11:30 p.m. - 2003-04-18
Parenting with a twist
It was kind of an odd day communication wise.
My youngest son's friend's mother asked on Tuesday if the four of us could go out for lunch today. Sure why not? This is the mom who was sick for three months at the end of last year. We have often tried to find time to spend together with out success because of conflicting schedules. Her three children each made friends with my sons of the same age, while they were in school. We have similar values obviously. Lunch was very nice and an added bonus was the presence of her daughter and friend, both of whom just completed their first year of university. Conversation was mostly about academic issues of one sort or another.
M asked if I'd mind going to the video store with her after lunch while she picked out movies. Fair enough. I had explained on Tuesday that I didn't have a lot of time to spend this weekend because I need to try and finish my Elections Canada assignment and my Dad's taxes. However, I didn't think it would take too long and then I could get back to work. Not to be. M went through every row of movies and discussed the merits or otherwise of the movies she had already rented. It was interesting to hear her comments so that I could take them into consideration when I find the time to watch a movie though. Then she asked if I would have coffee with her at the local pizza parlour before we headed home. I was guessing she had something she wanted to discuss without our children present, so I said fine and mentally rearranged my work schedule to accommodate the lost time. Two hours later I finally got home.
M's issue was her daughter. She's having difficulty letting go, now that N is a young adult. I think what she needed was just someone to reflect with her. It's a difficult issue to address from my point of view without me feeling as though I am intruding where it isn't appropriate. There is definitely the generation gap at work in the renegotiation of their relationship. Complicating the issue is that M is a new Canadian from a very different cultural background. N was born and raised here. She sees herself as Canadian and, while loving her Mom and her heritage, wants to just be part of her own country and age group.
A number of studies have shown that the first generation born in Canada or who come here as young children, regardless of their cultural background, have a very difficult task in being the transition generation between the "old" culture of their parents and the "new" Canadian culture where they live in real time. N is a young woman whom any parent could feel proud to have as a daughter. Generous, thoughtful, very bright and pretty; she is a well rounded person. Her mom wants to maintain the "old" relationship pattern from her culture which requires the child to be answerable to and biddable by their parent until the parent dies. N tries hard to respect that as far as she can, but M is struggling to accept that she will have to compromise with N's needs to fit into Canadian society in a way that works in her own life as an adult or risk losing her daughter altogether.
Many times when I was volunteering in my sons' first year of classes, it was possible to see the seeds of the inner conflict beginning in the transition generation. The little ones would have one set of rules for behaviour that was expected at home and a second set of rules for behaviour that was expected in the classroom. Often there were significant conflicts between these sets of values and one could see the child feeling like a failure or a "bad" boy or girl because they didn't, at the ripe old age of five, have the skill or the latitude to negotiate a truce between home and school. Often they didn't understand that the problem had nothing to do with them at all; that it was the adults who had power in their home or school life who had failed to find common ground in the best interest of the child. Torn between two worlds,the gap usually grows greater as the child reaches their teen years. The opportunity to heal the rift arises when the young adult is mature enough to articulate their needs, but the parents sometimes can't see that they too must give up some of their expectations. I think M will find the balance eventually if she can quit being so hard on herself and therefore on her daughter. She has done a great job of parenting, but now she has to trust her daughter's judgement even when it conflicts with her own. Tough for all parents.
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