Hi, Carolyn: I have been going to therapy. It was originally for postpartum anxiety, but my therapist and I have uncovered a family dynamic with my parents that has upset me but that I hadn’t been able to identify or name. It was a jolt of recognition to see the pieces put together into the picture of our dynamic.
It’s so ingrained, it won’t change. (I’m in my 40s.) Do you have any advice on how to accept the limitations/frailties/flaws of people, like parents, to whom we have always looked up? I am so disappointed in them . . . and it’s fresh.
I keep thinking if I had to write a eulogy tomorrow, I would have trouble with it.
— Rethinking My Family
Rethinking My Family: Well, sure, it’s still new. Makes complete sense.
But as you settle into this new awareness — and emerge from your postpartum emotional struggle, which is no small thing — I suggest not getting into a detailed accounting of your parents’ flaws against the accrued balances of your filial piety or admiration.
Instead, I hope you’ll question the admiration, the “looked up [to]” part, itself.
There’s a dissonance built into it when it comes to nuclear families.
First, there’s a voice of culture — that children are supposed to respect their elders, to look up to their parents, to follow their example — even, simply, to love them.
Next, though, is individuality: Not every person behaves in a way that’s worthy of respect, emulation, love.
In fact, try this exercise sometime when you’re around a lot of people you know reasonably well. Ask yourself, “What if I were his kid? Or hers? What if that couple had me instead of my parents?” Envision it. You’ll say no thanks or even flinch at some of these musings, unless you’re at a gathering of the finest people on Earth. Maybe even if you are.
And of course you’ll realize, some of these people actually have kids — as you’re thinking how badly you wouldn’t want to be one of them. It’s an exercise that really drives home how growing up in the parental home is an intensely intimate experience with “limited” and/or “flawed” people we don’t get to choose.
I suggest coming at your unhealthy-family-dynamic question from that angle — though not to wipe away a bad family experience as if it were inevitable or nobody’s fault, of course. Bad choices have consequences, and your pain is real. But when you take an unsentimental look at what “family” entails, what human fallibility means in that context, and how many opportunities there are for things to go wrong, you might soften the impact of your current disillusionment.
For extra credit, revisit some of your own bad choices, and trace how good intentions got you there.
Another potential source of optimism: Wrestling with this now could help you become a better, less anxious parent. What can any of us do, really? You show up, you love, you try.
