Kids' views vary in time
Sunday, May 11, 2008
By Meredith Moss
Staff Writer
Extras
Apparently I'm not alone
when I admit that as a child I didn't see my mother as a role model.
By the time I was a teenager, in fact, I had made up my mind not to become a stay-at-home mom, or an elementary school room mother or the PTA representative. I couldn't envision playing bridge with friends, being a hospital cheer cart lady or showing up to make tuna salad at the synagogue kitchen for community events.
I wanted something else.
Now I'm an adult, my mother is in her 80s, and she has definitely become my role model. I'm envious of her zest for life, her constant curiosity and her ability to make new friends of all ages. She ushers at every theater in Sarasota, Fla., keeps up on the latest news and films and sees a play more than once if she loves it.
Author Jane Isay says it's pretty normal to reassess our parental relationships at various stages of our lives. What better time than Mother's Day?
"During our early childhood years our mom is caregiver, nurturer and teacher," says Isay, author of "Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Adult Children and Parents." The book, published by Flying Dolphin Press, was recently released in paperback ($14).
By the time we become teenagers, Isay says, we are typically very judgmental about our moms.
"It's about identity formation, and it's part of growing up," Isay says. "Do we want to be like Mom or do we want to be different? Who exactly are we?"
It's common, she says, for daughters to want to do and be exactly the opposite of their mothers.
If a mother wears a lot of makeup, for example, her daughter will determine never to wear makeup. If Mom stays at home, the daughter will want to work. If Mom works, the daughter will want to be a stay-at-home mom.
For her book, Isay — a book editor for 40 years — interviewed people from ages 25 to 70.
The decade of the 20s, she observes, is particularly complex.
"I call it the 'Gotta Go' generation," Isay says. "People in their 20 are separating once and for all from their parents, but it's not so easy. So they'll call you, but when the conversation gets juicy, they'll say: 'Gotta Go!" And they may ask for advice but never take it."
As children grow into young adulthood, she says, mothers begin to tear their hair out. They want to take care of their children and make everything right.
"But this is the beginning of the rest of their lives, and parents can't always make everything right for their kids," says Isay, whose own children are now 38 and 42. "They have to watch their children make mistakes, watch their children have good fortune and bad. They can't stop the movie."
Our grown kids love us, she adds, even if they don't return our phone calls. A divide can be temporary if parents and kids both understand that sometimes there has to be a distance before there can be a closeness.
"The great issue parents have to face as their children grow older and that children have to face as they become adults, is that both generations are imperfect people trying to get through life," Isay says. "We have to give up idealizing one another, but we do that gradually."
Children are ready to give up those ideals because in their hearts they know their parents are just people, Isay believes. Parents must give up their dreams of what children "ought" to be.
"As parents give up power over their kids, and kids begin to take onto themselves the responsibilities of adulthood, they begin to see there's an equality between the generations —they begin to see parents as the flawed loving people they are.
"All anybody in the human race wants is a little love and acceptance."
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or
mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com.
