A couple of days ago I called an old, dear friend of mine. She was in a funk. It turns out that her sixteen year-old (let’s call him Matt) has been acting out lately. He’s been “obnoxious”, “unreasonable”, and “mean”. He tells my friend (let’s call her Suzanne) – He tells Suzanne that he wants to go live with his father (let’s call him Henry). Suzanne has been more than a model mom over the years. She has been generous, sensitive, responsible – the kind of mom who bakes for the PTA fundraiser. The kind of mom who chooses to live on a farm far from the city so that her child can experience being in touch with nature. The kind of mom who home schools her child to help him through the tough years following divorce from Henry – and enjoyed doing it. Suzanne is brilliant, funny, unconventional in the deepest sense, sensitive, caring. So naturally, like any parent, she wonders where she went wrong.
Here is the answer in a nutshell: She didn’t.
We all seem to have amnesia when it comes to the teen years. We don’t remember the kind of cruel remarks we casually dropped to our parents – mothers in particular, I think, because they are less threatening than dads. We don’t remember how we plotted and schemed to break the rules in creative ways. We don’t remember our experimentation with the forbidden – cursing, smoking, drinking, drugs, and sex. Somehow or other, we must spend our time from the age of, oh, twenty-five to the age of forty, rewriting our histories.
We do remember that we were good students, good citizens of the world, idealistic, loyal, hard-working. And while all of that may even be true, we choose not to remember how we told our parents that they were hopelessly old-fashioned. We don’t remember how we questioned our parents’ motives, thinking that their rules were all a plot to squelch our happiness.We don’t remember how we practically jumped out of our skin trying to escape the family home. We don’t remember how we mocked our parents’ music, their values, their taste in clothes, their politics, even their religion. Maybe it has something to do with parenthood itself. I think if you have your own children, you feel obliged to forget your own sins. That way, you can look your child in the eye and say, “I NEVER DID THAT!” – and not crack up.
My friend Suzanne is one of my favorite people in the world. I admire her in every way. But, I’m sorry. When you look up the word “rebel” in the dictionary, there is a great big picture of Suzanne! She practically invented outrageousness. Her parents are gone, now, but I would love to have had the chance to interview them. I would love to have heard from them first-hand some of the shenanigans she put them through. It doesn’t make her any less wonderful in my eyes; just more of a human being.
It is our job between the ages of about 13 and 20 to differentiate from our parents. Boys must separate from Mom so that they can identify more with Dad and begin to evolve as men. Women, on the other hand, must separate from Mom so that they can define themselves as not Mom, and begin to evolve as women and seek out a partner other than Dear Old Dad. The stronger the attachment to Mom and Dad, the more wrenching the individuation process must be.
Matt is a very normal young man who is struggling with his independence. He has a formidable job, since his mom is such an incredible woman. I don’t envy Suzanne this stage in his development. No matter what I may say, it’s rough on her. But wait ten years or so. It will all be worth it when he comes to his senses. Then, it will be his turn to “forget”.