Why some people get crazy when their children get married

In 1987, when my children were quite young (nine and fourteen), I had an idea for an article that I wanted to publish in an academic journal.  This was my first foray into academic writing.

Much to my amazement, my article was accepted.  I look back on what I wrote and I have no idea how I knew back then, what I seemed to have known.  Maybe it was channeled.

I was puzzling over a little noted developmental stage of adult life:  “marrying off children.”   Obviously my children were far from marriageable age, but I did have a front seat on my sister-in-law losing her mind as her son was planning a wedding with his fiancée.   And a good friend was in mourning when her son became engaged to a lovely, completely appropriate young woman, her only flaw being that she was not Jewish.

A client of mine became unaccountably depressed when her daughter became engaged after many years of living with her boyfriend, to a young man who both she and her husband admired and felt close to.  It was in trying to unpack this latter situation,  which was after all my job,  that I gained some insight into the red thread that ran through all these situations.

My client was in a profession wherein she kept thumping her head (hard) against the glass ceiling, which back in the 80’s was both thick and bumpy, particularly in her professional group.  She could rise to only an “associate” position in her chosen and beloved field.  She vacillated between rage at those in a position of power and feelings of inadequacy as she identified with the devaluation that was inherent in the failed attempts to advance in her field.

What became evident after several sessions of work on this issue was that her ambitions had been (somewhat unconsciously) shifted onto her eldest daughter, the one now engaged.  My client had four children, but it was onto this particular daughter that she had placed her hopes for soaring achievement.  Her daughter was very bright, ambitious, and in a profession where her talents could be appreciated.   Her parents had been able to provide her with the Ivy League education that they had been denied and the network of connections that easily flowed from that advantage would help her throughout her career.

What was hurting my client was the possibility that by marrying this particular man, her ambitions might come to naught.  The prospective groom intended to live with his bride outside of the country, far from the network of connections, and in a culture where a woman’s ambition was unlikely to blossom.  This did not worry the bride, she thought she could overcome those obstacles.  But it both worried and saddened my client, for bearing so many bruises from her own career made her exquisitely sensitive to the possibility, she thought probability, that her own narcissistic agenda was threatened.

The interesting thing about this agenda was that it was mostly outside her awareness.  She knew she had tremendous pride in her daughter and hoped for her future happiness and success as she did for all of her children,  sons and daughters.  What was outside awareness was how invested she was in this particular daughter succeeding where she felt she had failed.

I call this her “narcissistic agenda,”   but I do not mean to imply by this that my client was selfish, self involved and not loving or concerned for her daughter.  Just that her own identity,  her “self” needs you might call them,  were very tied in to the imagined future of this daughter.

Narcissism is part of the package of parenthood.  It comes with the layette.

First, a short exposition on “narcissism.”  Narcissism, self-love, is really key to human survival and healthy development.  It morphs over time, as we grow,  from believing ourselves to be the center of the world as young children,  to something maybe slightly less over-weaning, like being confident of our abilities, and having the instinct for self preservation.  Having a good relationship with our narcissism helps one navigate adult life.

I know a five year old who confides to me that he is “super-good” at soccer, running off to kick the ball to kingdom come.  He thinks he’s great, and this makes him happy, happy.

Over time he will probably come to evaluate his soccer skills in a more modest and balanced way.

Becoming a parent often gives us another stab at satisfying these wishes to be “super-good,” for we do become the center of our young children’s universe and for a substantial period of time, we get to vicariously enjoy their triumphs, their achievements, their incredibly rapid development.  The besotted-ness that is the norm for young parents absolutely in love with their offspring, could be viewed as a very benign form of  narcissism,  the child as an extension of self.

This is mostly good.  It facilitates the kind of adoration that young children need to grow.  It is fertilizer, sunshine, and water.

That’s the good stuff.

The bad stuff comes in when they are just themselves, not us, not an extension of us.  Inevitably they will frustrate our expectations, the ones we are aware of and the ones outside of our awareness.  It is inevitable.   I repeat, this deflation of our narcissistic  agenda is inevitable.  This happens in small ways,  they don’t make the team whether its softball or the debating team,  and later it will happen in larger ways:  their career choices, their choice of a mate, where they choose to live,  how they choose to live.

So, “marrying off children” brings with it a host of challenges.  We can imagine the shape of the future for our children, they are making a choice that is fraught with consequence, where they will live, how likely they will be culturally or religiously like us, who will be in our extended family in the future,  even what our grandchildren will look like (perhaps), or even if there will be grandchildren.  It is a significant challenge to that narcissistic agenda, the one we may not even know about.

This is a moment in which we may feel enormous loss, depression, deflation.  We are challenged on so many fronts,  but a significant one involves having to face something of which we may not have been aware:  the secret plan we never knew we had for these later chapters in our life. 

Plans need to be revised, we may need to re-balance,  re-write that agenda.

We may need to pause and acknowledge the upheaval and pain that this is all causing us, and, just for a bit, be kinder to ourselves and trust that in time we will re-write our agenda.

My sister-in-law found her mind, and even though she has not come to love the daughter-in-law she came to accept her and even welcome her.  My sister-in-law is resilient.

The friend who needed to mourn the Jewish daughter–in-law who would not be, has a wonderful relationship with her daughter in law, decades after the engagement. They have become close friends over the years.

And my client,  who I had the good luck to see again many years after the incident described above,  lived to see that her daughter was right: she flourished in her career despite the transplanting,  although the transplanting itself did become problematic over time.

Like all developmental stages:  “marrying off children”  is challenging, painful, and in the end, an opportunity for growth.

Parental Narcissism, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

You might think the  words “parent” and “narcissism” don’t seem to go together, right?

Actually, wrong.  

First a short dissertation on “narcissism.” Narcissism, self-love, is really key to human survival and healthy development. It morphs over time, as we grow, from believing ourselves to be the center of the world as young children, to something maybe slightly less over-weaning, like being confident of our abilities, and having the instinct for self preservation. Having a good relationship with our narcissism helps one navigate adult life.

I know a 4 year old who confides to me that he is “super-good” at soccer, running off to kick the ball to kingdom come. He thinks he’s great, and this makes him happy, happy.

Over time he will probably come to evaluate his soccer skills in a more modest and balanced way.

Becoming a parent often gives us another stab at satisfying these wishes, for we do become the center of our young children’s universe and for a substantial period of time, we get to vicariously enjoy their triumphs, their achievements, their incredibly rapid development. The besotted-ness that is the norm for young parents absolutely in love with their offspring could be viewed as a very benign form of narcissism, the child as an extension of self.

This is mostly good. It facilitates the kind of adoration that young children need to grow. It is fertilizer, sunshine, and water.

That’s the good stuff.

The bad stuff comes in when they are just themselves, not us, not an extension of us. Inevitably they will frustrate our expectations, the ones we are aware of and the ones outside of our awareness. This happens in small ways when they are small and in huge ways when they are not so small.

A digression: The Simpsons. As popular as this TV show is, I have probably seen a half dozen episodes in my lifetime. Strangely I saw the same one twice, as if it were calling to me! This featured Lisa, the saxophone playing sister and the blue haired mother. I was blown away by how very smart was the script. As I recall, Lisa had the blues. She felt unpopular and rejected at school. She was frankly depressed. Marge, the blue haired mom, had trouble with this and kept telling Lisa to cheer up, it wasn’t so bad, don’t be sad, etc., etc. This drove Lisa further into her depression.

One night the mother had a dream, I don’t remember the content. But the dream woke her up to the realization that Lisa’s doldrums were making her, Marge, feel inadequate and she was not really thinking of Lisa when she told her to cheer up and get over her bad feelings. Man, how often does that happen in our lives, that we filter our children’s problems through our own injured narcissism. We can’t stand their pain maybe for lots of reasons, but one may be that it makes us feel we have failed to do our job, it’s a reflection on us. Lisa ended up feeling alone.

Marge teaches us an important lesson about parental narcissism, one that the writer’s of The Simpsons think is important to reflect on. How often are we motivated when responding to our children difficulties with school, friends, sports, whatever, with our own injured self pride forgetting to try to get closer to their trouble, their pain, their felt experience. That can transform a problem for both parent and child.

What do you think?

Good parents/Bad feelings: The view from a child therapist

Guest post from Elana Benatar:  Elana is a family and child therapist at Virginia Frank Center in Chicago, IL.

Good parents DO have bad feelings, and those feelings need to be expressed and processed so that the child does not bear the brunt of it. When those feelings are kept in, and pushed to the realm of the unconscious – that’s when the child begins to take it on for themselves

My clients often come in wanting parenting advice. They want to know what is the right way, and what is the wrong way. They want books, articles, and concise Google search terms. Unfortunately, there is no cookbook for parenting.

Parenting is a dynamic process and there is no one right way of doing it. And parenting is not about being perfect, it is about being “good enough.” Part of being good enough is acknowledging that parents are people, with their own feelings, projections, and past experiences – and sometimes this makes for bad feelings about your kids.

I’ve learned from my clients that parenting is a mixed bag of emotions -- sometimes beautiful, loving, hopeful, blissful; other times utterly maddening. So when clients ask me for book recommendations – there is usually only one that I turn to: Parenting from the Inside Out, by Daniel Siegel. It is a practical guide helping parents tune into their own emotional state.

Siegel cites research studies that indicate that parents who have developed their own life narrative, even if it is a painful one, tend to have children with more secure attachment than parents who have no narrative. So often my clients are reluctant to look at themselves. They come in because their child has a problem – not them. It’s too painful. Turning towards their own painful childhoods, makes them feel vulnerable.

What can take years to tap into in therapy can be opened up in one second by a child. Young children are aces at tuning into their parents' issues and sore spots. They have spent most of their early lives in non-verbal communication with the caregiver – their survival literally depending on it. If a parent has a lot of unexpressed anger, you can bet their children will get that anger out, one way or another. The child can feel it there looming, and what is not said or expressed is often much scarier to a child than what is. Children learn from us how to handle emotions, When we can admit that we have angry, sad, frustrated feelings and model what to do with those feelings – they will learn how to handle their own range of affect.

The parent who unconsciously hates their child raises a child who becomes worthy of being hated. But when that same parent can stop and wonder – Why do I hate this child? Who hated me when I was a child? That is when there is an opening for change. And the wonderful thing about children is that development is in process, and change can happen quickly and dramatically. I will never tire of watching a parent and child, of varying ages and backgrounds, get past the unconscious projections and psychic pain and finally connect, fall in love, and attach.