Weddings from a Male Perspective | When Parents Hurt - 9.1.07

[Smartmarriages]

- WEDDINGS FROM A MALE PERSPECTIVE
- WHEN PARENTS HURT

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- WEDDINGS FROM A MALE PERSPECTIVE

The Washington Post magazine has a special wedding issue out this weekend
"from the male perspective" - very interesting.  Here are two of the
articles: 

> 1) Confessions of a Wedding Photographer
> When he was a photo-journalist, "wedding photographer" sounded like the punch
> line of a joke. Then he went soft and discovered that taking photographs of
> the most important moment in people's lives actually is funny. Also moving,
> sad, scary and profound.
> http://tinyurl.com/yomn35
> 
> 2) The Best-Kept Secrets of Best Men
> As these seven individuals can attest, it's not easy being No. 2
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR200708290202
> 4.html

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- WHEN PARENTS HURT

The Middle Ages
Parents need to reset relationship to an adult child
The Baltimore Sun 
Susan Reimer
August 5, 2007

> "When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child
> Don't Get Along" is the latest book from Josh Coleman author of Imperfect
> Harmony, one of our favorite marriage books. Josh tackles another tough issue
> ­ one usually avoided or denied ­ and tells it like it is.  Order at
> http://www.smartmarriages.com/app/Media.Booklist  PRESENTERS, if your book
> isn't listed on the Smart Marriages book page, first, forgive me, second send
> me one more email.  The book page is finally redesigned and up and running.  I
> just need one more kick, to get you posted.  - diane

Somewhere along the parenting timeline, we stopped raising our children and
started wooing them.

Sometime over the past 30 years, we stopped demanding obedience from our
children and started seeking their love and companionship,

It was a serious tactical error because it shifted many of the powers in the
parent-child relationship to the child. And one of those is the power to
hurt.

Family and relationship therapist and author Joshua Coleman has written an
important book that can help parents heal: When Parents Hurt: Compassionate
Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along (Collins, $23.95).

Coleman writes about parents and children from his San Francisco practice
who have reached points of terrible pain and alienation because of abuse,
neglect or messy divorce.

He even writes about his own experiences as a divorced father and the
antipathy it created in his oldest daughter.

These are dramatic stories, and you weep for the parent who has received
that awful letter from an adult child, forbidding Mom from calling and
writing or telling Dad that they will never speak to him again.

Coleman offers parents a step-by-step way to cope and to carry on with hope
for the future.

But Coleman also writes about parents who have done nothing observably wrong
and still face the wrath of a blaming child, and of parents and children so
mismatched that phone calls and visits are fraught with tension.

And his book poses the question at the heart of many relationships between
boomers and their young adult children.

What is this relationship supposed to look like? What do we owe each other?
How are we supposed to treat each other? How do we avoid hurting each other?

"The first thing we have to do is give ourselves a chance to grieve for the
child that is no longer there," Coleman said in a telephone interview.

"Just like when they left for kindergarten and we grieved for the toddler
that was no longer there, we grieve when they become their own people and go
out into the world."

The intensity of our parenting when our children were young needs to give
way to some new kind of involvement - Coleman and others describe it as a
shift from "manager" to "consultant."

But the lengthening season of adolescence - which no less than the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention now describes as lasting into the late
20s - makes it confusing even for parents who want to back off.

"A lot of parenting is driving blind," Coleman said. "You can't rely on the
signposts of your children's feedback because they will all be detour signs.

"Sometimes the provocative way our kids respond is their way of putting
stakes in the ground for their own autonomy."

One of the perverse outcomes of our intense parenting is the assumption by
our children that we are to blame if things don't turn out right.

Junior fails to gain traction in school or his career, and he blames Mom or
Dad for failing to provide him with the tools for success.

"Don't make the mistake of defending yourself," Coleman said. "See it for
what it is: the cry of a child who senses there is something wrong and
decides to blame you rather than face up to his own shortcomings."

There is plenty of advice and comfort in Coleman's new book. But the
difficult task of reframing the relationship with your adult child requires
patience and restraint.

No shaming, no guilt-tripping, no childish temper tantrums, no brooding, no
self-pity. No intrusive questions, no demands, no attendance requirements,
no emotional blackmail, no whining, no silent treatment, no bribing.

Be available but not needy. Be there to help and advise, but set limits. Be
grateful for the attention you get from your children, but don't let it
show. Don't let our love for them give them more power to hurt us. Protect
your heart.

"All of this requires a pretty darned centered parent," Coleman said.
"Closeness with our adult children is not an entitlement, but it can be the
goal.

"It is nothing we can assume. But it is something we can hope for."


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