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Headlines
Independence
What is the prime, long-term goal of parenthood?
For your children not to need you anymore.
I know that sounds harsh, but this doesn’t mean that your children shouldn’t enjoy being with you, returning home with their own families for holidays and vacations. I did not mean that your grown children should avoid your company or be defiant. I simply said they should not “need” you. The goal of parenting is to raise independent adults who are happy in their work and happy in their relationships and contributing to their community. We want our children to be strong, able to stand of their own, solve their own problems, and have the resilience to overcome obstacles, heartbreak, and disappointments, for there is no life that goes untouched by these impediments.
Given the fact that infants begin their lives totally dependent upon their parents for everything, parenting is really a long, complex process of teaching and weaning. Because the parent-child relationship is formed in the caldron of intimate connectedness, the parent, along with the child, must go through the weaning, too. As we must wean our children from us, we must also wean ourselves from them. Parenting is a powerful and consuming role; it can be very hard to give up. To not be needed can feel lonely; a great purpose has been diminished.
A child's first steps are a memorable milestone for parents around the world. Moving from crawler to toddler is a dramatic time of growth and emerging self-reliance and independence. Parents welcome this transition with excitement, video cameras, and squeals of praise. Hours are spent with arms out-stretched, encouraging ever-longer distances to be traversed upright, accompanied by hand-holding, effusive congratulations and quick hands-under-the-armpits to right a fallen hero.
When gait stumbles, or the head hits the floor and tears flow, our natural response is a combination of comfort and encouragement, even insistence, to get back up and try again. We know that no one can do another person's walking; our children must stand on their own two feet.
I often wonder why this same attitude of encouraging autonomy can slip away when children become older and “standing on one's own feet" takes a more abstract perspective. Learning to walk is the process of adapting to the constraints of the reality of the physical world. If you want to get ahead, you'd better figure out how to walk. As youngsters grow, their realities become more complex and move beyond the simply physical. The expectations of schools and teachers are usually the first pressing demands a child confronts outside the family. “Standing on one's own" and "getting ahead" in this setting require the same development of self-reliance as walking does. And parents need to take the same attitude of encouragement and "back on your feet after a setback" as they did when they celebrated those first steps.
Often parents, with all good intentions and caring, run interference for their budding students, trying to shield them from the bumps and consequences that all aspects of growth hold in store. When we write a note to excuse a missed deadline because of a festive event, or call to "explain away" some negative or hurtful behavior, or to lay the blame for it at another's (undeserving) feet, we foster avoidance of the demands which face our youngsters. It's the equivalent of letting a fallen child lie on the floor, telling him he better not take any more steps because he might bump his head. Bumped heads and looming deadlines are part and parcel of life itself.
To face reality, and the jolts and punches it throws our way, is necessary in order to become a full-functioning adult. Like walking, social, academic, and psychological growth comes with a myriad of tips and tumbles. It is allowing our children, with our support and encouragement, to practice getting back up on their own feet, rather than "fixing" the problem for them, that will serve them well. We must be on guard not to put our children in wheelchairs of spirit and attitude. We must make them strong, so that they will not “need” us; so they can enjoy us, have fun with us, share their lives with us, but not rely on us for their direction and strength.
David M. Lowry, Ph. D.
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