Recently, I posted a question on my business Facebook page asking, “If you could have lunch with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?” The answers were both heart-wrenching and heartwarming in that almost every person who responded said one of their parents and almost all of those parents were deceased. A few people mentioned famous people, one person said Jesus, but all the rest wanted to sit down with their parents and have a meal.
This post came just as I was really questioning my role as a parent. All three of my children are starting their adult lives. My oldest son is engaged to be married, my daughter is more than halfway through college, and my youngest has finished his first semester in college. They don’t need me for much these days, though they always seem happy to spend time with me when they are around. It can be easy to think that we aren’t important to our children as they grow up and have lives and families of their own, yet my Facebook post led me to think otherwise.
Parents matter and they matter throughout our lives, not just when we are children. #parenting #relationships #adulthood Click To TweetHow beautiful it was to see middle-aged adults longing for time with their parents. How meaningful those relationships must have been, and these adult children missed the love and support of their beloved parents. It was just the message that I needed to see. Maybe my children don’t need me daily or even weekly, but clearly children need and want a connection with their parents for their whole lives.
I try hard to balance connection with my children versus intrusion. I’m not sure that I always get it right, yet avoidance or withdrawal is clearly not the way to go. Even when I apparently annoy my children, they still seem to want to have me in their lives. Parents matter and they matter throughout our lives. If my kids tell me that I’m being a bit too intrusive, I might send them to that Facebook post. A little Jewish guilt never hurt anyone!
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC