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Your Ever-Changing Relationship with Your
Child
One of these days, the moment you’ve hoped for
and dreaded is finally going to come. Your child is
going to move out. Some researchers have called
this the beginning of the “post parental
stage,” but I think that’s a mistake.
Yes, your child is leaving, but that doesn’t
mean you’re going to stop being a parent. In
fact, you’re just getting started on the
longest phase of your fathering experience.
You’re going to miss her, and it’ll
probably take you some time to adjust to your newly
empty nest (unless you’re in what Craig
Roberts and Kaye Zuengler call the
“quasi-postparental stage,” which is when
you’ve launched some but not all of your
children). It’ll also take you some time to
get used to your new relationship with your child
and with your partner. If you were a very hands-on,
involved dad up till now, it may be hard to adjust
to your child being gone. If you weren’t
around that much, having them leave home might be
even harder because it’s unlikely that
you’ll ever be able to develop that close a
relationship.
Overall, having your child leave home will be a
good thing for you. “With departure of the
offspring, fathers worry less about their
children’s welfare and their own
finances,” write Roberts and Zuengler.
“In most cases, both fathers and mothers
recognize the post parental period as a time of
relative freedom from worry and
responsibilities.” (Of course, this could be a
case of what you don’t know not worrying you.
Either way, it’s going to be a relief to not
to have to worry about so much so often
As in every other stage of your child’s
development, her struggle for independence is
central. But there’s a difference between
independence at this stage and independence at any
other stage. One of the biggest changes in your
relationship with your child is that the
relationship itself has gone from involuntary to
voluntary; as long as she was living under your
roof, your child had to live by your rules, and she
had to have contact with you, whether she wanted to
or not. Now she doesn’t. Interestingly, once
your child has successfully proven to herself that
she doesn’t need you, she may feel that
it’s safe to turn to you for advice again.
Asking when she was a teen would have been an
acknowledgment of her dependence on you. Now,
though, she can do it on her own terms.
“Until now, our parents have been the
producers, directors, and scriptwriters of our
lives while we’ve been the lowly actors, with
limited opportunity for improvisation,” writes
Roger Gould. Before, no matter what happened, she
could always come home and be dependent
again—eat your food, sleep in your house,
drive your car, use your Internet connection, and
so on. But now she’s on her own. Now she has
unlimited opportunity to improvise, and she has to
actually take care of herself. Sure, you’ll be
there to catch her if she really falls, but she
knows that it’s time to start taking
responsibility. And that can be one hell of a scary
thought.
Ideally, your relationship should gradually
evolve from a hierarchical, parent-child one to
something more adult. (But keep in mind that some
aspect of the parent-child dynamic won’t ever
change. No matter how much like peers you treat
each other, you’ll probably never take your
child out for a beer and talk about sex—and
you shouldn’t. It’s also going to be a
long time before she gives you as much help as you
give her.) Watching your child stretch her wings
and take her place in the world can be a
wonderfully rewarding thing. Developing a genuine
friendship with her and being open to learning
things from her can be even more wonderful, says
psychologist Mary Lamia.
Not everyone can do this, though. Some midlife
dads come down with what researchers Bryan Robinson
and Robert Barret call “post parental distress
syndrome.” Symptoms include an inability to
acknowledge that the parent-child relationship has
to change and feeling powerless and not needed in
the marriage—often because the breadwinner
role isn’t as important as it used to be.
“Husbands experiencing such discomfort
typically shift from alarm to anger and entreat
their wives and children to come back by promising
gifts,” write Robinson and Barret. “The
successful midlife father accepts his
children’s separateness and individuality but
maintains regular contact with them.”
Remember how you used to complain that your
teenager never lifted a finger around the house?
Well, you may end up eating those words once
she’s gone and you’re left with taking
out the garbage, making meals, cleaning the
bathrooms, washing dishes, running errands, and all
the other chores you never noticed that she was
doing. And finally, get ready for another shocker
when your child gets married. All of a sudden
you’ll find yourself bumped out of
closest-relative status, replaced by the
child’s spouse
©2007, Armin Brott
* * *
It's clear that most American children suffer
too much mother and too little father. - Gloria
Steinem
A
nationally recognized parenting expert, Armin Brott
is the author of Blueprint
for Men's Health: A guide to a health
lifestyle,
The
Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for
Dads-to-Be;
The
New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First
Year, A
Dad's Guide to the Toddler
Years, Throwaway
Dads, The
Single Father: A Dad's Guide to Parenting without a
Partner and Father for
Life. He has written on parenting and fatherhood
for the New York Times Magazine, The
Washington Post, Newsweek and dozens of
other periodicals. He also hosts “Positive
Parenting”, a nationally distributed, weekly
talk show, and lives with his family in Oakland,
California. Visit Armin at www.mrdad.com
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