Even the most mature, competent, sane, and self-sufficient
grown-ups need their undeniably imperfect parents to perform some
functions no one else in their life can readily perform. Here are a few
uses for used parents:
1. Parents know you. The people who raised you know you in a way no
one else ever will. They know what is inside you and how it got there.
They know where you got every physical and emotional aspect of you,
however many dirty little pubertal secrets you tried to keep from them.
Even when you lie to them, you are probably more predictable and more
fathomable to your parents than you are to your best friend, or even your
husband or wife, because your parents came to know you before you started
to hide your real self from the rest of the world.
Having your parents accurately know you better than you want people
to know you can be humbling. It can cut through the bullshit quite
nicely. It doesn't always feel good to think of yourself as the child you
once were, but it may be a useful exercise. It especially helps if you
know that we're all faking our adulthood--even your parents and their
parents. Honest, you're not the only one. Beneath these adult
trappings--in our president, in our parents, in you and me--lurk the
emotions of a child. If we know that only about ourselves, we become
infantile; if we understand that about everybody, then we have nothing to
be ashamed of--unless, of course, we go around acting like a child and
expecting everyone else to act like grownups.
2. Parents keep the home fires burning. Your family are the folks
who are most likely to take you in no matter how low you've sunk. As long
as your parents are around and you are reasonably appreciative of them,
whatever happens to you and wherever they happen to be, you are likely to
have some place to return to. You can, if you must go, go home again.
Home may not be pleasant or comfortable, and it may not be physically
located where it was, but it is home, and you can risk a lot more in life
if you know there is a home to go back to.
The only danger of having parents who keep the home fires burning
is the temptation to collapse when the going gets rough and run back home
to hide, to go "home to Mama" rather than to face the cruelties of
living. But collapsing upon Mama and Daddy may be less destructive than
collapsing upon a therapist or affair partner at the turning points of
life.
3. Parents offer an open womb. More than anyone else in your life,
mothers, and sometimes fathers, can kiss it and make it well when their
grown children need to regress and repair. More than anyone else in your
life, mothers, and sometimes fathers, can catch you when you start to
fall. When you are in disgrace, defeat, and despair, home may be the
safest place to hide. My mother, who was torn between wanting me to be
her baby at home at her breast and wanting me to go forth into the world
as her champion to fly her banner, could tolerate my frequent failures,
and could offer quite a flow of warm milk when I needed it; it was my
occasional successes that curdled her, as she feared I would be so
self-sufficient I wouldn't need her anymore.
Freud told us that "A man who has been the indisputable favorite of
his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of
success that often induces real success." Mother love has been maligned.
An overmothered boy may go through life expecting each new woman to love
him the way his mother did. Her love may make any other love seem
inadequate. But an unloved boy would be even more likely to idealize
love. I don't think it's possible for a mother or father to love a child
too much.
4. Parents make an inescapable investment in you. Your life is
important to your parents. They are invested in you, and are probably
more personally interested in your well-being than anyone else you will
ever know. One might fault them for their old-fashioned child raising
techniques, their losses of patience, and their intermittent selfishness
in being more interested in their needs than in yours. It is impossible
to parent perfectly, and it is certainly unnecessary, but even imperfect
parents may be pumping enormous quantities of love and good intentions
into their children. We live our lives carrying the past and the future
with us, and while the other generations we carry with us may put us
under pressure, they keep us from feeling that we are out there
alone.
5. Parents are invested in your children as well. Your children are
your parents' grandchildren, their investment in the future. Your
children are more important to your parents than they are to anyone else
alive.
No one else listens so intently to stories about the progress of
their growth, toilet training, or music lessons. No one else's comments
on your child-raising techniques, however off the mark or even off the
wall, will be as enlightening. Because, as you become a parent, you begin
to understand their experience and all becomes clear. Your parents may
well prefer your children to you, which may hurt your feelings but
reminds you that you are part of a child-raising team.
Tags:
adult,
adult children,
bullshit,
comfort,
emotional aspect,
familiarity,
family,
grown ups,
grownups,
parents,
rest of the world,
trappings,
ups
