2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Recently, I have often come across situations when an interesting adult working person turns out to be a "hostage" of good parents. In his 30s, and sometimes with a long tail over 40, this man or woman has already received a higher education, found a job, often achieved good financial independence, but they can only dream of independence and personal independence
Living with parents, constant control on their part, custody, calls, manipulation of poor health, this is not the whole list of reasons why these people until a fairly mature age do not ask themselves a question - Maybe it's time to start live your own life?
In family psychology, there is such a concept - "family life cycle." The family, like any living organism, undergoes qualitative changes throughout its existence, and psychologists did not leave these transformations unattended.
There are several classifications of the stages of the family's life cycle, each of which distinguishes a period when children grow up and must leave their father's house. This period is called differently: “children leave the family”, “family with adult children”, “children leave home”. The name of this stage in American psychologists sounds especially metaphorical for me - "the stage of an empty nest."
When a family is created, a priori, while still meeting, young people plan where they will live, what their house will be like, how they will spend the weekend, and necessarily how many children they will have.
Life is fleeting, the wedding flies by, and the very children appear. And life, as if adult and independent, begins to revolve around them. Taking into account their interests, to develop their capabilities, to improve their health, to create comfortable living conditions. And that's okay. And it's even great when children are taken care of.
But the time comes when children grow up and can start an independent life. During this period, parents take a test of strength - will they have the courage to let their children go, can they fully live their own lives, do they have their own interests, and not just children's circles, food for children, organization of the educational process for children.
If the family is complete and there is a dad, mom, a child, then will dad and mom have anything else in common, besides children (mutual friends, hobby for fishing, hiking, playing chess, etc.) Will they have something to talk about on a long winter evening when they were alone?
But most importantly, as my therapeutic practice shows, during this period an existential emptiness is exposed - questions from which one could escape in the bustle of childhood problems climb out and shout:
“Who are you really? What do you want? What are your desires and hobbies?"
And there are no answers. For many years I managed to live like a Mom, a Pope. And the interests of children, their hobbies, their desires to pull on themselves.
Therefore, when the time comes to release the grown chicks from the nest, Mom says:
I know that she is not your match …
I think that your move to another city is not reasonable …
You won't be able to rent an apartment, live with me …
I'm sick, don't leave me …
And the Pope echoes: You are not grateful … Mother devoted her whole life to you, and you …
How will this exam end?
In my opinion, the task of parents of adult children is to sow and germinate the notion that the doors of their father's house will always be open for them. A “prodigal” son or daughter, going into adulthood, will always have the opportunity to return to the source, lick his wounds and go to conquer his new heights. After all, the most important thing that we can give our children is wings and roots. And I want to shout to them: “Do not clip the wings to the children, let them fly. Organize your life in time so that it will not be excruciatingly painful when the nest becomes empty. But this is not always the case.
Otherwise, Children have to pass the test for courage. The earlier the better. For both parents and the "adult child", the period of transition to an independent life is due to an existential crisis and a crisis of relationships. Such an alluring and desired independence is impossible without separation, separation from the “willing” parents, breaking the previous so habitual predictable and so many years happy relationship. Crises are always difficult - you need to get out of the comfort zone, question the established way of life and act, act, act.
Feel how you want to change your life and go step by step towards your goal, realizing that this is your goal, that you need to go and no one (like mom, dad) will praise for this Independent Choice. Because the plans of such parents do not include self-sufficient and independent adults who were once their children. As in any business, strategy and tactics are needed here, as well as patience and endurance in order to be able to calmly withstand the attacks of the Pope like: "Are you crazy, go to the apartment!" and mothers: "He'll take advantage of you and leave you!" At the same time, when separating from parents, several more symptoms appear - ignorance of what I really want, inability to make decisions, uncertainty, indecision …
How would these people know themselves if they had to adjust their lives for more than 30 years to the wishes and to please their parents? Therefore, this is also an existential crisis - the time to search for the real oneself without parental tinsel.
Nothing is impossible, and the problem of independence, leaving the parental home, finding your own family is solved if you have the courage to start solving it. Naturally, changes do not happen in one day, I don’t have a magic wand, but with the support of a competent psychologist who will support parents during the period of attacks and criticism, and give an opportunity to hear their true desires, an independent adult life will become a reality.
Best regards and best wishes, Svetlana Ripka
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