we return to this world many times; etc. Consequently, at the very least you are unlikely to convince your child by quoting scripture if your child disagrees with the premise on which the holy book is based.
However, you can resolve much of your conflict — without giving up your beliefs — by first answering the following questions as honestly as you are able: "How did I decide which particular explanation of truth was correct, when there are hundreds of interpretations offered by different churches, temples, synagogues and mosques?" "Would I believe what someone told me is true even though it didn't make sense to me?" "Would I consider a person respectful of me if she insisted I accept a belief that did not resonate within the deepest recesses of my heart?" "What prevents me from allowing my child to have her own spiritual experience and from making her own religious decisions?"
After exploring these questions, you may well discover that a discussion of how you came to your conclusions concerning religion and how your child arrived at hers will be enlightening for both of you. You will also discover that some of your Velcro comes off in the process.
The "Right" Race
When our children marry, or marry and divorce and marry again, we are faced with changing family boundaries. When our children decide to add significant others to their lives or one day decide someone is no longer significant, we go through a process of deciding who is family and non-family — who is in and who will be left out. These decisions can uncover much Velcro we hadn't noticed before.
Since some people are naturally "inclusive," they may comfortably consider in-laws, ex-in-laws, the relatives of in-laws, and good friends as "family." However, such extended families are not as comfortable for those who tend to be more "exclusive," who define families in much more limited terms. And when adult children date or marry people who do not fit the stereotype of what they consider their "in" group, all hell can break loose. This is especially true when the family is asked to expand its membership to include an individual from another race or ethnic group.
Parents confronted with in-laws of a different race or culture react in many different ways. The most extreme, of course, are fanatics who can see almost no good in another racial group. Wanting clear separation of the races, they may disown their children or, at the very least, refuse to have anything to do with their son- or daughter-in-law or grandchildren. However, the majority of parents are probably more like Maria, the woman I discussed in the second chapter. They aren't without some degree of prejudice, but they are mostly concerned for what the future will hold for their child's mixed marriage in a society filled with prejudice and ethnic conflict.
Clearly race is a Velcro issue for many parents. We cannot easily dismiss our stereotypes. However, for those of us stuck uncomfortably in conflicts or disappointment over race and nationality, the question we might consider is how much we unconsciously project our own sense of inadequacies onto others.
An editorial in TIME addresses this aspect of race. Lance Morrow, following the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill senate hearings, wrote,
The Thomas proceedings had an unexpected cleansing power where race is concerned. The antagonists were black. The drama was universal. The crime of racism is to deny the humanity of people with skin of a different color. Tolerance arises from a recognition of oneself in others, from seeing in a separate being all one's own possibilities, weakness, appetites, loves, lapses, brutalities, decencies. The leading players in the Thomas drama, and many in the supporting cast, were accomplished, gifted, attractive, ambitious, complicated Americans— and in this case, incidentally, African Americans. The hearings called forth a procession of people diverse and successful in ways not normally visible to white America.
The question we must each consider is whether we accept in ourselves our own "possibilities, weakness, appetites, loves, lapses, brutalities, decencies." When we are able to do that, we will no longer need to project those qualities onto others. Then which race is "best" or "right" will no longer be an important issue.
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© Copyright 1994, Arlene Harder ,MA, MFT, Reprinted with permission
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