Getting along with your parents as an adult, part 4: More on expectations and hurt

Sorry for the late posting today--I've got a nasty head cold and fell asleep last night when the kids did. I had the amazing realization this morning that I can actually take cold medicine, though, as I'm not nursing anymore. I'm about to pop some cold meds for the first time since 2001 (Last time I was neither pregnant nor nursing). Woo-hoo!

Anyway, I should have predicted that we'd need 5 days instead of just 4 to deal with this topic. I'm not sure we're done with the parents part yet and are ready to go to implications for parenting our own kid. At least I'm not. So I'm going to hit some of the topics that came up yesterday. Then tomorrow (a Saturday post!) I'll put up my thoughts on parenting your own kids. I'll leave that up all weekend, and post something kind of short and light weight on Monday so we can still chew on it.

Yesterday enu and hedra were saying that they don't use the word "owe" in terms parents and adult children. While i absolutely see their point, I disagree and definitely use the word "owe" to talk about the relationship in the parent-to-child direction. For me, the bottom line is always going to be that the parent chose (inasmuch as there was an actual choice possible) to have and raise the child. No child ever chooses to be born or who its parents are. Which means there's automatically a huge imbalance, and that sets up an obligation on the part of the parent to provide certain things for the child. Respect, food, shelter, love, clothes, education, socialization, and cultural values are what I think the absolute basics are.

Now, what you owe your kids when they're adults completely varies, depending on the culture you're raised in, but also on how you parented when your kids were younger. There are some families in which kids are expected to leave the house when they're 18. That may sound harsh to some people. But if the parents in those families taught the children how to financially support themselves so that by the time they were 18 they were able to leave without falling into poverty, then the system completely works. (Some of the most resourceful people I know were lovingly kicked out at 18, but they were also raised to be independent thinkers who land on their feet too often for it to be luck.)

If, however, you do nothing to prep your kids for the world and kick them out at age 18, then IMO you're not fulfilling your responsibilities as a parent. (remember a few years ago when the media was all over the "boomerang generation" of 20-somethings who were living with their parents? It wasn't the logistics that bugged people--it was that the adult kids either weren't technically equipped to live alone or were lacking the drive to separate that bugged people.)

So again with the paradox--the more completely your parents fulfilled their responsibilities when you were young, the less they "owe" you as an adult. Or at least the less difficult personally it is to provide what they owe you.

But, and this is a big but (oh, yeah!), if the parent doesn't have good emotional reserves when the kids need them, it's really hard for them to give it to the kids. I've experienced this myself over the last few years. There was a time in which the only thing I had going for me was my kids (and this blog) and I could put all my focus on them, but it wasn't the focus of a healthy person with good self-esteem. It was the pure and complete love of a broken person. And then when I made the move to get out, I just felt so free! It was like everything was technicolor. I was giddy all the time. And I started figuring out all these things about myself, who I am, what I like, what I want from life. And I realized that it would be really easy to lose that intense connection to my kids if I went with the urge to flip myself inside out to start rebuilding my life. But I was so lucky in that I've never associated my children with the misery of my life. So I was able to keep that connection while also stretching out to find my new life.

I think women who maybe were ambivalent about having kids in the first place and who had fewer choices than I do and don't analyze everything that comes down the pike the way my mom trained me to and who felt like the kids were part of the Great Sadness, well, I think it feels to them like a choice between themselves and their kids.

But let's move on to knowing why the behavior is there and setting boundaries and still being so, so hurt by it. I absolutely love what Sharon Silver said in this comment:

"Dealing with parents, now that you are a parent, may mean that you have to share:

• I am adult and I need my boundaries to be acknowledged and respected.
• I know this may/will hurt you, but I can’t be near you if you choose to treat my children in a way that is not in alignment with the way I am raising them.
• I need a break from you while I feel my feelings about this and the moment I am clear about my feelings I will share them with you.
• My choices and behavior have nothing to do with you, even if it makes you feel like I’m making you wrong in some way.

And if your choice to draw a boundary results in them rejecting you for a while, know this:
• All you’re doing is taking responsibility for your choices, words and actions, it is YOUR life now.
• Realize they are responsible for their choices, words and actions too, even if they don’t know or take that responsibility.
The choices people make speak volumes about them. Their choices are THEIR statements about a situation and you can’t change it even if you want to."

Notice that none of what she said means that it doesn't hurt you anymore. There's a big gaping mom-sized wound some of you are carrying around. Or dad-sized wound. I will never be "over" my dad's illness (lifelong clinical depression that he's never really been able to get on top of despite oodles of meds) and how that's affected our relationship. It still makes me cry sometimes, and wish I could fix everything for him and us and myself as a kid and him as a kid and just all of it.

But knowing that you're giving yourself what your parents owe you by caring enough for yourself (and your kids!) to draw some boundaries, even when the hurt is still there like a rock in your shoe, well, that's more than many people ever get to. And, it means that you get to spare your kids this same hurt.

Hey--the cold meds are working! But now I'm crying again about my dad. Please keep talking. Am I full of it? Does anyone have a step-by-step plan for moving through the pain? Do you feel lucky to have your parents? (I do.) Why are all the smartest, most sensitive people on the internet commenting on my site? Who needs a brownie right now?

Comments

[Moxie]

Just want to make sure Typepad hasn't screwed up comments yet again.

[Joy]

"My choices and behavior have nothing to do with you, even if it makes you feel like I’m making you wrong in some way. "

Okay, so what if the choice you're talking about is the one that you don't feel comfortable leaving your kids alone with Grandma for extended periods, or even staying there overnight while you're present. That kind of has everything to do with her, and she wants to know why... and like Hedra said in the seventy- first comment from yesterday's post, it's nothing really concrete, just trusting my instincts against logic... she's an early childhood educator, for crying out loud. She was a wonderful mother when we were kids, and my kids love her. But she's a different person than the one I grew up with; she tends to panic in tense situations, she is shrill and demanding and yells and is codependent. Okay, so I guess those are kind of concrete, but I logically really don't think she'd ever do anything to hurt them or put them in harm's way, but I don't want them subject to manipulation, I guess. And my boundries are drawn, but she's not okay with them, and keeps nipping away at the subject, and thinks that the only reason is that I'm kowtowing to my DH's opinions, and choosing him over her.

I know these are specific to my situation, but I think that quote refers more to personal parenting choices than other parent/ adult child areas... which is fine, just doesn't apply to my own problem areas. (My Maternal T-Zone, if you will.) :)

I think maybe you guys should start charging by the hour. I've been writing down things I want to say to my mother (using Non- Violent Communication- they have a great website, by the way), thanks to Maria Wood for that suggestion. Hopefully, the next time I talk to her, I'll have the courage to bring up the subject.

[ada]

My parents are wonderful. I feel so blessed to have them. And I too grew up with a father who had mentall-illness (bipolar) and it affected my relationship w/ him.

I think the most important thing my parents did was respect my privacy and taught me to respect theirs. It has helped us have a wonderful relationship now that I'm adult and have my own family. We don't really have a issue with boundaries.

And they loved me unconditionally. Even though I didn't understand my father or what he was going through until I became an adult, I *always* knew he loved me. Really loved me.

I hope to be able to do these same things with my son. Because not only do I want to be a great mother now, but a great mother (and possible MIL)later.

Thanks for posting all of this Moxie. I feel for everyone who's dealing with all this pain.

[Mary Jo Graves]

This is an excellent discussion. However, when you first mentioned owe, I had totally different expectations. I thought you would discuss what we owe our parents as they age. Most of the time what you and your commenters write is so wise that I sometimes forget how much older I am than most of you. I am 62. My mom died 4 years ago. We had a stormy but loving relationship and we did well with each other. She didn't always understand me but she always supported me emotionally. She was a wonderful grandmother. My husband and I welcomed her into our home and took care of her the last 4 years of her life. I did feel she was owed. When I struggled to deal with her incontinence, changing diapers, I used to remind myself how many thousands of diapers she had changed in her life with 5 younger siblings, 6 children, and 15 grandchildren. Difficult and exhausting as her care sometimes way, I always knew I would be so glad I had managed to give back to her what she had given to so many people.

Women my age spend much more time discussing their aging parents than their grown-up kids. We can't understand our mothers unless we understand their relationship with their mothers--our grandmothers. My grandmother died when I was 40; watching she and my mother relate was immensely helpful in understanding my relationship with my mother. My mother and my grandmother were a much better match. My grandmother was widowed at 40 for 7 years to bring up on very little money. Her husband was seriously ill for 10 years before he died when my mom was 17. My mother never argued with her mother and was appalled at my teenage years.

I have four grown daughters, one grandson, and two grandchildren on the way. The transition to grandmotherhood is almost as challenging as the transition to parenthood.

[Amy]

Oooh, I feel you on the depressed dad front.

Mine has been depressed and/or "bipolar 2" (huh? I guess it's aggressive/depressive instead of manic/depressive - maybe bipolar for lazy people? He gets this really mad face when he's in the aggressive phase, and divorces wives and stops talking to everyone and is very ugly and destructive). My dad has actually been living with us for the past 4 months since he went "aggressive" last fall, divorced his second wife, moved away, then got better, came back, and had no job and nowhere to live. Yikes. My husband is a freaking SAINT for putting up with it. It was supposed to be 'a couple weeks.' Here we are, going-on-5 months later. Ugh.

But honestly, living with him has really helped me heal from my parents' divorce when I was 12. I never really, truly understood it before, but now that I can see my parents as two adults who were in a very broken relationship (and in situations that have been sort of, kind of mirrored since he's been living with us), instead of as my parents, I get it. I really do, and I'm starting to heal.

All things for a reason, I guess. Maybe God is using this situation to help teach me and heal me, and to make me appreciate my husband (oh, I so do!) who is a workaholic and doesn't have a lazy bone in his body, in addition to being a super husband and father.

It's so hard to love someone, and want to fix them, and to be completely powerless. My relationship with my dad features a lot of really unhealthy role reversal - I'm very much the parent. It's almost become a joke - I tell him to clean his room and turn off the damn lights, electricity isn't free, and so on. It's hard, and I had to grow up way too fast as a result of it... On the other hand, it made me who I am, and after 32 years I'm almost starting to sort of feel okay with who I am.

Hugs to you. I've been there, too.

Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com but don't comment on my blog about this because Dad reads it!

[hedra]

Me! I need a brownie!

I do understand what you mean by 'owe' and I still have difficulty with the personalness of 'owe' as a term.

And now I'm about to digress, but there's a reason.

In Chinese philosophy, there is a category of thought called 'rectification of names'. This is really essential to understanding the great hairy huge OWE that is 'filial piety'. Filial piety is the absolute respect and honoring of one's parents, the big I OWE YOU that flows upwards in Chinese culture.

But the entire concept of Rectification of Names is that the labels must match their contents. That is, if one is to call oneself father and mother, one must BE father and mother, and all those terms entail. One owes the father (and mother) the honor and submission and duty... if they are truly worthy of the name father and mother. And if they are worthy of those names, then it will not be at all harmful or wrong to listen to them, to respect and cherish them. Because they will have fulfilled all their duties to you, will have honored and cherished you, will have taught you well, harbored you no ill will, and will have given you everything that you need to grow up complete.

And yeah, how often does that happen? And how many parents expected the filial piety regardless of the philosophy of rectification of names? (It is convenient to ignore the philosophy when one can benefit by doing so... and hey, not everyone in China studies philosophy!)

Which goes back to the where I land on the 'owe' issue. We (culturally) tend to reverse the perspective - we brought you into this world without your permission, without your approval, and by that act, we promise to provide for your essential needs, both physical and mental/emotional. If we don't, there's a debt that we owe.

I assume that there are times when there is no way to rectify the name - that the mother cannot be everything that the name MOTHER should imply, and asking for a debt to be carried on that is unworthy. Not that there isn't a deficit - but the debt? It may exist on paper, but in reality, if everything that could be given was given, I don't have any debt remaining. It doesn't mean I got all I needed. Not hardly. But it means that I am not owed BY my mother. I simply have a need remaining. It is on my side of the line.

And at the same time, I'm also clear that the relationship needs to have balance. That the shortfall isn't to be ignored, and that the relationship is an organic thing that needs to be fed and tended for it to survive. And that boundaries have to be part of that, or one side of the process will parasitize the other, and consume it in pursuit of meeting its own needs.

I also have a different philosophical/theological underpinning than you, in a way. I assume that many (though not necessarily all) of us do choose our parents. I remember choosing my mother, or at least I remember as a child that I remembered doing so. It wasn't for the new-agey 'lessons I need to learn in this life' but for a variety of things, including the relationships that could be through and with her. I remember remembering that my siblings and I jostled and rearranged for position and order, and that some of us would not get through and knew it. I knew that some waited for their mother-path to open and it did not, and other mother-paths were open but had no children waiting to become, and other children to become were still searching for where they chose to be when they were sucked down into being without warning (which would be the 'I didn't ask you if you wanted to be here' side of things).

For me, I met my kids before they were born. I met their souls when I was still a child, trying to decide if I could kill myself, and how. They stopped me, gave me peace and surety that I would grow up, that even if I tried to kill myself in my shattering despair, they were my children already in the future, and they would exist, so they were proof that I would only fail if I tried. That was a failure I couldn't face, the ultimate humiliation, being unable to take one's own life (hey, logic and seven year olds don't mix too well). Three children met me every night, made me feel sane (heh), made me feel worthy with their kindness, and gave me hope. The eldest when he was just two years old remembered playing with me when he was big, and I was little, describing the dreams I'd had of *him* - his 12-year-old to my seven. He said too much of things I'd never told anyone for me to doubt him. And so... so, well, if I owe him, I owe him my life, and in return, his life, too.

It's far too complicated for 'owe' - for me, in the theology that I've ended up with. And it comes with too much forgiveness and compassion before we've even started to end up in owe even as a default. And I'm not sure if I can even really explain all of why. Some of why comes from my pregnancy losses, as well as the children who were born. The one whose soul showed itself to me the day before I began to miscarry, and comforted me, and told me that this was right, it was okay, to not worry, all was going as it should, and met my sudden humility and attempts to understand what I was experiencing with such unbounded and abundant love and understanding and compassion that I still (right this moment) weep remembering it. And the other times, when I had no comfort in my losses, also teaching what this relationship means... how much the lack of communication and communion hurts, and how much the reaching out heals.

Gah. I'm sure I'm not making any sense at this point.

Anyway, I have found that I (unlike Moxie, and not AT ALL dismissing her feelings) am very much over my parents issues. My father's depression, my step-dad's rejection and the humiliating assumption that I only wanted a relationship with him for his money... I remember the sick feeling that gave me then, but I just shake my head and move on, now. I cannot make him better than he can make himself, and I have more than just given up trying, I've let go of trying. released it utterly, and do not regret doing so. I don't know if my path is valuable for anyone else but me. I like to think it is a good one, but... is it better than the ache of longing for someone else?

I do agree that the lacks can hurt, even when the boundaries are set, and we are busy giving ourselves the things we needed but did not receive. Until they're filled, they let themselves be felt. (And too often, well after they're filled, they cry out and we stuff them and stuff them and it doesn't seem to stop... again quoting my mom, it is 'stuffing someone into one's wounds' ... been there, glad not to be there anymore! Healing is less hungry.)

Lessee, the other questions:

Are you full of it? No, I don't think so. I'm not in the same place you are (hey, for a change!), but ... I can see that it is a matter of philosophy, not of right and wrong.

Step by step plan for moving through the pain? a) therapy, b) more therapy, c) getting up and trying again, d) embracing the pain, e) recognizing that the only way out is THROUGH the pain, f) leaping in when one doesn't know if one will drown in the pain or not, g) finding others walking the same labyrinth, and accepting their company on the same path (even if you don't know if they're ahead or behind), h) keeping going even if you have to crawl, i) resting if that's all you can do, but refusing to stop for long, j) being willing to step OUT of the labyrinth when you finally get to the door (I know people who cannot leave the process, even when they're done... revisit the same ground over and over, but unable to recognize that they're actually living their lives, handling their crises, and dealing pretty well, but think somehow that it's not what life is like, still expecting something different so not thinking that they're DONE). (voice of experience, there - someone else had to point out to me that I was done, that what I was wringing my hands over were things I'd handled successfully, even if they'd crashed to start with, I'd put them back together admirably... um, really? Oh. Wait, I'm DONE? It was a shock, and then it was joy and joy and joy.)

Lucky to have my parents? Absolutely. Even the step-dad I mentioned above. Love him dearly, see him next to never, speak to him rarely, cherish him always. I get more (on an ongoing basis) out of the relationships with my other parents than with him, but still feel lucky to have had him, too.

Why are all these amazing people commenting on your site? Ever hear of 'like calls to like'? I'll call your pot, and raise you a kettle, dear. You made the space in which these people could speak.

And yeah, brownies. MMMMM.

[pnuts mama]

oh moxie, i'd love a brownie...mmm...

seriously, though, your self-analysis of how you were before/after your realization about your marriage, that has to be one of the most insightful things i've read in a very long time, and something i appreciate very much.

so much of what i read is so misogynistic (both subtle and not-so-subtle, but pervasive nontheless) about the whole experience of divorce in the 60's and 70's- basically the woman is blamed for the destruction of the family, since women 'chose' divorce, 'chose' to work outside the home, 'chose' to try and self-actualize, find themselves, figure out what the great sadness was based on in the first place. i would agree that being on the forefront of that significant change in society, most women weren't able to separate the association of their children from the entire package, and we can see how many of the adult children are dealing with that fallout now.

anyway, this is basically just my long winded way of saying kudos to you for your self-awareness, and thanks for giving me another piece to chew on for my own work.

***
i fell incredibly grateful for the parents who raised me, although growing up i didn't. i don't quite know when that changed. it made a difference when i realized that they were imperfect people raising an imperfect person, and they did the best they could. i know lots of people who haven't gotten to that point yet, which is why i brought up that idea of forgiveness/healing yesterday.

[anonforthis]

My Mom has serious mental health issues that she, IMO, inherited from her mother. She has never, for whatever reason, been able to get a handle on her anger. The way she copes with her internal emotional state is through profound, never-ending conflict and strife. Lots of yelling, accusations, unfounded suspicions, dramatic actions, black and white thinking, and irrational, damaging actions that she believes to be completely appropriate. She's sued her workplace multiple times for what she percieved to be unfair treatment (she couldn't get a promotion because....her anger issues were unprofessional! Our family crest should have an ouroboros on it.) Over the years she has found reasons to be unforgivably angry with literally everyone in our family.....although if enough time passes and someone is willing to listen to her rant about a more current conflict, past conflicts will be forgotten (never addressed, just dismissed).

I could go on - it's tempting to, because it goes against so many social/cultural/spiritual/emotional norms to reject your own Mother that I find myself worrying about being judged for extracting myself from the relationship. Or that people will have an expectation that now that I've cobbled my mental health together and am in a loving relationship with lots of community support, that I should therefore go back in and try to support her the best I can.

I was in profound emotional pain for years coming to terms with the "mom shaped hole" in my life. Some things that helped me:

therapy
allowing myself to truly believe I can't help her
physical distance
letting go of the idea that the world owes me anything
focusing on my blessings
thinking of myself as an adult who has a responsibility to protect the child I was

I think a lot of the information provided by Al-Anon is a fantastic resource for children of dysfunctional parents of all kinds, drug issues or no.

When I go home to deal with her these days I tell myself I'm a character in a modern play about family dysfunction. It's a little mental trick that allows me to detach emotionally. Instead of taking the crazy things she says personally, it's just dramatic dialogue for an invisible audience.

Because the bottom line is, if you have a dysfunctional parent, the way they treat you has nothing to do with who you are. You are a screen for them to project upon. As sad as it is, my Mom needs conflict in her life more than she needs me.

Crazy parents can also be helpful when you're trying to figure out what to do in any given situation. Whenever I'm flummoxed for what to do in a given situation, I think, "What would Mom do?" Then I do the opposite. Very liberating, and I get great results.

[hedra]

Yeah pnuts mama, I remember when I thought my parents were supposed to be perfect, and that my child WAS perfect. (and deserved better than this imperfect being I was... and wondered if I would have been more perfect at being his mom if it wasn't for my imperfect parents, passing the buck... and then finally GOT that we're all mucking about being imperfect, here! Though I'll admit it took me the longest to accept that my kids are imperfect, too, and the reason isn't all my fault, either.)

:sigh: People are funny, no? (Including myself there, big time!)

[hedra]

Oh, and the navigation links at the top are wonky - still adding on the extra /askmoxie/ at the end - I get back to Main fine if I delete that part in the address (otherwise, I end up at last week somewhere).

[habeas]

One brownie with frosting, please.

Thank you thank you thank you for this week, even if I've been mostly lurking.

I am learning to be thankful for my parents and appreciating how difficult it must have been for my mom to be forced into a stay-at-home role when we were young. I am so thankful that there are more possibilities for women who need to work for their own sanity to continue doing so.

This doesn't change the challenging fact that my mom has what my sister and I politely term "poor verbal impulse control," and it makes us both unlikely to leave our children with her and my father alone.

She abused both of us verbally as children and adolescents, and continues to put herself down and otherwise perpetuate a poor physical self-image without making the life changes to improve her situation any. She'd rather bitch about it than exercise more or eat differently, and the situation is intensifying with age. She's giving up in some ways that are particularly painful to those who could see how different choices could really change the quality of her life.

In spite of this, she is a loving grandmother and we have done tons of work on our adult relationship so that we are more than just on speaking terms. She doesn't give me parenting advice unless I ask and freely admits she made mistakes in raising us both. In response I tell her she did the best she could at the time with the info she had (e.g. not breastfeeding because formula was supposed to be the world's wonder back then).

I owe her and my father a lot in my own view--respect, the continued effort to work on our adult relationship, thankfulness for the benefits and advantages they made sure I had growing up, and caretaking as they continue to age. Other adults may not "owe" their parents in the same way and I can see the validity of that especially when there are histories of abuse--you have to save yourself and your kids from the loop first.

But I believe the rhetoric of "choice" has destroyed the idea of family obligation and social obligation to the family unit, and I think it's a real loss. At a policy-making (rather than individual) level, children are not a "choice"--without them, society and civilization come to an end. Prioritizing individual choice leads to the U.S. being, um, the only industrialized society without paid maternity leave, for example. But that's another thread entirely. The idea that being born makes one a family member, and comes with certain obligations for both parents and children, is one that I wish was more prevalent in society rather than less.

[meera]

Great topic...coming in late, but I wonder if you could talk about getting older and realizing that you are acting or becoming more like your parent....and not in the good sense? For example, there are certain annoying traits that my mother has (she will interrupt with something trivial in the middle of a very interesting conversation...or something fun) that I find myself having as well. I look at some of these less than pleasant qualities and feel afraid that I'm turning into my mom, esp when I find myself annoying others (my husband, my son) with the same type of behavior.

[hedra]

@habeas, you've got a great point on the family relationships thing... though I think it goes back a very long way in our culture. It's also part of the cultural history of frontierism (choosing where to settle, often without any family at all nearby), of immigration/emigration/migration (leaving behind all ties to place, and often with few ways to connect with those left behind), and of individualism (that american dream, I can climb the highest mountain and I don't have to drag everyone in my family with me). It's just developed additional flavors as we've gone along.

Interdependence isn't a highly valued trait. And that has consequences, and repercussions, and that affects the entire family.

But I also think you can develop those interwoven lives without 'family' being by blood. My mom has several kids to whom she did not give birth, and who are not adopted. They vary in the depth of the relationships, but she still gets Mothers Day cards from many of them, and they come to Thanksgiving, and they invite her to dinner, and they call with questions about their kids. The one that embedded the most deeply is for all intents and purposes my sister, her son my nephew and my mother's grandson. His picture is on the wall (as are his step-sisters') at her house. He has a college fund, and my now-sister ('fribling', we call her - once friend, now sibling) is an equal inheritor in my mom's Will. That interdependent web, the relationships and mutual responsibility, the committment of time, energy, attention, resources - they're there. They don't have to be bound by the family tree. They can grow on organically. It's not the 'usual' way, but when one's own parents are... well, not a good fit, perhaps, it can be possible to find those relationships elsewhere. Being born may imply some responsibilities, but ... I think just the idea that interrelationship is valuable, that interdependence across generations is worthy, and that mutual regard and relationship maintenance is rewarding in its own right is as important, if not more. It can be applied to family-born, or family-made. And it encourages us to *make* family where the family of origin isn't safe enough for those bonds.

[pnuts mama]

ooh, maryjo, et.al.- the idea of what we "owe" our parents now that we are adults...just had a moment of clarity on that thanks to you-

with regard to my biodad whom i have a very distant/shallow relationship at best- he has been an alcoholic for most of his life, and was rarely involved in any real way in much of my life, although in his mind he was (i like to call his world "alternate reality"). anyway, i feel little to no obligation to him as far as owing him anything- support, a relationship with my children, involvement in my life. i personally cycle through anger/understanding/healing/forgiveness with him repeatedly, and am mostly at peace with where we are, until some bs gets stirred up and i realize i have to go back in and do some more work. i'm certain he doesn't have the slightest clue about any of it.

i do feel a tremendous amount of responsibility for the man who raised me- my father in every sense of the word- i owe him literally my life and all that i have. he's the reason we moved back home after my momwrm died, (i promised her we'd always take care of him as she was dying) and his health has been in decline slowly as he ages (he's 84) and my god, enu, maryjo, any of you who who have experienced caring for an aging parent, it is such a complicated emotional rollercoaster to deal with the feelings of reverse-roles and anger and resentment of having to deal with this at this age (or ever) combined with guilt over the anger, gratitude that i'm even able to care for him, since no one else in my family seems to care, and whatever other nonsense that folks throw at me over the fact that he's not my 'real dad' (!!!). it becomes another full-time care-giver job, (finances, dr's appts, keeping track of his life) except he's an adult, and not really wanting care so much in many ways (like being told he can't drive so much anymore) but totally relying on us for so much anyway. we are a family, and we're doing the best we can, but i still have a lot of work to do to reconcile my life with my feelings about it.

so now i'm crying, too, moxie. that's great.

[anonymous]

My mother was an unhappy, rageful parent when I was growing up. She divorced my father and gave up custody "to find herself" while all of us were still at home. I have had a lot of therapy to work through the legacy of this -- the messages I received about my worthlessness (outside of my public performance), reconciling my mother's claims that she loves me with all her heart against her behaviors, trying (for my own sake) to re-learn and be thankful for the gifts she did give me (because there were many of them, everything from having clean clothes to being taken faithfully to church -- valuable for its safe adults more than its theology even)....

When I was a child, the unspoken message in our family was that no one's needs mattered except my mother's. She came by that honestly -- a disrupted, nurture-free childhood of her own. My mom's gone through a lot of therapy, too. She owns up to the wounds she inflicted on her children, to some extent.

She also insists that adult mothers have no responsibilities for their adult children. Because we are both adults, I can no longer expect her to put my needs first. This has translated into everything from her yelling at me post-partum because I didn't phrase what I needed from her in "I need" language (telling her how to apply my daughter's skin medication) to my family and I being un-invited from her house on an annual cross-country trek because another event came up that would stress her out too much.

Because of my particular legacy, then, I simply cannot stand to hear someone say that an adult parent has no obligations to an adult child. I'm completely prepared to own the uniqueness of my POV. But if the day EVER comes when I don't marginally privilege my own child's needs over my own, or think first about how SHE is feeling or what SHE needs, then I will consider myself the most abjectly awful mother possible.

This does NOT mean that I will treat a 30yo like a 3yo. I still need to "put on my own oxygen mask" first. I am looking forward, with a certain amount of delight, to the years when my children have flown joyfully out into the world they will create for themselves.

But if I ever have the opportunity to care for my bleeding post-partum daughter, or offer a vacation stop to my son and his family, you can be damn certain that I will do those things as a MOTHER, and not just another co-equal adult who happens to have given birth to them.

As far as I am concerned, there will always be a hierarchy of obligations between my children and me, and I will always have the greater burden. I know I may very well depend on them before my life is over, but even then, I pray I'm given the ability to look out for them in that time, too, by having good long-term care insurance, appropriate medical and financial documents, and a lifelong foundation of care and affection fostered between all of us, so that their caretaking of me can be as little afflicted with resentment and bitterness and strife as possible.

I cannot express powerfully enough how much I believe that I will always owe my children something more, because I am their mother.

[hedra]

powerfully stated, anonymous.

For me, I just call that responsibility to the relationship - and fundamentally, in the form you eloquently describe, it's the hands and feet of love. Love as a verb, as an action, not as a mere feeling.

My mom has a lot to say in her sermons about the responsibility of manifesting our expressions of love - the hands and feet, the actions not the feelings. Her parents said they loved her, but it was only words and feelings, sentiment but not action. As much as she knew at the age of two that God was no an external force but lived within each of us, she knew that love was more than just an emotion, it was action. Love was found not in words and sighs and fond looks and praise, but in the actions of our hands, and the steps we took with our feet. Love was in the hand washing, the feet washing, the consideration of the other, the acting on that consideration.

I'm going to have to chat with my mom about this, to get her perspective on the word 'owe', too. Because she did feel a duty and responsibility to her father, despite his lack of ever earning the merest scrap of that. She treated him respectfully and with dignity, but ... no love. There wasn't any. No matter what he said about his feelings, love did not exist, because it did not have hands and feet. It was promise only, and never manifest. All that was manifest was self-interest. And regardless of sentiment, that's not love.

My mom took the 'owe' part, the duty and responsibility, as part of the relationship, damaged as it was. She took on the shared duty to see him through to his death, though she could barely bear to be around him at times. But she acquitted herself well in that task because she wanted to, for her. The duty was to herself as part of that relationship, far more than to him. She would not make herself less than him, even then, and she owed it as a daughter to a father to see him properly through to his passing. But I doubt that the 'owe' of debt and responsibility has anything like the satisfaction, safety, or resonance of what we're talking about here. That, instead, is love. Just powerfully and plainly, the real core ACT of love.

I will always love my kids more than they love me. Always. And because I love them, I will always put hands and feet on that. I don't OWE them that, I just love them that way. It's too integrated into the process to be 'owe', still. It's far more essential, far more fundamental, than 'owe'. It isn't a debt. It is a gift, and just part of the love - unasked for, not in payoff or compensation for anything, just because I love, and I love this much. Maybe that's what so many seem to be feeling - that we understand that love *should* be an action, and not just words, and therefore we feel unloved when all we get are words expressing sentiment, and nothing in the meeting of fundamental needs.

I come up with the same answer, regardless of the terminology. I *will* put my child before me, I will answer when called, I will comfort and bolster, and stand back again when they need to stand alone (even if I'd rather still be propping them up), for as long as I am physically and mentally able, even when the tables are turned in the caretaking, and they are more able than I. But it is because I love them, and that I know that I love them as one loves down the generations instead of up, greater down the flow, with the current. It has nothing to do with 'owing' them, balancing a debt, repaying or compensating; it has everything to do with understanding the nature of love as a movement and an action, and action maybe including, but also expanding far beyond hugs and kisses and the verbal expression of sentiment.

[Charisse]

"Owe" works for me to some degree--I believe you owe your children what you can give them. Despite our difficulties (which are many) my mom sacrificed a lot, staying in a job she hated in order to be able financially to provide the stellar education that she could see mattered to me as a geeky kid. Sigh...at least that's how I like to think of it. She now says she shouldn't have done it and it would have been better for me if she'd stayed home (which I totally don't agree with) and we'd somehow be best friends if she'd spent less time working. All of my failure to conform to her expectations is actually a rejection of her as a working mom. Back in reality, of course, I admired her and hoped to emulate her--I knew she loved me, thought her work was cool, and was so grateful for the school and the dance training. She's so angry with me for that. Sigh.

@Anonymouses, I know what you mean--I could not have my mother at my birth after seeing her behavior at my wedding, my loss of my first career, and my sister's hospitalizations. In fact I set a really strong boundary and made her wait to visit until 6 weeks when I felt I'd be somewhat unshaken. I paid in rage from her, but I would so much rather that than have had one of her vicious comments, or her total self-regard (she would have found a way to be the center of my birth) in the actual room where it was happening.

@Amy, I have a bipolar & depressive FIL and it is really tough. It tortures my husband, especially because his father wasn't always there for him due to the same issues. Grandpa wants to be helpful but on his own terms--he wants to babysit--and it's been hard for him to establish trust with Mouse because of his changes, and to be honest when he's swinging either direction (which he always denies when it's the manic direction) I'm not comfortable leaving Mouse with him.

It's interesting, in some ways our relationships with ILs (who are separate) are so much easier, largely because they both have been forced to acknowledge Mr. C as having an equal choice in the relationship (because of past disappearances and such I won't go into). They respect boundaries for the most part.

OK, 2 more thoughts: one wonderful and profane poem from Philip Larkin:

http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar2.htm

(I can't follow him to the last couplet, but I love this poem)

And, just that we owe our children even more so, the practice that we owe all beings: practice happiness towards those who are happy. It implies so many things about adulthood, including remaining clear enough to see someone's happiness even if it doesn't match your own.

[Katie B.]

Mmm... brownies! I was thinking of making chocolate chip cookies today; if I do, I'll happily share them around. :)

I'm not sure I have much to contribute to this right now. Ask me again in fifteen or twenty years when my mom can't get around anymore and expects me to drop everything for her - the which I won't, by the way. Yes, I will give her time and love and energy as I have it available, but my family's needs (not to mention my own) will have to come first.

What do I think my mom owes me? Respect, mostly. And not respect for me and my brothers - she gives that pretty well. I want her to respect herself enough to transfer her issues to an internal locus of control, and not blame them on outside agencies - even if they come from outside, dealing with them is under her control, not theirs. If she could do that - which would be HUGE - I would do anything in the world to help her. Not so much right now. My brothers feel this way, too.

As I've expounded upon elsewhere, my dad is barely on my mental map. I don't feel the lack until I think about making space for DH in coparenting, and then it's nothing to do with my father and everything to do with working with my husband.

[Charisse]

Oh, and yes lucky and least sometimes, and yes, brownie please. :)

[Catherine]

@anonymous 1:25 pm: You write, "Because of my particular legacy, then, I simply cannot stand to hear someone say that an adult parent has no obligations to an adult child. I'm completely prepared to own the uniqueness of my POV. But if the day EVER comes when I don't marginally privilege my own child's needs over my own, or think first about how SHE is feeling or what SHE needs, then I will consider myself the most abjectly awful mother possible."

I absolutely agree with you on your first point -- the notion that a parent's responsibilitioes -- in care, affection, and respect -- would somehow cease when their child turned 18 is crazy. But I'm not so sure on the second point. I'm currently watching my parents, who are in their mid-sixties, care for my 94-year-old grandmother, part of which means taking over the care she provided for so long to my father's disabled brother. And I don't think they or anyone else would dispute that they'ere doing most of the giving these days: my grandmother is in pretty great health for her age, but she's forgetful and irritable and emotionally erratic. And my parents moved across the country from their home of 20 years to be close to her, despite the fact that she's not always even close to expressing gratitude for that sacrifice. So, an extreme situation in some ways -- my gandmother's really old, my parents have a perhaps over-developed sense of responsibility (part of why my mom, as I mentioned on an earlier post, could be such an incredibly over-bearing mother) -- but still, I for one am totally comfortable with the notion that the burden of responsibility and "owing" does shift with time.

I'm a fan of the "from each acccording to his ability, to each according to his need" model -- not only because it's a more flexible model of relationship than pure reciprocity or outright "owing," but also because it has helped me be more at peace with not always getting what I wish I was getting or not always giving what I should have been giving. Kids *do* deserve a greater helping of everything good that's going around, but as parents age, that dynamic should probably gradually shift.

Ugh. Whenever I post I feel like I end up with this completely sanctimonious tone. I should say straight up that I am so so far from getting any of this right in my own head, much less my actual life. For instance, all the nice things I've written about my mom on these last few posts? Haven't bothered to say any of them *to* her, even thought I know that almost nothing would make her happier....

[anonforthis]

Spot on, Katie B. If my mom understood that her state of mind was within her own control, it would help SO MUCH.

[jessica]

I'll take a brownie, and offer a stack of made-from-scratch chocolate chip cinnamon waffles in exchange.

Moxie,
thank you so much for doing these posts. We all need this so much as parents. Thanks for creating a safe and helpful place to explore all of this.

[Julie]

I'm thinking about my mom, who took care of her mother until she died. My mom was an only child so it was totally up to her to shoulder the burden alone. My grandma was in a nursing facility (her choice, she absolutely did not want to live with my parents) and would comment all the time about how the other residents would complain complain complain about how they never saw their kids/grandkids, families, etc. and my grandma would always say something like 'I have nothing to say to them because my family is here with me every day". And I am wondering why she was that way, what she did for my mom to allow her the space to care for her in the way she did, and what my mom does to respect that space with me and my brother.

Just going along with the whole "owe" theme....I think that my mom felt it was her duty and obligation to be with my grandma every day. If she couldn't go, one of the rest of us (my dad, my brother, or me) would go instead. I think part of it is the fact that the umbilical cord never really goes away, and that something inside my mom hurt to think of her mommy all alone in a place like that without her. I can hear it in the previous posts of people who are mourning the mom-shaped hole in their lives, the sadness they feel and the hurt they feel....certainly more than they would someone who had not grown them from their bodies. I saw it with my husband when his mother was dying last fall (bipolar, alcoholic, non-medicated....overall a horrible mess, bless her soul)....regardless of the fact that she abandoned him and his brother when they were very young in favor of alcohol and verbal/mental abuse over the years......he went home to see her about four times between August and December, even though we couldn't really afford it. Because at the end of the day, she was his mommy. And he still hurts, more so now that she is gone because his little 11 year-old self finally realizes that whatever wounds he was hoping she would heal for him will remain wounds. That last fleeting hope died when she died.

I think it's different with dads - my real father was absent, depressed, etc. for about 15 years of my life. And to be honest, like one of the pp's said......I like him, we're in touch, we have a nice cordial relationship, but I want and need nothing more from him.

Moms are just different. And I feel for all of you out there living with your mom-shaped holes.

[Sharon aka Mommie Mentor]

I think the word OWE is a really charged word and may be confusing the dialog. When I hear “owe” I think of someone doing something nice for me and it would be nice to do something for them. The issues being discussed here don’t seem to lend themselves to “I owe you some brownies for doing that for me”- thanks Moxie we all need brownies now! I want frosting too!

What if we replace the word “owe” with “wish”? Does that work?

I wish to be there for my parents as they age.
That’s my choice and it speaks about who I am. It says taking care of my parents could feel like an act of obligation or be filled with resentment in response to the wounds I have but because it is my “wish” it is a cleaner act.

I wish to model for my adult children how life can be lived with emotional responsibly. That includes showing my children you take care of your elders with love, respect, empathy and compassion. I know that’s what I want if my sons have to take care of me.

I wish to show my children that:
• I don’t hold my parents responsible for fixing the wounds I have from them.
• my issues are MINE and I need to clean them up myself.
• they must take responsibility for cleaning up their wounds as well, so any blame they feel towards me doesn’t get in their way as an adult.

We all receive wounds as children. And then I believe those wounds become ours to decide what to do with. I don’t believe that life is a series of unconnected acts. I believe you’re given the parents you are given, and the life experiences you are given for one purpose—so you can understand your reactions and attitudes to your wounds and experiences.

Parents do what parents do. We are children when we receive our wounds. As a child you can’t really do anything to stop the wounds from happening. Once the wound is there all we can do is decide what we wish to do with what’s now on our emotional plate.
Do we blame? Do we keep the wound in our closet and revisit it each time it’s ripped open again? Or do we make a choice to understand the wound from both sides’ parent and child, heal it and move on?

I think we OWE ourselves time to decide what is best for each one of us.
Do we wish to use boundaries with parents in order to feel safe against the continuing onslaught?
Do we wish to work through it all so we can get to the other side?
AND what do we wish to pass on to our adult children? What do we wish to model for them?
And finally, when life turns again, as our parent’s age, how do we wish to deal with them at that point?

I believe it’s okay to free yourself from obligation and see that you have a choice in any relationship. You may find after reframing things that you still wish to do the same thing, I know I did.
Acting on your own choices instead of acting from a place of obligation doesn’t make you wrong, it's emotionally accurate for an adult. And you get to decide how the expression of your choice will define you, now and in the future. Don’t forget your children may blog about you!
Something to think about, I hope that makes this a little easier.
Also, this is so hard because a person’s tone of voice doesn’t come through when blogging. It can sound like the words come from a rigid or sanctimonious place, and if that is how I have come across in any of my posts, please know that is so the opposite of who I am. Blogging is hard with such difficult topics.

[hush]

Moxie's absolutely right: "the bottom line is always going to be that the parent chose (inasmuch as there was an actual choice possible) to have and raise the child."

Yes - it's all about choices. For the majority of parents in the US today, we ultimately chose this path. I feel I have a LIFETIME responsibility to love and nurture my child, and a powerful sense that I will always OWE him that much because I chose to bring him into this world.

Bob et.al., I want to apologize ahead of time for helping to litter this site with more self-evident truisms - guilty as charged. Admittedly, this is Gen X talking to the Boomers here - it saddens me when people in their 50's & 60's speak of wanting to "retire" from having to really care about their adult kids - so why did you raise them in the first place? Parenthood is the biggest responsibility one can take on; the one really permanent thing in life; the one true 'til death to us part' role in life... Please pass the brownies.

A step-by-step plan for moving through the pain? Therapy, baby! Self-study. Journaling. Knowing the shape of the mom or dad-sized hole in your soul. Identifying the specific bad parenting behaviors that are going to stop with your generation.

Do I feel lucky to have my parents? Yes. They're not perfect, but neither am I. I wish they had modeled a stronger marriage and were better at fighting fairly & handling conflict with some dignity. My mom had a rough childhood, and never got over the anger at the injustices she faced growing up. This is part of the reason she turned into a rageaholic control freak with no friends, including her own adult child.

Why are all the smartest, most sensitive people on the internet commenting on Moxie's site? Water seeks its own level , I suppose. ;)

[enu]

@anonymous "abjectly awful mother" strikes me as a bit extreme!

I do sometimes put my "needs" in the sense you speak of them, ahead of my kids' needs (and I consider them both to be not fully adult yet - some people have mentioned 18, but I think 21 or graduated from college is the more realistic age to define that these days, for most kids.) And I certainly hope my parents do the same. My needs, as an adult, are certainly not something they are resposible to fulfil. I would not expect my Mom to come care for me in my illness if she were also sick; similarly, I can let my spouse care for of of the children if she is sick and I am not up to the job. I could beat myself over the head and feel guilty about this, or just accept it. I think I'll chose the latter!

[anonforthis]

@enu - those of us who grew up in abusive households couldn't get validation about the reality of what was happening to us at the time. The logic goes - the abuse took place because the child did something to trigger it, therefore it is the child's fault. It takes a lot of work and time and guts to fix the misperception, and you have to go against the grain of good manners to do it. 95% of the people I talk to about my mother cannot let the conversation end with, "She was a bad mother." There always needs to be an acknowledgement such as "She did the best she could with what she had." or, "She's still your mother." or the unanswerable, "Well at least you had a mother to take care of you."

I know a lot of this is because it's hard for healthy, adjusted people to fathom the levels of abuse that take place in other families. And as a feminist I also hold my father and the larger community to account for not supporting her as a woman and mother, or my sister and I as children, as little girls.

My mother failed me. It's the truth. To pressure adult survivors of child abuse to put a pretty face on what happened puts us back in that place where we couldn't trust in or believe our own feelings and perceptions.

[anonforthis]

@enu - when you experience abuse as a child, your perception of what is happening to you is totally out of whack. The logic goes - the child did something to set off the abusive episode, therefore it is the child's fault. It takes a lot of time, work, guts, to undo that fundamental misperception. Please don't begrudge those of us who grew up in homes with abusive mothers who name it for what it was.

[ginger]

So much to think about here. I really needed this discussion, and I think once I do some processing it will make a big difference in my relationship with my mom.

She's holding on to so much pain & anger from my parents divorce (10 years ago), that she couldn't even be in the same state as him after the birth of my second. (He moved here after we did a few years ago.) It's hard for me to figure out how to protect myself & my kids while also trying to help her if I can. She hasn't been open to any talk of seeking help or even that she needs it, but it's so hard to see her in so much pain still. The fact that she holds on to it by choice (saying that she won't ever forgive my dad - emphasis on won't instead of can't) hurts too.

Blech. I'm trying to figure out what if anything I do "owe" her - if she's not in a place to listen or hear what I have to say, then what can I do?

Anyway. All this to say thanks for giving me so many great perspectives and things to think about this week.

[sue]

Oh my gosh, I can't even delve into parents tihs week - I really just want to raise my hand for a brownie. hings have been rough here - my husband is out of town, and my 3 year old had a seperation-anxiety induced temper tantrum at school. The teacher's response was to put her in the school office and close the door (in there with the secretary, who is a stranger to my daughter), which made her lose her mind with fear. The following day, she pinched a child to make him get out of the way (she had to pee really bad and he was standing between her and the bathroom. not allowed, but kind of understandable). They called me and made me pick her up early. Today, I was talking to another mother in the class, and she told me that she has repeatedly seen my daughter bullied (in front of the teacher) before I arrive at pickup. Oy. So all my tears are spentfeeling guilty about not having gotten her out of this situation months ago. When I asked my daughter why she didn't tell me about the bullying (which was apparently daily, according to the other mother) she said "I didn't think you could do anything, mama"

So, no introspection here, as I must find another preschool, in June.

[Mandy]

Sometimes I imagine my mom at different ages, times when I know things were awful for her, because doing so makes me want to scoop her up and comfort her about what she went through versus being angry at her for what she put me through.

I don't know that I owe her that, but I feel that someone does and it might as well be me.

My relationship with my mom is a more bitter pill to swallow since become a mother myself. It's harder for me to reconcile my sympathy for her with the way she treats me when I look at my own children and try to fathom how I could possibly hurt them the way she hurt me. It's enough to make my head explode. I've worked hard to forgive her for a lot of things, but I'm still working and it's hard. I don't know if I can do it.

Joy mentioned the situation where you don't want to leave your children alone with your parent. I'm in that boat too, having actually put it in my will that it's never to happen and having left strict instruction for those we've chosen as guardians for our children that we want them to have visits with my parents, but never, ever unsupervised. If it's hard to say, it's even harder to put in writing.

But, I owe it to my children.

My mom left me alone with the man she KNEW was a predator, a pedophile. Not once, not twice but countless days, nights, weekends, summer vacations and spring breaks. She has said that she told him once that if he hurt me, she'd kill him, that I was his second chance. I feel morelike a lamb taken to slaughter. So, when I think about the possibility of her spending time with my children, I can't help but think of the violence, the emotional and verbal abuse. I don't think she'd ever hurt them, but it's not really the point...I'm so angry at her for putting me with someone she knew had that potential and nothing she has said has ever made me feel better about that. So how could I expect that not thinking she'd hurt them would ever make me feel better about it if she did?

I do think she owed me more, I don't know if she could have given it or not.

[enu]

@anonforthis, not sure how you read anything about abuse into my post today - yesterday I explicitly stated that I did feel that abusive parents were a specail segment of the population who do owe their adult children.

But I don't generalize this to the entire population of parents of adult children.

[Jess]

I just wanted to say thank you to those of you sharing your Mama-drama. I'm going through some pretty rough stuff with my Mom right now. Mom and step-Dad did the best they could, but at the end of the day they were controlling and verbally abusive in my childhood, and still are today. I've finally acknowledged my hurt and anger toward them, and it's like a volcano now-- I can't stop it and it's burning all of us. Speaking of "owe", my parents believe I owe them loyalty, respect, obedience, cheerfulness and a call every Sunday, regardless of what they say or do, and they say and do some pretty unbelievable things (seriously, I could write a very long, very dark comedy about their antics). They, naturally, feel they own me nothing having already enabled me to accomplish every good thing in my life. In a nutshell, they think I owe them everything and aren't afraid to say so (I get called an "ingrate" anytime I do anything they don't like, or take issue with their verbal abuse). That's a burden I hope never to put on my kids...loyalty has to spring from within. Every attempt to enforce it turns natural loyalty into resentful obligation.

I'm groping right now, trying to figure out where to go with all my anger and grief. There's fear too-- I've realized I'm controlling and critical, too, and I don't want my need for perfection to poison my parenting. Started therapy this week! Yay for baby steps! Boundaries... what a concept; hope I get there someday!

Anyway, thanks to all of you who have so eloquently shared your own wounds and your own ways of healing. It helps not to feel so along in this.

[usedtopostasElizabeth]

This has been a great week. I hardly ever post here but this series has moved me to post.

I'm another child of dysfunctional parents who is struggling to maintain the right boundaries and have a good relationship with my parents and also to allow my daughter to have a good relationship with them.

It's so hard because we ('we' as in my family of origin, mom/dad/me/sister) are a very analytical, turn-everything-inside-out-and-discuss-it type of family, and our family narrative goes that we Used to have big problems as a family and my dad Used to be a narcissistic asshole and there Used to be so much unhappiness...but now it is all! better! - since my dad got sick and found religion and my sister and I grew up.

However, although the strife is somewhat muted, the dysfunctional patterns continue. My dad is a kinder, gentler person who tries very hard to be a good person, but he is a deeply wounded person who is still extremely narcissistic. My mother is still the consummate enabler - my dad would probably have figured out how to take care of himself and not rely on everyone else to instantaneously meet his every emotional need or whim, if it weren't for my mother PROVIDING for his every emotional or physical need or whim, instantaneously. He'll decide he wants a sandwich (he is unemployed and stays at home most days) and will call my mom to come home from her extremely busy, difficult job to make it for him. And she will. She treats him as the most helpless of invalids and requires NOTHING of him in any way, and looks the other way when the 'invalid' goes on drinking binges with his buddies and spends money they don't have to travel cross-country and go on spiritual retreats. She cheerfully sustains and supports his many hypocrisies.

It's hard to watch; it's cringe-worthy, in fact. Especially because the family narrative insists we're all so far past that.

I can't help but resent my mother because when my sister and I were kids, she privileged my father's WANTS and WHIMS over our NEEDS. Every Day. While admonishing us constantly for not being grateful enough. The Family Narrative again. (Back then it was that everything would have been just dandy except for that my sister and I were ruining everything by being selfish, ungrateful brats.) And she still does this! Of course now, I don't expect her to put me first. But it still grates on me that if I want to come over to their house she has to check with my dad first, and he often says no, he can't deal with visitors. He almost never comes to visit us because he is "too sick" but yet goes on several solo vacations (some of which involve hiking, etc.) every year and certainly doesn't appear sick when he is excited about doing something. My mom can turn vicious if this type of thing is brought to her attention, and she'd certainly never broach it with my dad. His whims continue to decide everything in their lives.

And yet I end up feeling guilty a lot that I am not a better daughter, that I'm not grateful enough for the relationships I do have with my mom and dad (which actually have a lot of positive effects on my life - it's not all bad, not at all - they are good grandparents, for one thing, and that's huge). I guess I have some stuff to work through, eh?

[anonymous]

@Catherine:

In my comment, I specifically added a caveat about being aged and needing my children to care for me someday. It's probable that there will come a time when my children need to be my caregivers, but I can be the kind of mother now who gets my financial and medical houses in order so that that part of the burden is as light as I can make it. I can be the kind of mother who fosters good relationships between all my children, so that the inevitable tensions that arise when they have to care for me will be as light as possible, and that they will have a solid foundation of familial love (or as much of the foundation as I can build -- I can be the kind of mother who acknowledges that they will have to build that foundation for themselves, too) to call upon to resolve the inevitable pain.

I can't remove from them the possible responsibility of caring for me, nor would I want to do that. My job as mother is not to smooth out every rough spot in their roads, because my life would be infinitely less alive if anyone had tried to do that for me.

But for as long as I'm a fully competent adult, then I take responsibility to be a mother.

Again, I simply must forefront my own family system: at no time since I was 3 years old has anyone else put my needs first. Ever. Whenever there has been a conflict between what my mother needed (and her needs are bottomless: believe me, she had a much worse mother than I do) and what I needed, she has ALWAYS put her needs first. She's a master at using the language of needs to get what she wants.

And I've done enough work around this issue to be able to phone my mother spontaneously, at least once a week, to share stories about my life; to tell praiseworthy stories about her to her grandchildren, so that they adore her to a degree that astonishes me; to vacation with her on my own dime. I don't know if I will ever "make my peace" with the fact that I will never have a mother who puts my needs first, not in any circumstance, but I want to have whatever relationship with my mother that I can.

I pray to God every day that I have a much different relationship with my own children, today and at every time in the future.

And, to be clear: just because I would consider my adult child's needs and feelings and desires doesn't mean that I would decide to put them first, all the time. It does means that I consider them, and that I believe that there will be many times, still, even when we are both "equals," that as a mother, I will put my adult child's needs first.

I really don't have a dog in the race when it comes to the language we use for this. I don't know what other people are hearing when I use the word "owe." I experience my role as mother as loving duty and lifelong obligation. There may come a time when I cannot, for reasons beyond my control, meet those obligations any longer. But that possibility does not shake my profound belief, now, that there will ever come a time when I don't want to MOTHER my children, in the appropriate way for the stage of life they've reached.

[Shelley]

Sue, big hugs to you!

I think I was at least 30 before I truly understood, I really got it on a gut level, that my mother didn't know everything, and is not always rock-strong. She's that awesome -- really, she is, and although it might sound like it, she's not overbearing in any way and she was and is a terrific mother. It's more about how I responded to her, I think -- we're a lot alike personality-wise, which probably explains it (and yes, Meera, I hear you on the negative parts of this). The reaction I notice in myself now that I am a mother is that I'm going out of my way to consciously teach my daughter that I don't know everything, that she has to figure out some things for herself.

[Toni]

My husband's parents rejected him after a small argument with his sister. On top of it - they took pictures of our children out of frames and threw them at my husband in a public place. It's been over 1.5 years and he still hurts. He lost everyone in his family (outside of me and his daughters).

I read him this "Realize they are responsible for their choices, words and actions too, even if they don’t know or take that responsibility. The choices people make speak volumes about them. Their choices are THEIR statements about a situation and you can’t change it even if you want to."

He agrees...but says it doesn't lessen the hurt even though he knows that. Nothing really does.

I cry for him. And could TOTALLY use a brownie.

[Maria Wood]

Whew, I had to take a little break yesterday from the intensity of this week's posts and comments, but I am *so glad* these conversations are happening, and I will definitely go back and read yesterday's.

The problems of caring for aging parents, as well as what we "owe" go to strange places for me, because these issues came up for me terribly early.

I was about 23 when my mother had a massive stroke followed by surgery to remove a portion of her brain. My brother (who is younger anyway) was in France and my mother's sister and her family were in Kyrgystan, and my parents had divorced years earlier, so I was the only one around to deal with it. I was the one who worried when she didn't answer the phone and went to her house to find her unconscious on the floor, the one who called the ambulance and followed it at breakneck speed to the local hospital, then raced the helicopter to the city hospital and sat vigil all night in the ICU waiting room. When the doctor called me the next morning and asked if they could do surgery to remove a portion of her brain I had to decide on my own, at that moment, with him hurrying me along, telling me if I said no she probably would have died.

What would have happened if I had said no? I have often wondered whether that would have been the right choice, but of course there's no way you can say no, don't operate on my mother, let her die.

But the result was that I gave the rest of my 20s to my mother; for the bulk of my young adulthood I was the responsible party, power of attorney, responsible for medical decisions, financial affairs, and for making sure she wasn't abandoned in the nursing home. Did I owe her that? I don't know. I know I didn't think about it for a single second for the next 6 or 7 years before her death. I was angry and bitter about being in that situation, about the role reversal, the loss of my mother, the inability to move on with my life, but it was never a question of what I owed or what she deserved. It was simply that this awful, terrible – really incomprehensible – thing had happened and it was put in front of me to cope with.

Ironically, my mother's stroke happened the week I had an appointment for my very first therapy session. I had to cancel it, obviously, but I did reschedule and have been in therapy without a break ever since. At that time, I thought I had a great relationship with a great mother. We did in fact have a pretty good relationship but I know now that she was not a great mother, that in many ways she wasn't a mother at all.

It's fascinating to think about how I might have reacted differently if she had fallen ill a decade later, when I was in my early 30s and that much farther along in my 'process', after I'd discovered Al-Anon (right on, anonforthis way back at 12:21pm!) and done some work. I can't imagine that I'd have made a lot different choices. I suspect I'd have given even more freely to my mom, had more compassion, maybe let her come out for dinner with me on my birthday when we all knew it would be the last one she'd been around for.

I'm crying remembering that I didn't let her come… she wanted to so much, but I couldn't deal with it. It meant helping her in the public bathroom, probably she would have wet her pants, she would have been the center of attention, both for her disabilities and strangeness as well as for her hilarious comments and sweet, over the top personality. It was my birthday and I wanted a break for a change, and we had a dinner at home the night before, and it never entered my mind to do it differently until many years later. Now it's a major regret - maybe the biggest.

I've written far too much here, and don't really know what my point is… except ruminations on role reversal, aging (or failing) parents, and what we owe or don't owe our parents.

You guys should definitely charge by the hour!

[pnuts mama]

oh maria wood, if i could, i'd give you a big damn hug for all of the regrets- but i know you know that sometimes you *do* need a break- and i think the best parents love us unconditionally anyway and let us have our breaks even when it hurts them, because they know we need them. not to get religious again (sigh) but since becoming a parent i have come to such a deeper understanding of what the unconditional love of god must be like- it has reshaped my understanding of that part of my theology, what it means to be a parent, and a child.

@ hedra at 12:04- i totally and completely get what you mean when you said "how much the lack of communication and communion hurts, and how much the reaching out heals"- as well as the action of love (what a preachers kid you are! but in the very best way possible) being the most important tenet of any faith- again, a powerful center of my belief system, and you got the idea of being in 'right relation' perfectly.

from sharon- i'm liking the choice of wish over owe, depending on the circumstance, as it gives the power back to us to make the choice. i know bob may not like that (haha, hush, you made me lmao- come over and we'll have a whole pan of brownies over it) and i don't want to sink to that level, but i think the difference is important.

i'm still really chewing on moxie's original comments on how she felt freed from the great sadness- and how she can imagine many women not being able to separate their children from that sadness. i just can't help but think how many moms in our parents generation who would fall into that category, and what it implies.

one thing i am completely relating to are the comments over those of us who can't understand how now, as adults, our moms see us as adults and equals and relinquish their roles as mother with relief. i know my pnut is little, but i can't imagine ever not wanting to hurl myself in front of a bus for her if necessary. i agree that i can't smooth her path (as it would do her no favors), but to not *want* to be a part of her life in a mothering way, that i can't understand- because even as adults, they will still be my children. again, i'm wondering about what moxie said about that generation of women and what they experienced.

i do think a lot of what we are sharing about our mom-shaped voids is influencing our choices to be AP, that much more involved in our kids lives, and in turn, what our kids will complain about when they get to this stage: "my mom calls me 14 times a day!" "she's always in my business!" "she won't accept that i'm a grown-up!" then we'll watch the pendulum swing back...

[pnuts mama]

two more quick things and then i really should get some sleep while i still can...

@sue- oh, my heart just broke a little for you. so sorry about your little one, what she was going through, how you're feeling. it amazes me how my own little one seems so willing to do anything any other kid will do/wants what they have and i just can't figure out how to get my fierce independence to fire up in her. how do we teach our little ones that what they feel matters to us?

and i also think that for those of us who are struggling with trusting our instincts- i would say that trusting your instincts, especially when it comes to protecting your children (what's that book- protecting the gift?) should be your guide, always. there is something about being a parent that tunes you in to things you don't always understand, but that radar exists to protect your kids. the only caveat to that would be if you are confusing your instinct to protect with using your power as parent to manipulate (not accusing anyone, actually thinking of my own situation here) a relationship- (there, bob, that's the difference, ok?) i.e. not letting your kids see their grandmother b/c ultimately it hurts her and you get something out of that, not b/c you *really* feel that instinctual urge to protect your children from real harm/danger.

ok, off to bed. will dream of brownies.

[Amy]

I had to come back, after chewing on this for a bit, to share an opinion I have...

Is anyone else really ticked off at the baby boomers? In one generation, they have screwed up so much - the environment, politics, taxes, the economy, the family (a model that worked for thousands of years, before they came along), just about freaking everything? I read recently, that we are the first generation (and when I say "we" I mean those of us who were born between 1965 and 1985) to be worse off than our parents.

I get so sick of their whining, and the way that it's always all about them - both on a macro level (they refuse to pass the baton on to us, the next generation, instead holding on to their youth and power and making "50 the new 40," etc.) and on a micro level (try having a conversation with most of them, and it is always all about them). They refuse to grow up. In many ways, they act like a bunch of freaking teenagers, and they always have, and they've made a real mess out of everything for the rest of us.

They haven't followed the "campsite rule" - leave it better than you found it - for ANYTHING! It's all about youth and money and power with them. It's all about them, and I'm sick of it. They need to let go, already, and let us - the 40 and 30 year olds who, by all rights, should be coming into control of things, take over. We're going to need all the time we can get to fix the mess they've made.

I think about this often, and it makes me so angry. There's nothing we can do, either, until they all croak! Argh! They complain that we "boomerang" and live with them after college, but they don't see that it's because they failed to teach us what we needed to know to make it on our own.

I don't think this is a matter of, "Every generation feels that way about the prior generation," either. I think the baby boomers are unique to history. I think time will prove me right, too. Has anyone else given this any thought? Especially in terms of dealing with our parents as adults? My husband and I have 8 parents (both sets divorced & remarried) and we feel like we're raising them. They make such stupid, selfish choices sometimes, and I just want to go off. I feel like I'm the adult in all of our relationships with them, and it drives me insane. It isn't supposed to be this way. It's totally inappropriate. WTF?

Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com (don't post about this in my comments - all the immature freaking baby boomers in my life read them!)

Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com

[pnuts mama]

oh amy, i heart you. seriously seriously heart you. mwah.

the boomers are a unique generation, most sociologists would agree, and our generation (X, birth years 1961-1980, approx., based on way too many factors than i'll list, but if you'd like, i'll send you chapter two of my diss...) certainly has born the brunt of their general narcissism. to be fair, the earlier half of our cohort are born to the silent generation (1925-42, approx), who have their own quirks and issues and actually influenced the society we were raised in much more than the boomers, who get all the attention.

one of my favorite quotes w/r/t the boomers is this one:
“Following Boomers into youth is like entering a theme park after a mob has trashed the place and some distant CEO has turned every idea into a commercial logo.”

but after a few years of working on this paper, i have to say i've moved away from a posture of righteous indignation and anger towards our elders and am now searching from a more objective pov to try and understand what their experiences were, and how it influenced their lives and choices. i mean, they were just as influenced by their society as we are, and we have to try and keep in context what was going on in the 60's and 70's to try and figure out where they were.

but i too, still get agitated when one of those gd "viva vi*gra" commercials comes on- 50 is the new 30, my ass. 50 is 50, and 30 is 30, or else i'd be 10. and i'm not. so shut up and age gracefully, already!

[pnuts mama]

sorry, that quote is from Neil Howe and William Strauss, The Fourth Turning (New York: Broadway Books, 1997), p. 235. bad researcher! too many distractions- and this is why it is taking me forever to get any real work done!

it's an easily-read (and for me, very interesting) book that talks all about the 14 (now 15) groups of generations in American history- there are four archetypes that cycle- they keep getting repeated over and over, but each experiences their history differently based on what's going on in the world, etc. they also have a website for a quick overbiew: http://www.fourthturning.com/html/exploring_history.html

[Amy]

@pnuts mama - there was a similar book called Generations that explored that idea, but it was WAY too thick and massive and insurmountable when I tried to read it at the ripe old age of about 23. Maybe I'll hit it again now that I'm 32. :)

I would be very interested in reading your dis and talking about this more with you, as it's an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a while now. I honestly have just thought I was crazy and jaded, so it's nice to know that people with -ologist in their title would agree with me!

I'm at prbabies at gmail dot com.

V*agra is just a legalized form of grandmother abuse.

XOXO,
Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com

[hedra]

@Amy and pnuts mama, it's interesting that I see *most* of my parents (I also have six of them) have discarded (some very long ago) the boomer 'we changed the world, now it's ours to keep forever and do with what we will' attitude.

I'm reminded of a UU annual conference where the youth group had done their usual fabulous job of action, worship, and thought, and someone stood up in the general assembly and so eloquently 'passed the torch' ... um, buck. Beautifully stated that her generation had really screwed up the world, and now it was being handed off to these wonderful, amazing youths to fix, and wasn't it great that we were so able? A 12-year-old stood up after the applause died and shot back (even more eloquently) that the responsibility of fixing it lay with the assholes who screwed it up, thanks, and do you think that by praising us we'll appreciate that you're stepping away from the responsibility and work involved? Ouch, and oh, such a great moment. There was a painful silence followed by even more applause, as the elders gritted their teeth and picked the burden back up again.

But it's really the same thing, isn't it? We 'carried our loads' and now we get to lay them down. It's YOUR job to do the work now, dear, mother yourself, nurture yourself, I'm done, I can go on a permanent vacation and never put out any effort again. Yeah, I'm leaving you with a mess to pick up, but, well, you can do it, and I'm tired and don't feel like it anymore.

Fortunately, my parents are more of the 'relationships exist and merit tending' type, and they also were adamant about teaching SKILLS and valued competence, so we grew up knowing not just what to do, but at least part of how to do it.

@Maria Wood - "it was never a question of what I owed or what she deserved. It was simply that this awful, terrible – really incomprehensible – thing had happened and it was put in front of me to cope with." I think this is more how I view parenting/parenthood. Not that it is awful, but that it is just the path I am on - not owed, maybe not even deserved, but a task that must be done. I do my best at it because I must, and because nobody else can or will. When people ask me 'how do you do it?' (regarding four kids, twins, or when they're sick, or whatever, usually when they have only one or two kids, usually younger than mine), I answer 'the same as you do - you just DO it. Because you must.'

It isn't an owe, it's just what IS. It's deeper than owe, less measurable, less burdensome, more profound. It is "I want", and a choice, as well. But it's also intersecting at all levels of my values, my psyche, my empathy, my humanity. Parenting as best I can isn't a matter of owing to me perhaps because it is more just an expression of me, all facets.

I feel stuck between enu and others' positions - I resonate strongly to enu's separateness of self, her understanding that her needs are important, the putting on of her oxygen mask FIRST, even as an adult parent of an adult child. And I resonate to the 'I will come running if called', as well. I am both those people. My mother is, too. She feels the draw of maternal action, and the importance of personal choice. She chooses mostly to be there for me (and sibs) and the grandkids, but she also has to balance the choices - visit her best friend for a couple of weeks, dumping her usual backstopping entirely, or stay and backstop and be at a distance from her friend when they both need each other? She went to her friend, and my blessing, and we sucked it up when the kids were all sick almost the entire time she was gone, and we could really have used her help. In that balance between her individual needs and our relationship's burdens, is where I stand. It is also where one of the most profound graces of our relationship lives. That's where I find my gratitude. If she owed me this, I would not owe her gratitude for choosing this. I would not have humility to match her gift. And that gratitude is important, both interpersonally and spiritually.

[hedra]

My mom's comments are:

1) owe is also for her the wrong word. It implies too much, and not enough.

2) many of her peers think that the arrow should only hurt on the way in - raising of children takes work, and the arrow on the way out - establishing and maintaining adult relationships - should be painless and a non-event. It's naive, she says, to assume that the relationship can coast. It takes her MORE effort to stay in the relationship appropriately now that we're adults. But that effort includes her being autonomous, herself, her own separate person, as well as us being the same.

We only had a few moments to talk about it this morning, but she did say that she realized that once we could walk away (18 in the US), the world changed, and the relationship changed, and the process changed. The situation we then found ourselves in (again, like Maria Wood's) was only to be responded to, not to be bounded by expectations, guilt, or repayment of any eternal debts. It was merely to be worked, and worked again, and again, every day. ALL relationships take work, effort, maintenance. Adult relationships are no exception. And 'owe' doesn't belong in the process, for her. (If she felt 'owe' with her parents, then there would never be a way to release the pain and become free and herself, there would always be the debt pulling her back into her pain again.)

Time's way up, must go.

[Clover]

Amy- I heart you. I have felt similarly but not been able to express it in quite that way.
Moxie- parenting my parent has been on my mind of late and this thread has been incredibly powerful. My mother has a terminal illness but is at this point still quite functional. She has moved in with us and OMG these issues are coming up left and right. I am at such a loss on what to contribute because it all just resonates right now.

[hedra]

Not sure anyone is even reading at this point, but ...

Had a nice lunch and a discussion of the 'owe' issue with my mom today.

Couple of main points came out of it.

1) Owe is obligation. Love is voluntary. One will drive out the other, eventually. It's important to pick which one.

2) Owe is for when there is no love. My mom owed her dad seeing him to his death. She owed society the relief from the burden of doing so. And she loved herself enough to be true to her integrity in seeing that through, willingly and entirely on a voluntary basis.

3) Choosing purely voluntary acts of love, and deciding to see love as a purely voluntary condition is dangerous. Not in a bad dangerous way, but in the fact that it exposes you to risk, and loss, and loneliness - in a voluntary system, someone can choose not to be there for you. They can choose to walk away. They can choose many things that we'd rather they not choose. But in the end, the risk is worth the chance that by being voluntary, there will be no bounds or limits on the love.

4) The owe vs love thing messes with a lot of relationships - surely any time obligation shows up in my relationships, there's a world of hurt waiting.

5) Unless you're ready to accept the pain of losses, it is hard to step away from the obligatory worldview. If your life has always been obligatory (even to the having had to suffer at the hands of your parents), it can take a crisis to change the paradigm. Or it can take healing. Either one can do it.

Anyway, it was a far ranging conversation, covering ministry and ethics and integrity and the fact that so many of Moxie's commenters have made the blessed choice to not pass on whatever it was that hurt, and have the grace to try to figure out what they are passing on, instead of just 'not that'. My mom thinks you rock, Moxie. (Okay, so she doesn't say 'you rock' exactly - wrong era - but she's impressed nonetheless.)

[hedra]

Oh, and that's all discussion, and may not at all be relevant to anyone here. Just thought it was interesting to delve into with someone who has been on both sides of the 'owe' line.

[perries]

Coming in late but moved to comment without even seeing if others have commented on this:

@hedra, June 1, 8:07 a.m.:
1) owe is also for her the wrong word. It implies too much, and not enough.

The word I use with myself is 'requite.' My sense is that the actions I am attempting to render (your eloquent hands and feet of love) are to requite Life to Life. I feel a filial duty to Life, so to speak. Sorry if this is opaque. First verbalization.

Also, hedra, regarding your earlier posting in which you discussed Rectification of Names: loved that so much. It was interesting, new to me, fascinating, personally relevant. Thank you for sharing your personal experiences (and incidentally validating some of my own).

I so much appreciate reading the comments and what everyone is sharing. I am very moved with empathy and appreciation for the challenges shared and strength and determination shown, by everyone on their paths.

This is my first post so I will wrap up with a short bio. I am a mom of 1 15-mo boy. Didn't have a mother of my own as mine has always been schizophrenic. I'm okay with that now - I accept it. Being a mom without having had one in any active sense - is an enormity. Relationship with single dad - dysfunctional - not okay with that at all. While I am in an overall negative an unresolved place with it temporarily, it is is progress for me from denial of any problem out of fear of loss of the relationship. I've put the parental relationship on hold because it is paramount to develop my self-understanding so I can hope to be a good parent. This could be the first time I've put my own needs first in the intergenerational relationship in that direction. And second in the intergenerational direction with my son (though I do wish he would stay asleep in the evening so I could veg - is that so wrong?).