Is there anything worse or harder to reconcile than a squabble between an aging parent and a grown child? I remember spending more time than anyone should have trying to bring an old grouch and his son back to at least a tolerance level that would allow the son to give the care his father needed. There was no chance for a real reconciliation and a story book ending. Story book endings really only happen in books and those insufferable emails I am suppose to forward to ten people or my head will fall off. In real life, when problems have been building since the child was in college, toleration level is a great accomplishment. 

This case, which is one of several that I have been called to mediate, was the result of several missteps in the building of a long term relationship with a parent.

The first misstep was the father never stopped parenting. As I often say in these posts, the hardest part of being a parent is knowing when and how to stop being one. There comes a time when we must sit down and shut up. That time comes much earlier than most of us are willing to admit or accept. When a child graduates from high school or reaches the age when that is supposed to happen is a mighty good time for us parents to begin backing away. Any parenting or pressure we create beyond that will probably be ignored and will certainly be resented.

As they grow older our efforts to control them get more and more dependent on our ability to make them feel guilty. Ultimately they will react to the constant pressure of guilt and we become frustrated, often bitter, and always lonely old parents constantly complaining about how our children neglect us and don’t care whether we live or die.

At some point the father in my story could not accept the lifestyle of the son. His wife and his friends pressured him into a state of reluctant acquiescence and tolerance, but he really could not hide his deeply hidden disapproval. The son’s lifestyle became the elephant in the room everyone tried to ignore and no one talked about. Of course, the son felt like he never met his father’s expectations for him and that he had never had his father’s blessing.

They worked out a level of tolerance that was maintained primarily at the insistence of the mother. Then the mother died. All of the pent up anger and the anger that comes with grief overwhelmed the father and he grew more and more bitter at the son. 

He would spend hours telling me every slight that showed his son did not care. He ranted about his son never spending time in the home. Each visit had been timed and remembered. I got a full re-hashing of each one of them at our every meeting. Then they had a rather horrible phone fight and neither were willing to reconcile.

Asking questions helped break through the bitterness and rage. He was primed to rebut any advice or counsel that any offered. The questions seemed to stun him into seeing the other side of the issue.

I asked him if he was willing to lose his son. I determined long ago that I was not going to lose one of my children. No matter what I had to accept nor what it took, I wasn’t going to lose a child. We seem to think there is no way that will happen, but it happens all the time. Families tear apart and seem to be surprised when a child just goes away into estrangement. This becomes the first question we really need to ask.

Then I asked him why everything his son did seemed to piss him off. At first he protested but I simply said, ”Okay, name me one positive thing you have said about him in all or our conversations. He said he had no idea he was that negative. Griping and complaining can become such a habit that we no longer even notice when we are doing it. Sometimes we need to be jarred awake.

Then I asked him why his son was not comfortable being around him or in the house. It is one thing to notice how seldom the son came to see him and how brief were the visits, and another thing to stop and ask why. Maybe there is more there than just a neglectful and too busy son. Maybe the son does not come because there is no way to be comfortable in a house full of rejection and judgment even if neither are expressed.

The real secret to long term communication between parent and child is for the parent to be as aware of their own faults as they are of their children’s. There are two sides to every issue. Seeing only one side never solves anything. 

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