Social Striving
Kids in their teens and early adulthood have a job which is exactly opposite what our jobs as parents are. As parents, we strive to teach our kids to become what we think we should all be, to give them our principals, to instill the mores of society on them so that they go out into the world as socialized human beings who can function well in society... and as parents, we want most to hold them to us, to protect them and shelter them. Their jobs as young adults are to become independant of us, and within themselves, they are torn emotionally... they want to be adults, to be free, to be independent, but to become so is a painful process, as it means leaving the shelter of the parents' love. If they recognise this longing to stay protected, they chastize themselves for it, and do their best to hide those feelings from themselves and others, thinking it makes them less adult.
This is why they are given the "anger of youth"... without it, they would perhaps find it so painful to become adults that it might be unbearable. So, when you and your child, are at odds with each other, try to remind yourself that he is just trying to do his "job", and that his harsh words are but a tool of human nature with which to accomplish this. And if you are able to acknowlege this to him, he might be able to "hear" you when you explain to him that you are simply trying to do your job, which is to parent him for as long as you can.
My own son, John, will be 29 years old tomorrow. He is a good person, but has always led with his emotions instead of with his head, and so has made some difficult decisions for himself in life. Emotions being emotions, they are subject to change, and so life decisions made emotionally are often regretted. I remind myself frequently that the best thing I can do for him is to allow him to cope with the consequences of his choices in life, as that is the only way our spirits grow... to connect action and consequence, and adjust ourselves accordingly.
I like the Serenity prayer used by AA, as it states what each of us need to understand to get through this life: Lord, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The Courage to change those things which I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.
The Wisdom to know the difference is the hardest part, but it is that wisdom which in time gives us serenity, because when we are able to know the difference, we do not waste emotional energy raging against those things which we cannot change, instead, we accept without resistance. It is our own emotional resistance to those things we are unable to change that causes us such unhappiness.
One of my sisters a few years ago was in a bad relationship, with a man she wanted very much to love and to be loved by. Sadly, her idealistic view of the relationship and of this man did not in any way touch the realistic, and so she knew she needed to leave this relationship, yet she hung on and hung on for a few years. During this time she was so angry she could barely stand herself. She asked me one day if I had any thoughts on why she was doing this, and I told her she was doing an adult version of the child who refuses to clean up his room.
She couldn't understand what I meant by this, and I told her to think about a child who is sent to his room, and told he cannot come out or do anything else until that room is clean. The child knows he can clean the room in an hour, and he knows that he would rather be lots of other places, doing lots of other things, but he still refuses to clean up his room. He whines, he pleads, he gets angry and kicks things around, he weeps in frustration... from the very beginning, he understood the inevitability of doing what he must... but he doesn't want to, and so he causes himself hours and hours of grief and hardship by refusing to "get on with it".
Some people live their entire life in this manner, raving and fighting against the inevitable instead of just getting on with it. These people are the ones who spend their entire lives looking for happiness, and never learning that it is within themselves, not a gift wrapped in pretty paper that life will someday hand to them.
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Grimloch
EmillyRB
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Patricia Reilly
Shan
