Mutual Understanding

Found this essay very insightful being the parent of an adult child. Our relationship is evolving and it is yet to get to a point where we both derive joy and comfort from it. Why this has been such a long and arduous process has not always been clear to me, but there is merit to this idea from the essay:

“For most of history, family relationships were based on mutual obligations rather than on mutual understanding. Parents or children might reproach the other for failing to honor/acknowledge their duty, but the idea that a relative could be faulted for failing to honor/acknowledge one’s ‘identity’ would have been incomprehensible.”

I was very vocal and adamant that I did not want a relationship with J once she became an adult that was based on mutual obligation. It had to be much more than that to be real. This may have been a mirage that we are destined to chase to no end. I never considered estrangement as a way to facilitate personal growth, though I am somewhat estranged from a lot of my extended family 

Deciding which people to keep in or out of one’s life has become an important strategy to achieve that happiness. While there’s nothing especially modern about family conflict or a desire to feel insulated from it, conceptualizing the estrangement of a family member as an expression of personal growth as it is commonly done today is almost certainly new.

I like to imagine that being the parent of an adult child is like a second chance. If you got it mostly right the first time but made some notable mistakes, this is the time to get it right, use the wisdom of the years to help you get there. Time will tell this is true.