Recently, my husband made me laugh so hard that I spit water out of my nose. This is one of HIS favorite things to do. For me, not so much because it hurts. Anyway, what made me laugh so hard was when my husband said he was going to “catch it” from his parents if our son wasn’t dressed nice enough for his own wedding. What caught me as funny was that I knew exactly what my husband was talking about and I have avoided “catching it” from my own parents. Did I mention that my husband and I are in our mid-50s?

My in-laws come from an era in which dressing nicely was a minimal expectation for good manners. Our son’s wedding suit not fitting properly or not being made well would be something that mattered to my in-laws and thus the catching it for my husband. I’ve found similar catch it moments from my parents around issues that they have found important and my generation less so. My husband and I had a good laugh that both of us still did our best to avoid catching it from our parents. And did I mention that we are in our mid-50s???

Yet, is catching it or the fear of catching it such a bad thing? Ultimately, I found my husband’s avoidance of catching it to be really sweet. He loves and respects his parents so much that their input matters to him. He wants to please them and show them that he has raised his own children to be decently dressed and polite members of society. He has nicely rolled the expectations of three generations into a shopping trip with our son and his fiancée in order to guarantee a minimum of catching it. Yet how special will the moment be when our son wears that suit as he walks down the aisle with his parents and grandparents gazing on him with love and pride?

I’ve prided myself in limiting my catch it moments with my own children, but maybe periodically indulging in catching them isn’t such a bad idea. They will know my values and then decide if they want to honor those values or not. I’m sure that all three of my independent-thinking children will honor some and not others. That’s how they will find their own way in life. Yet I hope some of mine and my husband’s values have been downloaded into our children as they enter society as our next generation. 

My newest goal for my young adult children is to choose some catch it moments to lay on them. I’m going to start with things like recycling, vaccines, and hand-written thank you notes and move on from there. Any that you would add?

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC