Obviously, I’m being facetious and this point system is a creation of my own imagination. Children do have every right to an expectation that they will be raised in a loving, warm, and accepting environment, but it does seem that we’ve all come to have very high expectations of parents. Parents will Monday-morning quarterback their own parenting, while children rarely dwell on how their words and behaviors may have injured their parents. And certainly, there are people who are very appreciative of the efforts their parents put into raising them and who don’t focus on every inept word or action with a scoreboard running. It is the temperament of the child, as much as the objective acts of parenting, that is crucial to any individual’s perceptions of how they were raised.
Do adult children who divorce their parents dwell on minor slights from their childhood? Probably not, but the mindset may persist that it is the parent’s role to oblige and to provide that unconditional positive regard we’ve come to value so highly.
No science here, just my observations and unproven theories. If you have thoughts about this, please do comment. I will also put up a post on our original Shrink Rap blog for those who’d rather comment there.
<[QM]>—Dinah Miller, M.D.
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You can also comment on Shrink Rap at http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/2012/01/when-adult-children-shun-their-parents.html.
Dr. Miller is the co-author of Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work, recently released by Johns Hopkins University Press.