Thomas and Nanci Kuykendall

>From: "Lisa Breger" <lisa@...>
I still get that same feeling of
>anxiety when I make a parenting choice I know my father will disagree with.
>Even though I am almost 37 years old, I have this innate desire to please
>him! I believe many adults never outgrow this.

I believe this has to do with the way so many of us are raised with total
parental control and living by their praise and approval. When everything
we do is subject to the whims of our parents' opinions and all our
activity, study, relationships, etc are monitored and directed by parents
or other adult authority figures for our first 18 years or more (especially
for those going to college on Mom or Dad's bill) how can we help but retain
that anxiety and fear over our choices being approved or vetoed by our
parents?

There is the old classic situation where we take our current mate home to
"Meet the Parents" for the first time (or the reverse, where we go to meet
theirs) and all the anxiety and desire for approval from them that
accompanies that. But in the end, you will marry or stay with whomever you
want, and basically become estranged from your parents if they do not
approve. That is one of those situations where you are forced to move away
from parental approval and make a life based on your own rules, thereby
becoming more healthy and independent. Many people never find the
emotional or psychological courage to break those ties that bind (in the
restrictive sense) and live their lives going along with the family
expectations, etc.

In my case, my parents heartily approve of my choice of mate (for the first
time in my life!) as I married a man I met at my dad's office, whom my
father had hired. On a side note: For a while it became rather difficult,
with coworkers (new hires) assuming he had gotten the job because his
father-in-law was the boss. When in reality he worked there, and we knew
each other, for more than 2 years before we became romantically involved.
In fact he was in the last stages of a failing marriage when he first began
to work there, and was divorced a year before we began to go to lunch
together, etc.

But I resent my parents' approval for the same reason I would resent their
disapproval: They make my accomplishments or failures their own. They
love to take credit for anything intelligent that I say or do as being a
direct result of their parenting skills (hah!) or education of me (Double
Ha!) By the same token, my mistakes or errors in judgement come out as
"Where did we go wrong?" from them, with all the guilt associated with
that. I am not allowed to own any of my own successes or failures, and as
such not recognized as a functioning human being on the same (or I like to
think - more sane) level as them.

Perhaps our children will be more sane, independent and emotionally whole
as a result of being allowed to have autonomy, more control of their own
lives and decisions, more control of their educations, etc. If we are
lucky, they will consult us in important decision making because they value
our input, and not because they need our approval. If we're REALLY lucky,
they'll take our opinions as what they are and make decisions based on all
the information they have available and their own feelings, not ours.

Nanci K.