Looking Back to Look Forward
The transition into parenthood is both powerful and life changing. It pulls for many important and difficult decisions, and often pushes us to our outermost limits. The parent we become is based on many factors, many of which relate to our own childhood and how we were raised.
Our past experiences affect our present life decisions, and the way we were raised will affect the way we raise our children. In order to make more intentional decisions as a parent, it is helpful to explore both the positive and negative aspects of how we were raised. Our parents may be a model of how we want to be as parents, or they may be the opposite. Most likely, there will be some of both. Such an exploration will also help us detect patterns in our parenting styles that we may not have previously understood. These are the types of explorations I routinely encourage when I work with parents in my practice.
It can be enjoyable to think about some of our positive memories from childhood. Children know the experience of true unmitigated joy and so when we remember positive memories, it may allow us to access some of that pure happiness that is often elusive in our adulthood. There are certain memories we all cherish from our childhood, whether it’s the milk and cookies that greeted us every day after school, or a particularly memorable moment around a birthday party or special event. These are often the elements that we recreate with our own children. Julie remembers as a child going on long family road trips along major US highways. This was one of the rare times that she felt like she had access to her father, a hardworking salesman. Julie tries to recreate these family moments when planning her family vacations.
Jeremy used to go on jogs with his father around the neighborhood. He remembers a fondness for jogging to the local 7-eleven and buying a big gulp with his father. They would then walk back together drinking their sodas and talking. Jeremy finds himself taking his kids to the local 7-eleven and buying them slurpees in the same way, hoping that he can feel the same connection with his son that he felt with his own father many years ago.
An area of positive memories can often be linked with rituals around holidays and birthdays. Sophia always slept under the Christmas tree with her brothers on Christmas eve from when she was a little girl, until she left for college. Now, with her own children, she recreates the experience with pleasure every year. Jon grew up in a home where his parents said the Shma with him every night. Since his son was born and brought home from the hospital at two days old, Jon has been dutifully and consistently singing the Shma to his son, Michael. Finding meaning and staying connected to positive aspects of our childhood experiences by continuing those same rituals with our own children is incredibly meaningful. It allows us a special and unique way of both connecting and identifying with our own parents, as well as our own children, creating a powerful link between the generations.
Then there are the parts of our childhood that we are eager to move away from. In this category there is a wide amount of variation. There may be those who look back at times with frustration or disappointment, while others who have specific traumatic experiences that continue to haunt them. It is actually hard to just “do something different.” Typically, we end up feeling like despite our best efforts we have gone on to mimic that which are most terrified of becoming. Or sometimes, in an attempt to create a different model, we have overcorrected and gone to the opposite extreme. Some examples may help:
Samantha’s mother was always late picking her up from places when she was a child. Whether it was picking her up from school or clubs or a friend’s house, she was always late. This was a sore spot for Samantha and caused her a lot of frustration over the years. She still has conscious memories of how angry she was waiting outside the school waiting for pickup, being the last child there. As an adult, Samantha is super-conscious about time. Being on time is a big priority for her. In fact, being on time is not enough; Samantha must be there early. Samantha is actually early to everything. On one occasion, when she was driving to pick up her daughter Katie from an after school event, she got caught in terrible traffic. She ended up being ten minutes late picking Katie up. It was not a big deal, she called ahead of time and someone was there to stay with Katie until Samantha could get there. At the same time, inside of her own mind Samantha was a wreck. She felt terrible and self-critical, guilty, and angry. She felt like she basically was exactly like her mother. Of course she wasn’t, but this is such an area of sensitivity for her, that her ability to accurately assess the significance of her actions was hampered by her own emotional reactivity to her personal experiences.
Jake grew up in a home where his parents rarely if ever said, “I love you.” He makes a conscious effort to say “I love you” to his children, but in therapy he began to become aware of the fact that he was much more physically affectionate with his children when they were younger, and as they grew up was less so. It felt more natural to hug and kiss his toddler than his 10-year-old son. In therapy, Jake discovered that while he made an effort to verbally express love, the discomfort with expressions of love from his childhood came out in his inability to express physical affection towards his older children.
David grew up with an aggressive father. When David would get a bad grade at school, his father would punish him severely. He was often spanked as a child or made to feel embarrassed or humiliated when he made mistakes. He grew up feeling a combination of anxiety and anger, with no safe place for that anger to go, which led to depression. He now has an eleven-year-old son, Carl, who likes to test limits. Carl is successful at school and well liked by his peers. No one has any complaints about him. However, at home, when he does not get his way, he can be viciously aggressive and argumentative. In these moments, when Carl is yelling or screaming at him, David finds himself freezing, unable to take action. He feels both passive and unpowerful, yet does not feel he has power to change his son. Upon reflection, David has come to realize that his father modeled power by being aggressive and controlling. David was so afraid to be like his father that he took the opposite approach, and became totally passive, so as not to risk turning into his father. Unfortunately, that is an overcorrection that has rendered him powerless. David will have to work to create a model where he can allow himself to be powerful, yet not as aggressive as his father.
Sometimes when we look back at our parents and begin to form some judgments, we may begin to experience feelings of guilt attached to these experiences. If your overall childhood experience was positive, you may feel guilty exploring some negative traits of your parents. It’s OK to feel guilty, and it’s often healthy to feel guilty. Our society can’t function effectively if people don’t feel bad when they do something wrong. When it comes to parenting, however, guilt may actually get in the way of our effective understanding. If we feel so guilty we don’t let ourselves examine our feelings and experiences honestly and openly, we will be inhibited and interfere with our ability to make different choices.
Lucy brought her son Ethan into treatment because he was extremely anxious and put a lot of pressure on himself around school. He was only in the 3rd grade, but would spend hours perfecting his homework and worrying about his test scores. His school referred him for treatment when they became concerned with how obviously anxious he appeared in class, always focusing on his grades and being intolerant of any mistakes. Lucy herself was a high achieving executive in a large financial company. She did not understand initially why Ethan was putting so much pressure on himself. When asked about her own childhood, she spoke of an immense amount of pressure from her successful father to perform well in school (and life). Initially, she was protective of him. “My father made me successful. If he hadn’t pushed ms so much, I never would have achieved what I did in life. Sure, it upset me when he berated me for grades below a 95, but that’s how I learned to be successful…”
After some time, she began to recognize that she felt bad criticizing her father for his parenting. But in being afraid to criticize him, it also closed her off to taking a look at how that message was being transmitted to Ethan. Her style was more subtle; she did not berate him in the same way. But she was very focused on his grades and tests and for the most part, all of their time spent together was specifically around school. Lucy subconsciously felt that her father would love her most when she would make him proud with her academic achievements. When she was able to open up both how stressful it was, and her guilt over having those feelings, she could be more open to Ethan’s experience and recognize that unwittingly, she was putting all this pressure on him to be successful . Once she relaxed, Ethan became more relaxed as well and began to experience less anxiety in school.
When we are determined to do the opposite of our parents, we often go too far in the other direction. Finding the right balance can be challenging. Becoming aware of our biases and being more intentional in our parenting styles will help establish a middle ground. Samantha will have to spend time reassuring herself that even though she may occasionally be late, that does not automatically turn her into her mother. David may initially be afraid of being firm with his children, because he may fear he is too aggressive, but over time, he can recognize that he can be firm without being aggressive like his father. It’s not easy to change. Trying to act differently than the way we were raised it is easier said than done. Persistence and hard work in the form of self-reflection, partnering with your spouse, or seeking out therapeutic support can be ways to continue the cycle of growth and progress.