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Parents and Children...Obviously, I am following the classical gender associations in defining these principles. That is not to be taken strictly: the gender associations reflect a tendency, but both men and women can play either role. In our society of broken families, in many cases, one parent must assume both roles. While this can be done, unless the process is explicitly laid out to the child, it may create a sense of arbitrariness in the relationship that may dissolve the protective cocoon. This is a serious wound to the child's confidence. In extremis, I have found that the best way to reestablish proper respect in a child is to open the cocoon: to walk a short distance away, to withdraw sustenance and guidance, to leave the child adrift in reality - and then to wait for him or her to choose to come back inside. Occasionally, that involves a meltdown. The panicked tantrum is exacerbated by wounded hubris. No amount of scolding will serve in this situation: patient explanation that the child has the choice to return to your love re-asserts his or her sense of control, and reestablishes an unconditional gratitude for your presence. With my sons, the first time I did this, I spent forty-five minutes on the floor, the three-year old lying two feet away, close enough that I could rub his back while he struggled with the choice, assaulting me with his immature threats and insults, and crying in distress at his own realized impotence. When he finally crawled over to my arms, the embrace we joined was never warmer nor sweeter. As the infant reaches childhood, he or she enters the realm of educational society. At that point, parents are responsible for opening the cocoon to join other adults with the child's life. This is an enlarging of the cocoon that expands the opportunities for growth. It may extend to other nurturers: music teachers, athletic coaches and spiritual leaders. The opportunity to experience other patterns of care is important to the child in coming to learn how to negotiate different forms of mothering and fathering, and to observe the balance between them in different contexts. At this point, the child also begins to experiment with friendship, described next. As this experience comes to fruition, parents must provide controlled opportunities for their children to take the bubble of friendship away from adult supervision. Children must practice mothering and fathering on their own. Because of their immaturity and childishness, they will inflict and suffer wounds, and these must be dealt with through mothering and fathering in the home, and the adolescent pushed back into the world of friendship. Home and school will remain as a reassuring constancy, but a certain level of control must be relinquished, else the child cannot mature to an independent majority. For that must be the endpoint. A transition occurs at early majority, when the child decides to go it alone. Parents must accept this separation, in the belief that the bonds of love between them will bring their children back to them, this time into a type of friendship. Obviously, given the difference in age and experience, this friendship will be unbalanced, but can deepen into a special partnership when grandchildren arrive. |
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