Friday, June 14, 2019

Disturbed relationships between parents and children. How full can you (still) enjoy your life?

It will be a coincidence again, but in less than a week's time, three different people (couples) told me harrowing stories about the disturbed relationships they got with their children. People from America, Germany and Belgium. So, from the western world. Bitterness had arisen and contact between children and parents was almost gone. In one situation contact was totally lost.

Unfortunately, these experiences are not new. In recent years I have heard stories like this much more often. Both from "the children" side as from "the parents" to name the two groups. And mind you, in some situations such as the sexual abuse of children, I can well understand that hatred has grown to the full and that it is no longer or very difficult to turn to something better.
In most situations, however, if you go into the situations and actually the sources of the present situation a little deeper, it is about almost nothing at all. And yes, it is true, everything you give attention grows. It makes you blind to all the good things there once were and you ruin not only your own life but also (consciously?) the life of the other. It is brilliant to just wave it 'easy' away, but that is just a clean (or rather dirty) appearance.

It is fairly easy to jump into anger and bitterness. Certainly in Western cultures. In most cases, family ties represent less and less because of individualization. Totally different if you compare that with the culture of Thailand, for example, where family value, above everything else, still takes the highest place. By the way, not something that always has to be decisive for me, but indeed a very large and valuable good.

Why it so often happens that a relationship between parents and children is disturbed at some point has in my experience everything to do with generation differences, different thinking, different norms and values, wishes and desires, expectations (expressed afterwards) about upbringing, communication possibilities (and difference in education about this between children and parents), the enormous influence of a partner with whom the children come home, disagreement on something with the other, and certainly also respect.

In all three stories I heard last week, "loosing face" plays a huge role. The parents keep on telling nice stories to the outside world how fantastic things are with them and sometimes even how proud they are of their children. "Nothing wrong”.
What they actually do with this behavior is to continuously poison themselves and make themselves sick. A kind of not true Facebook “happy family” showing selfie while everyone around them knows and feels that it is rattling on all sides and is just "fake."

Just those "small" harassment's as expressions of anger and bitterness. Not giving attention. Trying to avoid seeing and meeting each other. Not responding to emails. No message to your parents on Father's or Mother’s Day. No more visits to birthdays, let alone congratulations. Keeping grandchildren away. Focusing on and enlarging disagreements instead of respecting differences. Introducing very strict black-and-white rules and conditions for when there might be another meeting. Etc., etc .. Entering all kinds of unnatural behavior and puppet show.

Parents often see their children totally changed after their marriage and see sides of their daughter or son they hadn't thought possible. Bitterness ... and for what? What does it serve and solve?

There is a saying: “Bitterness is a poison that YOU drink, hoping to kill the other.” That we cling to anger and resentfulness of how someone has wronged us, how someone has hurt us, or those we love. So we hold on to the bitterness towards the other not realizing the cause and harm it does to us. Failing to see the odorless, colorless, venom we guzzle down. Robing us of fullness of life.

Anger is a natural part of being human. Anger is part of our humanity. The matter of concern is what we do with this anger. It is the anger that becomes a kind of spreading cancer. It is an anger like a fire that a person constantly feeds. Refusing to let die. Even when it is only embers, they stoke it desiring it never to be extinguished. That is not fullness of life.
It is so easy to slip into such a toxic one-sided relationship with those who have hurt us. 

The first step to abundance of life is to let it go. See it as a personal invitation. That’s forgiveness and the meaning of forgiveness is ‘give a new chance’. Something different than give a second chance only under your own conditions. It is changing your heart to draw the poisons of bitterness and anger from your wounds and protects you from regret afterwards.

And this does not mean that you, as a son or daughter, have to accept any kind of submission to your parents. Far from it. After all, it's all about mutual respect. Parents can often be and remain rather stubborn. It is an opening up to each other and sometimes even listening to each other without judging.

When I spoke to my Thai girlfriend about it, it made her sad. It is hard to understand all this from the Eastern culture she lives. A matter of respect. Your parents offered you your life.  You can almost always assume that they have done your upbringing with the best of intentions. Based on their own norms, values, background, possibilities, education and situation they were in at that time. The deeper underlying intention was not based on not giving you any opportunities or destroying you. It was to try the best. And yes, afterwards you can look at it differently with the insights of today.

Even in the so-called Wai, the Thai greeting with hands in the form of a lotus flower bud, the Thai raise their hands in front of them when they greet their parents. The thumbs under the nostrils. Your parents gave you the opportunity to breathe and thus enjoy this life. A form of respect.

I have often heard the story that people on the deathbed of their father or mother still just got that insight to accept differences in opinion. You don't have to hate each other because you disagree. On the other hand you may respect other choices because you have only held up your own mirror and have often been guided by influences of others. Differences in opinion make the world more colorful. After all, your side is only one. True for you but not the whole truths.

Don't be stupid, stop disturbing living the fullness of your life (and that of others). Do not wait any longer. Give up your stubbornness and bitterness. Never regret it.

We are all running out of time…


Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)
Captijn InsightCatalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.


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