It's All Relative...Sometimes

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When our child is first handed to us, through birth or adoption, through step-parenthood or foster care, an extraordinary commitment is handed to us, as well—we are agreeing to care for someone who is, right now, a total stranger to us, and we are promising to do so for our entire lives. From that point on, not a single day will pass during which we are free of some sense of parental responsibility, no matter how old we or our children are. As a comic once noted, “All parents watch their middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, we humans abhor anything that is unrecognizable, so we instantly set about making this “stranger” someone more familiar. We attribute to this for-now-unknown entity an identity that allows us to connect with him right away, which in turn enables us to feel better about compromising and sacrificing so much of ourselves in the service of his upbringing.

Often, the early attributions that we make are pleasant and positive ones: “He’s got his mother’s graceful hands and his father’s gorgeous eyelashes,” we observe. “Look at her swat at that mobile—she’s so coordinated, she’s going to be a tennis player, just like me!” we marvel.

Sometimes the early attributions have a negative slant to them. “He’s never satisfied, no matter what I do for him,” we grumble. “She’s certainly got her grandfather’s temper, I can tell you that,” we complain.

But whether the attributions are positive or negative, we create them so that our child becomes someone whom we can identify with, good or bad. Once we can identify with our child, we have in place the basis for establishing an emotional bond. The bond may turn out to be a gratifying one or a disappointing one, but there has to be some kind of bond there or it is difficult to summon and justify the immense energy and investment required to raise a child.

The problem, of course, is that these necessary attributions can also blind us to reality and, particularly if they are worrisome ones, make it difficult for us to respond to our child as the individual whom she is, rather than as the individual to whom we have perhaps inaccurately linked her. By reading—and sometimes mis-reading—meanings into the behaviors and characteristics that our child displays, particularly as she grows towards independence, we sometimes take ourselves far afield, and find ourselves fighting with the ghost of an individual who still haunts us, rather than meaningfully engaging with the actual human being who is standing right in front of us.

Let me provide you with a recent example from my practice. Mike, a 20 year old sophomore who was doing quite well at college both socially and academically, received a DUI while driving home from a reunion party with his high-school friends on the second day of his one-month winter break. His mother, Beth, was upset and disappointed, but responded with a healthy amount of clarity and firmness. From her perspective, he would be expected to handle the consequences by himself, including going to Court on his own, and taking responsibility for paying the fine, and for the Alcohol Awareness class that was mandated by the police. She also told him that until further notice his use of the family car was going to be restricted when he was home, and that he would not be allowed to have a car on campus for second semester, as he had been requesting.

Mike’s father, Duncan, agreed with these consequences, but was far more reactive emotionally. The remainder of Mike’s winter break was characterized by constant lecturing and sermonizing on Duncan’s part, and frequent surveillance of Mike’s social media accounts and surreptitious searches of his room. In addition, he told Mike that he didn’t think he should return for Spring Semester if “all you’re going to do up there is drink,” even though Mike's successful transition to college life suggested that he was not completely preoccupied with alcohol.

This, of course, precipitated tremendous conflict at home, as the parents became increasingly polarized from each other, and as father-son skirmishes regarding how serious Mike’s alcohol problem actually was escalated to the point that the two of them had a physical altercation. It was at that point that the family consulted with me for treatment.

In asking into the family’s history, I learned that Duncan had a 45-year-old younger brother, Andrew, who was struggling through a decades-long battle with alcoholism, and who was currently unemployed, divorced, without a college degree, and living unhappily at home with his parents, who were in their early 70’s. As we spoke, it quickly became clear that Duncan was having a difficult time distinguishing his brother from his son: “I don’t want Mike turning into Andrew. I don’t want Mike living his life in and out of prisons and rehabs like his uncle. I don’t want Mike moving back in with me when he’s 45. I’ll do anything I can to stop that from happening.”

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The problem, of course, is that he was treating Mike like he was a miniature version of Andrew, rather than treating him like Mike. While it was of course possible that Mike might follow his uncle’s dark pathways—and being cited with a DUI was certainly one unavoidable reminder that that could happen—there were numerous indications that Mike was forging a different path. Most obviously, he had left home and begun to establish self-sufficiency by mastering college life, something that Andrew had never been able to do.

It would have been unwise for Mike’s parents to look the other way—a DUI is a serious offense with potentially tragic and irreversible consequences. On the other hand, it was equally unwise to assume that a 20-year-old with a DUI would have no choice but to one day become a 45-year-old without a job, a spouse, or a place to live. And treating him like he was the spectral presence of his ne’er-do-well uncle was certainly not the optimal way to prevent that from happening—in fact, it was creating the kind of family tension that actually might raise, rather than diminish, this possibility.

Duncan found it helpful to discuss both the legitimacy of his fears, as well as the irrational basis for those fears. As we explored the many differences between his brother and his son, he was able to regain perspective and broker more productive, less contentious conversations with Mike. These candid dialogues reassured him that Mike was not necessarily destined to become a lifelong, dysfunctional alcoholic, and that his emerging future held a panorama of other possibilities, many of them quite bright.

As I noted above, there is nothing wrong with noting the similarities—good or bad—between our child and another family member. Doing so is one of the ways that we prepare for, and ultimately shoulder, the vast range of duties and obligations associated with parenthood. But paying attention to the differences is important, as well.

We all look for what is familiar to us in our child, but we don’t want what is familiar to us to simultaneously prevent us from being able to see what is different, and to envision the uniqueness of the person that he is actually becoming.