Are you thinking of starting a family? If so, look around as you go through each day. By watching yourself make decisions, you can learn what sort of a parent you will be and what sort of template you will provide for your kids’ future.
To find out what you will teach your children, cast your mind back in time to your own childhood. What kind of house did you live in as a kid? Were you in the city or in the country? Were the nearest neighbors ten or twenty feet away, or down the street, or miles off? Were you often alone, or were there other kids around? How often did you move? Did one of your parents (or both!) work at home, or did both leave every day for a job somewhere else? Did you eat meals together as a family, share household chores, and have fun together? Did you get together frequently with relatives? What was your family’s routine like? Chances are that your family’s lifestyle became, in your mind, the gold standard-if not the ideal for your children, then the benchmark for your efforts as a parent and the scenario that will always feel most familiar (and therefore comfortable) to you.
Ask yourself more questions. How old were you when you first got a room of your own? What were the rules (if any) about use of the television or the computer? How did your parents feel about your schoolwork? Were grades important to them? Were grownups available to give you help when you needed it? Did they show up for your games and performances? Did you feel fairly treated?
If you remember crises during your childhood-sickness, death, or financial problems, for example-how were they handled? Did family members support each other when there was trouble, or did they hunker down silently and go it alone? Did people apologize to each other? What did it mean to “behave”? Do your answers to these questions look like votes for or against your parents’ practices? No matter what your present values are, you have probably defined them by reference to the ones you grew up with. Make an inventory of your values as they stand today.
Childhood also teaches us about roles. Think about your dad. Did he live with you or somewhere else? Did your parents separate during your growing up years? Did your dad make time for you? Did he teach you skills-hunting, fishing, how to fix things, or something else-that you regarded as important? Did he listen when you talked? Was he fun to be with? Did he seem to enjoy being a dad, or did he retreat behind a newspaper or alcoholic drink after a hard day’s work, emerging only after you had gone to bed? What about your mom?
How did your dad treat your mom and vice versa? Did they openly hug and kiss, or were they cool and aloof with each other? What happened when they disagreed? Did they work things out? Did they lash out verbally or physically? Did they treat each other respectfully, or did they seem to resent and needle each other? How did they divide up the tasks of earning money, running the household, and raising children? Do you remember viewing them as loving partners? If not, how did they appear to you?
As children grow up, they distill from their family-of-origin experiences principles that they internalize. Dad becomes the prototype of man, father, and husband; mom, of woman, mother, and wife. Children who grew up without a mom or a dad may find it harder to step into some of these adult roles.
Very young children see their parents as gods-so much so that when parents disappoint them, very young children tend to blame themselves: “If I hadn’t messed up, my dad would have spent more time with me.” From a child’s point of view, the alternative explanations-that problems happen for no reason or that grownups, including parents, sometimes behave badly-are often unthinkable.
If you can remember how you felt as a child learning about your immediate environment and the world, you will probably also remember believing that your parents’ attitudes, opinions, and values were normal. In this way your family of origin gave you the yardstick that you would use for the rest of your life as you set goals, pursued relationships, and created a family of your own.
Because all of us are more comfortable with the familiar than with the unfamiliar, in adulthood we all look for people and experiences that ring true with our upbringing. From our earliest memories, we see ourselves (and indeed everything) in relation to something else, in some kind of context. Relationships mold our attitudes in areas ranging from body image to talents and abilities to character and virtues. Our primary relationships with parents and siblings set the stage for our outlook and strategies later on and have lots to do with our success as adults.
There’s nothing wrong with this scenario, of course. Indeed, much about it is good. Children, like the offspring of other animals, learn by watching their elders. How could it be otherwise? When you become a parent, you can capitalize on this process-and the example you set will have everything to do with the example that your parents set for you, which in turn will owe much to the example that their parents set for them, and so forth, extending back through the generations.
I should add a word of caution here. I am not advising you to become any more of a slave to your offspring than you already are. I don’t want you to neglect yourself or devote yourself 24/7 to riding herd on your children, nagging them about table manners, homework, chores, and peer relations. Actually I regard these things as secondary in importance.
The most important thing you can do is to show your children how to live in the world-not how to laugh or have fun (skills that come relatively easily for most of us) but how to do the tough stuff, such as cope with death, loss, crisis, anger, conflict, sadness, and adversity generally. Above all, your children need to see you taking good care of yourself no matter what happens.
I am asking the grownup parent you to see the guidance and discipline you give your children in a new light, namely in the context of your relationship with them. If you want your kids to mind you-to adopt your values and heed your directives-you will want to nurture the parent-child relationship in many different ways.
To see what knowledge and tools you bring to the job, check the database you compiled in childhood. Ask yourself these questions:
- What sort of example did your mom and dad set as parents and as partners?
- What values did they teach you to regard as important?
- What did they do that influenced your behavior the most?
- What is it like to remember your childhood? Was it a happy time in your life, or did you spend most of it feeling trapped and longing to escape?
Your memories will be the single most important resource on which you draw as a parent. Not only will they guide your choices, but they will inform the bond between you and your offspring, particularly as you seek to understand and empathize with your child’s feelings.