Parents are
urged to be understanding towards their children these days so much that we
sometimes even fail to show our shock over what is wrong. When I was small, I
used a naughty word in the presence of my mother, and I still remember how she
plunged her fist into her chest and gasped, “Sweetie, when you say that it
stabs me like a knife, right here!” I don’t think the guilt I suffered over
that marked me – except for the sense of security I felt in knowing that a
grownup was not only taking responsibility for my sins, but bleeding over them,
as well.
When my
14-year-old broke up with her first summer boyfriend, I was so sympathetic that
I ruined half her fun in being a tragic character. When my second daughter went
through it, I knew better, and heartlessly told her, “there would be many more
boys in your life.” This threw her deeper into delicious despair and gave her
the pleasure of saying, “Oh, Mother, you just don’t understand!” The truth is,
children don’t want to be understood.
The worst
part about all this emphasis on understanding is the way it makes parents feel
guilty for every bit of friction, particularly during the high-school years, when
most youngsters feel misunderstood. The other day I said gently to my
17-year-old daughter Joan, “I hate to tell you, dear, but your slip is showing.
“Honestly, Mother,” she cried, “can’t you ever stop nagging?”
I have
given up grieving over the constant friction between the two of us. No matter
what I say these days, I can’t win, and I’ve finally discovered why. She wants
to feel persecuted at home because she is working up her courage to leave it.
Birds push
their young out of the nest, but humans work more subtly by giving them the
incentive to fly away. Perhaps by misunderstanding we’re being most
understanding.
Anyhow,
after everything is said and done, motherhood indeed is unknown territory, and
whatever the books may say, as Marni Jackson says, you have to go there and
experience it first hand.
