LETTING GO OF OUR ADULT CHILDREN
Chapter 1: Something Unexpected Happened on the Way to My Ideal Family
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BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Chapter 1 of Letting Go of Our Adult Children demonstrates how often children don't turn out the way we expected.
It is this last characteristic of perfectionism that gave me the most trouble. I was so busy trying to discover what others said was "right" that I neglected to listen to my own heart. At the time, however, I was too unsure of myself even to know such an option existed.
As the years progressed, however, I suspected something was amiss in the way I viewed parenting — ; and life in general. Other parents seemed to expend a lot less energy and have more fun in the process. I also noticed that their children usually seemed to be doing just fine. So with determination I set about changing myself. Yet major personality changes aren't made overnight. By the time I had become more relaxed, less of a perfectionist, and less controlling, my children were well on their way to becoming young adults.
A Gentle and Quiet Father with a Laissez-faire Attitude
My aunt said my husband was "a very special ordinary man." I would add that he is a "self-contained man," reserved, generous, conservative, a lover of puns and honest as the day is long. Bob doesn't like pretensions and prefers function over style (he would never win a fashion contest). At home he has often been a Mr. Fixit for cars and broken appliances and a reluctant mower of lawns. At work he is very conscientious as a computer expert in the analysis of stress on materials.
Unlike me, Bob does not express much outward curiosity or interest in why other people live the way they do. He views the world primarily through his own experiences. It is this characteristic, I believe, together with his reluctance to express emotions openly - the buried-feelings syndrome common among men of his generation - that sometimes made it difficult for him to understand his children and to relate more intimately with them.
Bob did very well in school without any pressure to achieve and did not believe it necessary to demand that his children had to make high grades. He believed they would do fine if we left them alone. Since he hadn't rebelled against his parents, it was beyond his comprehension when Matthew rebelled against our values or experimented with drugs. Bob had given up smoking cold turkey, and assumed that anyone could stop abusing drugs simply by using will power.
Inconsistent Discipline
Bob's main role in disciplining our children was getting them to do jobs in the front and back yards once a week. His approach was usually to tell them what he expected them to do, seldom allowing discussion or negotiation.
On the other hand, as the parent at home all day (until the twins were thirteen and I went back to work), I found myself responsible for the children's daily chores, for overseeing their squabbles, keeping an eye open for mischief, and taking note of problems with school and playmates. Unwittingly I became the "heavy," a mother who dominated many parenting decisions and resented her role — ; but didn't know how to get out of it. Even family meetings, which I called in the hope of getting off the hot seat, were seldom successful in shifting responsibility off my shoulders.
Discovering an effective method of discipline took longer than the time I had to raise our children. Today I know what would have worked. Then I didn't. All I knew was that I didn't want to use spanking or because-l-told-you-so rules, as my parents had done. To find an approach that was more gentle, but firm, I tried every method offered by parenting magazines and swung from one to the other like a pendulum.
First I would be too permissive and our children could easily manipulate me. For example, since I resented it when as a child my father wouldn't explain the reasons for his rules, I decided to explain things to my children. The result was that it sometimes required forty-five minutes to discuss with a child why he or she had to do a five minute task!
When it was clear that our children needed more direction and control, I made lots of rules and backed them up with what I considered "consequences" (our children called them "punishments"). Whatever they were called, my follow-through was often poor. And when my stricter approach didn't work well, I reverted back to a more permissive style. Inconsistency was my most outstanding and self-defeating trait. Our children learned to tolerate any kind of discipline because they knew it would change when I tried something else.
Self-esteem Building Needed a Boost
"Self-esteem" is a word that describes an essential ingredient for a healthy life. Developing this trait of self-worth in our children wasn't our strongest suit.
As a child I thought I had to do something to merit my parent's affection. I still have great difficulty in just being rather than in doing. It is not surprising that I wasn't good at showing my children that they didn't need to earn my love, even though I felt that way.
Bob, too, clearly loved his children, was proud of their accomplishments and tried to support them in the ways he knew how. Yet he did not dispense ego-boosting compliments easily (although lately he has gotten better in that regard). He was not aware that children need to have their accomplishments acknowledged and to hear their parents frequently say "I love you." But words were not his medium and he wasn't big on hugging.
Another self-esteem issue that grew out of Bob's more quiet manner concerns the difficulty he often had in saying, "I'm sorry" or "I made a mistake," even when he knew he was wrong. I believe this is because his father, like mine, almost never apologized. Yet self-esteem develops, in part, when children can see that people, including parents, are not diminished in stature when they have made a mistake, admit it, and learn from it.
Manners Left on the Doorstep
Bob and I treat each other kindly even when we disagree. Yet sometimes our children fought and were quite disrespectful toward each other. For a long time I wondered why.
Then a couple years ago I read an article by Miss Manners that expressed our situation perfectly. She spoke about the attitude of insisting on one's right to "be myself" and how that affects others. I had been determined to let my children "be themselves" in their own home, since as a child I did not feel I was allowed to be just plain me. While our children weren't permitted to be truly barbarians toward each other, they were given permission to express their disagreeableness in ways I would not tolerate today. Too often we allowed them to leave their manners on the doorstep when they entered the house.
Had we insisted on consideration of others' needs and on better manners, Matthew could not have bullied the others when he became a teenager. He might also have received from them the respect he needed to build his self-esteem.
Ineffective Problem Solving Widens the Gulf
To solve the many problems that arise in any family, parents need an effective method of conflict resolution. Unfortunately, neither of us brought to our marriage the skills needed for healthy disagreement between spouses.
Before my parents had children, they made a pact in which my mother agreed not to disagree with my father in front of us. Consequently, for many years, whenever Bob and I did not see eye to eye, I feared that our disagreements might invalidate our love. So instead of openly addressing issues, I often used subtle manipulation to get my way. But Bob also had no opportunity to learn give-and-take skills of conflict resolution because his father, who was the dominant parent in much the same way as mine, didn't discuss matters openly either. It has only been in recent years that we have developed the ability to resolve our differences more easily.
Unfortunately, there was one dynamic in communication between Bob and me during our child rearing years that was more serious than our inability to reach a consensus openly and directly. We often avoided dealing with our conflicts altogether by focusing on what Matthew was doing. When he was little we labeled him as the child who "got into trouble," although I now believe that label had less to do with his behavior than with our ineffective discipline. Matthew almost always tried to see how much he could get away with. His mischief kept us on our toes. In any case, by focusing on our son, Bob and I unconsciously used him to avoid important issues between us that should have been addressed. When Bob got home from work, it was much easier to say, "Let me tell you what Matthew did today," rather than, "Something is bothering me about us."
A Hippopotamus in Our Living Room
When our train came around the teenage bend, our family might still have come through fairly unscathed, even though the ride had become a little bumpy. Despite our imperfections we were a fairly typical family. Many families just like ours have been successful in achieving their goals. But when we came upon marijuana and other drugs scattered across our tracks, we were unprepared for this new and difficult challenge.
As with almost all families dealing with drug and/or alcohol problems, it was a long time before we would admit that we had a serious problem and that everyone in the family was affected by it. A popular analogy is that families like ours have a hippopotamus in the living room, but the family pretends it isn't there. Other people know this animal is tearing up the fabric of the family; the family either can't see it or is afraid to acknowledge its existence.
We clearly needed help to deal with the strange animal in our midst.
Matthew's drug use required strong, united action on our part. Yet Bob denied there was a problem long after it was obvious to me and to others outside the family. I was too unsure of myself to take a unilateral position to force our son into therapy or treatment, although I certainly solicited a ton of advice from friends and experts. During part of this time I was even working at a drug counseling center for teenagers! The result of my efforts was to try a variety of approaches, from ignoring the growing problem ("it's only a phase") to variations on the theme of Tough Love, a philosophy that encourages parents to set and carry through on firm, consistent limits.
It was not our fault that our son chose to use drugs! But if we had gotten our parent act together before his teen years started, we might have addressed the problem with the cooperation that was needed once it began.
When the hippopotamus took over, our family was affected in at least three important ways as Matthew's drug use gradually became more serious.
The first occurred because we responded to Matthew with extra (albeit often negative) attention. Naturally his siblings resented this, but we were too absorbed in trying to handle his situation to respond effectively to their needs. Furthermore, for many years I had assumed Matthew's getting into "trouble" meant he needed special attention from us. When he started using marijuana, I was convinced that he wouldn't need drugs to feel better if I could just get him to see that we really loved him.
Unwittingly we created, I believe, a situation in which our disproportionate attention contributed to his sense of entitlement, a trait many addicts share. For example, addicts frequently want others to make exceptions for them. They think they should be excused for returning late from lunch, for not handing in a term paper on time, for not paying rent when it's due. If caught driving under the influence, their greatest anger is often directed not against themselves for endangering the lives of others (which might mean they would not do it again) but against their dumb luck for getting caught or against the police officer who arrested them.
The second way our family was affected by Matthew's use of drugs and alcohol was by the constant adjustment of our lives to fit his unpredictable moods — ; moods that changed depending upon whether he was using marijuana, something else, or no drugs at all. I was the mother of a feisty lion cub one day and a sweet lamb the next. It was as though we were being forced to ride his roller coaster until he decided to stop.
The third area in which our son's drug use affected us was a cycle of hope and despair that drove me crazy and contributed to my inability to take more decisive action. When Matthew made a promise to stop using, I would desperately hope that this time, finally, he meant what he said and our family could get back on a steadier course. But he was unable to keep his promises, and my hopes would crash once more. Twice I asked him to move out of our house and twice, after a period of several months during which time we had settled into a calmer home atmosphere, he would ask to return, promising things would be better. Wanting to believe him, we accepted him back. Only much later did I realize that the seductive power of drugs is so powerful that it can overcome the most honest intention in the world. Promises are easy. Giving up drugs is not.
I had the illusion that if I could only "reason" with him he would see how his drug use was affecting school and jobs, to say nothing of relationships with friends and family. It took me a very long time to realize that it was useless to attempt communicating with our son when he had drugs in his system. Until his drug use could be stopped, we were talking to the drug that possessed his body, not with the person who was using the drug.
In 1984 Bob and I returned from a long vacation to find Matthew convinced he would receive the Nobel prize for physics because of insights he received under the influence of LSD. An attempt to have him enter a treatment program was unsuccessful. So two weeks after his twenty-second birthday, Matthew was asked to leave home for what would be the last time. Although it was the best decision we could have made, that was the most difficult and painful day in our lives.
Our Family's Pain Slowly Heals
Since that terrible day, each of the members in our family has struggled to come to terms with this major rupture in our lives. Unfortunately, we did not have an effective mechanism with which we could support each other and receive healing within the family itself.
As a mother who bought the myth that I could have prevented the rift in my family if only I had been a "better" parent, I was wrenched by guilt. Furthermore, in my perfectionistic, self-judging style, I jumped to the conclusion that Bob held me responsible for how things had turned out. That seemed especially unfair because I had tried and tried and tried to be the best mother I could be. If nothing more, I desperately wanted Bob to acknowledge how much I had tried.
But Bob approached parenting as something he did the best way he knew how; he is not introspective by nature and doesn't analyze what he "might have done better." Once our problems with Matthew were out of our hands and Bob knew we couldn't do anything more about them, he saw no use in dwelling on the past or on our role as parents.
Eventually I shifted from a focus on my "failure" as a parent to grief that the hopes and dreams we had for our son would not be fulfilled. I could see there was absolutely nothing we could do to bring Matthew back into the family whole and well again. We could only wait and hope. Yet I wanted Bob's consolation, his assurance that he understood my grief. Again, because of who he was, that was not easy for him to do. I felt alone with my pain. Bob seemed to handle his by burying it somewhere deep inside.
Fortunately there were sources of comfort for me outside my family. My good friend Lynn Bellinger listened to my frequent strategies for change, my hope when promises were made, and my pain when things did not change. She knew all about our roller-coaster ride and provided the support and loving care I needed desperately, for which I will always be grateful. Most of my colleagues also understood my pain and offered their support in various ways. All of this was invaluable. But my greatest movement toward healing the pain in my heart came through work with a therapist who helped me shift my focus from what I could not do to get Matthew to change to what I could do to change myself.
For the most part our daughter Rachel has seemed to work through some of her issues with Matthew by talking with friends whose siblings had similar problems. I am glad she had others to whom she could turn, for I was not a good source of support. For many years my own pain got in the way as I sometimes defended my actions when I should have simply accepted her need to be angry that Bob and I didn't handle the drug problem better.
When Stephen moved to northern California to attend college, Matthew, who had recently lost another job, soon followed. Stephen generally accepted Matthew just as he was, and at first things were okay between them. Soon, however, there were altercations, and their relationship was painfully severed. We lived too far away to support Stephen adequately as he struggled with Matthew's erratic and irrational behavior. In recent years, as Matthew has become more mellow and less volatile, he sometimes goes to Stephen's place to play guitar, as they had done together in the past. What the future will hold for their friendship remains uncertain.
Sarah felt particularly cheated because staying out of trouble couldn't capture her parents' attention nearly as easily as Matthew's getting into trouble did. Both because of her own coping style and because Matthew could be verbally abusive to her (especially when we weren't home to stop him), her reaction has been to distance herself from him emotionally. Today she accepts him fairly matter-of-factly as a person who may need care, but not as one who is connected with her in any significant way.
Finally Letting Go with Love
Three years ago, on one of our infrequent visits to the area where Matthew lives, we found him camping with other homeless people in a redwood park. His face looked ten years older than his age, his hair was pulled up in a knot on the top of his head, and his dirty clothes were secondhand items from a local church. As we talked, I realized that my acute sense of pain was not just for the loss of my dreams for him but for the loss of the dreams he once had for himself.
Nevertheless, the next morning when we had breakfast together, I responded to his lifestyle in a way I would not have been able to do several years earlier. Before I would have seen his lifestyle as a judgment on me as a mother and would have reacted to my sense of guilt by trying once more to change him. This time I was simply curious about what he felt was his purpose in life. When he said his purpose was to teach macrobiotic diets to the homeless, I thought it a very strange occupation. But I didn't feel compelled to change his mind! In that moment I realized that I had finally let go with love, even though I did not understand or agree with his choices or lifestyle. I could see that he was someone with whom we may be involved only periodically, but who will always have a place in my heart.
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© Copyright 1994, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT, Reprinted with permission
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