Joshua Coleman inspired post on the give and take in relationships
Joshua Coleman recently wrote about how amends/apologies in most relationships have so much more give and take than that of the adult child who has chosen estrangement. In our other relationships we have the berth to talk things through, clarify things that are not understood on both parts, and apologize.
Maybe you may have found something similar. Our adult child often tells us we’re not sorry enough, or we know exactly what we did and the one of the most common notes for us: we’re not taking responsibility for what we did.
Coleman’s note that we’re missing what our kids are needing is accurate I believe. We are defensive. We might feel the level of estrangement chosen by our child is uncalled for. And frankly, depending on what the environment was like in our children’s childhood home we may very well have missed hundreds of times our kids reached out to us in need and they were met with misunderstanding or silence. Or worse, telling them to not feel the way they felt.
There’s a concept I read, and I don’t recall who wrote it, it might be Coleman, but it said when your child reaches out to you, take the ball they are throwing you. Listen to the ball topic, and talk about the ball topic only. If we can do that, we have the chance (and yes, it’s not a guarantee in these situations) that we can start to excavate what our child needs from us.
If we can step back from our own hurt and expectations, take that ball and take accountability for the ball being in our child’s life - no matter whether we feel the ball is wholly or partly our making - we might be able to move forward in conversations with our children. Even when we are so dug in we don’t think the ball had anything to do with us, by not taking the ball and focusing only on the ball we are doing our children a deep disservice.
There is no guarantee our child is ready to hear the sincerity of our “side of the street” as is were. The part of Coleman’s commentary on this, making amends, taking the ball…that I’m not convinced of is that conversations like this make things clearer.
These conversations can be helpful if both our child and us are committed to the conversation being one of vulnerability and honesty and out of our deep love for one another - like our non parent/child relationships often are. The problem is there is an immense amount of talking that needs to happen to get to the point our children can clearly say what the things are in their lives that have led them to choose estrangement and many of them are just done with us.
That may be why these estrangements can grow into years long absences of our adult children from us. That our children have their own healing to do, that they have not found their own way to see their own pain clearly enough for themselves, let alone express their anger toward us in any way except through raging toward us, calling us names and cutting us out of their lives speaks volumes to some immense missing pieces in communication.
There is also someone I read who said they started looking at everyone as just a hurt child inside a grown body, and wrote about it.. I appreciate that because as I learn and grow as someone learning about myself late in life, how can I not have compassion for the child I both created and hurt while I build love and care for the child inside me who was growing ever angrier through the Dark Decade, and so many years before?
If you have seen in your own life how different your experience in your family was than your parents or siblings you can be certain that was your children’s experience too. On another note Coleman makes, “parents are often surprised by how distorted the child’s memories are” - might not be accurate. Whatever our child’s memory is, is what their memory is. That may or may not change over time and we have to take them at their word because whatever their experience was is from the place of who they are as individuals. It’s why the truth that when you live in a family your experience will not be the same as another individual’s in that family is true.
The reason I am convinced of this is the fact of gradations of disclosure. By that I mean when someone is ready to divulge something to someone, they might test the waters a bit and talk about parts of, not the entire experience they had. This way they get a feel for how safe the other person is in holding their wound in a safe way. It in itself is a huge risk and can be something monumental for a person who experienced trauma and can lead to the people we want to trust, not trusting us because they see that partial divulgence as lies instead of a toe tip into finding out if there is trust.
Acknowledging our children’s grievances is crucial. Whether we agree completely or not, our children have their feelings, of grief, of loss, of neglect - we may even have some of them ourselves from our childhoods, toxic relationships or experiences of abuse. We want acknowledgement. Our children deserve that too.
It’s a minefield Coleman says and I agree. In a relationship many of us put on autopilot, we’re stunned to find adult children who expect us to treat them with respect the same way we expect to be treated with respect.
So our work is our work. Our own healing. Our own mental health. Our own physical health. To repair ourselves on the way to being able to repair the relationships with our children whom we love so very deeply. It can all be happening at the same time which of course makes things that much more complex. We humans are so damned complex.
We are meant to grow. Our children are meant to grow. We have the responsibility to be and become the best people we can, no matter if our children choose to end their estrangements from us or not. Life is not easy. This world is not easy. Expecting another human to simply honor or respect us because they are our child is a myth of parenting that is misleading. We were supposed to have grown into mature adults ourselves and many of us got sidelined. In my case it was not going out into the world on my own but imagining marriage was a requirement of me that was simply that, a requirement with no scope. And settling for a violent domestic abuser was part of what kept me stuck in the immaturity of my teenage self that got married too young, too inexperienced.
I try to look at other people the way I want to be seen. I’m a hurt person. I don’t want to hurt others. Anger is inside me. Grief is on me. Sadness envelopes me off and on. Joy comes over me. Pleasure comes and goes. I continue to walk in this world learning about myself, about you, about the people I meet, and when it’s possible with them - the pain my children have had in their lives. The pain I know about and the pain I don’t. What I have had a hand in is on me.
Thanks for reading, talk to you soon.