Parents and grown up children. Natalia Manukhina

instinctively or we can study them and decide which of them we need to change or develop. It depends on our goals, circumstances, situations and our relationship with others. It follows that only we are responsible for making choices in our lives. So, why should we hold our parents responsible for our actions?

      When you realize that you can rely on what you have learnt from your parents and at the same time come up with something new, something that is only yours, your life becomes more exciting. Of course it is not easy to answer for all your deeds and people often evade responsibility. There is a saying: “you must reap what you have sown”, but, whatever fruits we reap, good or bad, belong to us and nobody else. While we are glad to have good luck and success, why should we not admit that our failures are the difficulties which make us stronger? Indeed, when we make efforts to overcome those difficulties we can achieve real success.

      Maybe our parents really have nothing to do with our lives?

      Then a seditious thought appears: if it is our choice, which of our achievements and failures should we claim credit for and which of them should we ascribe to our parents? And why don’t we celebrate our success together with our parents instead of complaining and blaming them for our failures? Celebrations are far more enjoyable than battles, pain and suffering, are not they?

      Parents of grown up children

      Think of the first time when you saw yourself as a parent: mother or father. Who did you picture first, yourself or your child? What was your child like?

      When thinking about their children most people imagine babies or young children. However, children grow up and become adults. Have you ever thought about being a parent of grown up men and women aged about 30, 40 or 50? When I ask my visitors such a question they smile awkwardly. No, we do not seem to have prepared for being the parents of grownup people.

      Thinking about ourselves as parents we imagine how we will caress and spoil them, how we will bring them up, protect them and do everything our mothers and fathers did for us, together with what they write in clever books about the upbringing of children. But where to find books about maintaining relations with our children when they have already grown up and maybe have children or even grandchildren of their own?

      It is strange that setting ourselves the task to “bring up the next generation” we do not think about the results we will yield: establishing “adult to adult” relationship with the people who will always remain our children.

      It is a heavy burden indeed to bring up children without criticizing them and warning them about the possible failures. When we were children our parents always used to point out our faults and make us correct our mistakes. Good grades at school were taken for granted, which means that it was considered normal to be a good student and we were expected to be good. For that reason our efforts were never appreciated or praised. Now I cannot help wondering how it is possible to gear up for success and achievements when you live in constant fear of failure.

      Only with time do we understand that if we criticize our children when they are small they will treat us the same way when they grow up. It is exactly as the saying goes: “As the call, so the echo”. Why do you expect gratitude and appreciation from those whom you criticize? How will our children learn to be thankful and to appreciate us if they only get rebukes from us?

      It turns out that respect, gratitude and appreciation need to be taught, but before we teach our children, we should learn how to respect, appreciate and be thankful ourselves. But who can we learn this from?

      From our children! We should teach them and they will teach us in return. If we change our attitude they will do the same. But someone has to start. Since we have lived longer and have more responsibility than our children we are expected to do that. However, it is not so easy to give up our old beliefs! We need the help from our children, but how to ask for help? We are parents, and we should be demanding, not asking.

      Or maybe it is also possible to ask…

      The main fear of parents is that if they change, their children will not understand them, will criticize and reject them. So we say: “Why should we change, let our children change and we will keep the old ways for the rest of our lives”. As a result, when our children become adults and offer us new kind of relationships, expecting us to support them in their personal formation, we respond with apprehension and anxiety. In fact we hinder them more than we help them to develop. Meantime, following the laws of life, our children and we too grow up and change steadily. So the children are forced to move away from us or even get rid of us like dead matter – they just leave us getting as far as possible.

      On the other hand, those parents who let themselves be glad at their children’s success always remain wanted and needed by them. So, one day they find out that their children have learnt many good things from them. Indeed, they can see their children using what they have learnt from parents openly, without any criticism and denial. In this light children’s own achievements, including those in the fields unknown to parents, become more obvious. Moreover, if children see that their parents are willing to hear about their achievements, they will gladly share with them.

      Our children will become our Teachers if we agree to be their Students all our lives. Then the time will come when we will shift to adult-to-adult relations, where all members of the family exchange values and interests, enriching each other’s lives and the entire world around them.

      Maybe we can start thinking positively about ourselves and our children, about their and our progress and achievements.

      It is true however, that we could have started earlier. One might want to exclaim: “Why did not we understand that we had to think and live positively? Why could not we see that before?” At the same time we are still glad that we are finally on the right path and there is still time to change our lives and relationships.

      Join us and you will do even better!

      Duty, investment or a bottomless pit?

      “Parents and teachers, in the first instance, are givers, while children and students are takers. Although parents also learn some things from their children, just as well as teachers learn from their students, this does not restore the balance, but only makes its absence less visible. However, parents were once children, and teachers were students. They pay their debt by passing on what they learnt from the previous generation to the next generation. And their children and students can do the same”2.

      But what does this “balance” mean? How is it measured? Is it really necessary? Do we speak about constant balance or the one we need to keep from time to time? Or, maybe we are misled by the original belief that maintenance of balance is impossible. What really matters is what the givers (teachers, parents) want to get in return, that is, what kind of reward they consider appropriate for the effort they make. However, things they give away and thing they get in return belong to different categories: in exchange for education, care, material support and security they want respect, gratitude, appreciation and remembrance, also the success of those for whose sake they took such efforts. In this respect parents rather make an investment that should bring the wellbeing of their children and maybe grandchildren, but not their own wellbeing. Well, when people give back what they have received they pay back their debts; on the other hand, when they use the invested capital in such way that it should make profit, they increase capital gains.

      By imposing a debt on our children, which they pay by passing on what they received “to the next generation” we evoke the following response:

      – Expressions of protest like “I owe you nothing” or “by bringing me up you just did your duty as parents”;

      – A protest and the sense that their children are indebted to them: “I don’t want to make them feel they are obliged to me”, “I had responsibilities towards my parents, now my children have the same responsibilities towards me”, “My children should repay me for what I’ve done for them, just

2

Хеллингер Б. И в середине тебе станет легко. М., 2003. С. 26.