Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How Can You Learn About Healthy Relationships If You Grow Up With A Single Parent?

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How Can You Learn About Healthy Relationships If You Grow Up With A Single Parent? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

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  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the dr.
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  Psych mom show. Today, we are going to talk
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  about what do you learn from a single parent about
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  relationships. So I got this question and the
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  person grew up with a single parent and is reading my blog
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  listening, to my podcast and saying, okay, you say that
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  people model on their parents relationships in terms of what
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  they do in relationships. But what if I had a single mom?
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  And I've gotten this question, also in the form of If I am a
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  single parent and what are my children learning, then about
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  relationships from me, are they screwed?
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  Because they do not have a template.
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  So this podcast is intended to address both of those questions,
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  you know, together before that though, please do subscribe.
• 0:52
  My most recent subscriber episode was on when men want
• 0:56
  their wife to work and she won't particularly when they want her
• 1:00
  to go back to work. After having been a stay-at-home
• 1:02
  mom of small kids. Now, the kids are school age.
• 1:05
  Why will she not go back? Why does this happen?
• 1:09
  Why is he communicating even truly what he wants?
• 1:13
  Why made she not want to go back?
• 1:15
  There's a lot of different reasons for that.
• 1:18
  And I do see this sometimes when men are very anxious about money
• 1:23
  or as I discussed, there are other reasons and this becomes a
• 1:27
  central fight in the marriage, so definitely subscribe for
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  that. And 125 other subscriber
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  episodes which Has like many many hours that you will not
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  get, if you only have the free episodes.
• 1:40
  All right, so turning to today's topic, so I have talked about
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  this very briefly as it relates to, you know, all of my topics
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  about what do you learn from your parents marriage?
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  And I talked about single parents.
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  The main thing about single parents is the kid knows that
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  they don't have a template. They know that already because
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  they have a single parent, they're not stupid.
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  So, you know, it's kind of like a situation where I see this,
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  Lot, honestly, when children are children of immigrants, right?
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  So, they're the first generation American and their parents do
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  not know about American culture. So there there are a lot of
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  things that this child has to learn on their own.
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  Their parents still has an accent.
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  Their parent knows more about the old country, and they are
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  expected to be the one to figure out everything themselves about,
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  what to do, what not to do culturally as an American, you
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  know. And I also see This when people
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  are the first to go to college in their family, like they are
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  now the one who's going to have a different sort of career
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  trajectory, they did not have any priming for this at all, and
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  that's very obvious. So, when you have a single
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  parent it's quite obvious that you don't have a template for a
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  relationship. So thus, you know, you have to
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  figure it out yourself. This is much better than being
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  in an unhappy marriage that that that gives you a bad template.
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  This is an absence of a template so people can Look at their
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  friend's parents, they can't. So, the children of single
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  parents can look at the, the moms, like sister.
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  So their aunt and uncle who are happily married.
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  They could say, okay, this is what it would be like, to be
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  married, they can look at their friends parents when they visit
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  houses, when they get older, they can do reading about
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  relationships. Yeah.
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  This is a new frontier, but at least they fucking know, right?
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  That it's the new frontier as, as opposed to the me.
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  Myriad people who end up in counseling saying?
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  Yeah, my parents had a good marriage.
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  He, I want to replicate it and then we go deeper and they're
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  like, yeah. I mean, I guess they never
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  touched. Yeah.
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  I mean, sure. Sometimes mom would give Dad the
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  silent treatment, I think the longest was two weeks, but, you
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  know, people get mad. Yeah, you know, Dad did throw
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  things at the wall when he was upset, but Mom swept it up,
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  like, yeah. I don't think it was a problem
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  and then like they're like progressively learning that this
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  sort of marriage that they saw. Growing up was quite
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  dysfunctional. They had never really thought
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  about it before because they had adaptively as a child.
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  Tried to push the awareness beneath the surface that their
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  parents were very unhappy and that they were stressed out all
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  the time, you know? Because that's adaptive no kid
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  wants to focus on that and, you know, the parents were saving
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  face and they you know, they're not bad people.
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  Like nobody very, very few parents in a previous generation
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  would say to a child, you know, No, like Dad and I are not in a
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  very functional marriage. So we're going to couples
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  counseling. First of all people did not use
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  the word functional, you know, at all.
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  And most people really didn't tell their kids anything because
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  they thought it's not the kids business and they thought that
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  the kid understands what's going on in a way that a kid really
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  doesn't. And in fact, the worst case of
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  fenders confided deeply about their troubled, marriage to
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  their children, which is certainly worse.
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  You know, so, psychological mindedness was not a thing in
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  Prior Generations. The way that it is now.
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  You always have to account for that when you're deciding,
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  whether to a stranger cell from your parent or what-have-you
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  like she was very different, it's a totally different
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  culture, you know? I mean it's like expecting
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  parents to have parented in the way that we parent now then, you
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  know, you can't like there's no, there would be no ability to do
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  that, just like they didn't go on their smartphones because
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  they didn't have smartphones. So anyway, that's an aside.
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  But the thing is, when you grow up with dysfunctional parents so
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  then, You say okay, well, I'm in the situation where my mother
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  was always telling me what an asshole, my father wasn't never
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  marry anybody like him, but then I screwed the pooch here because
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  all I did was date alcoholics. So what the hell is wrong with
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  me? You know, it's nothing's wrong
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  with you. How would, you know how not to
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  be an alcoholic? All of her, bitching and
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  moaning? She was still married to an
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  alcoholic and was codependent with it.
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  So you had that template that template burrowed itself into
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  your subconscious. And that is what is familiar to
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  you, right? So then you say, well, there's
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  It'd be something familiar then about being a, in a single
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  parent household. Yes, there is.
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  And the thing that I do find is that children of single parents
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  that and I'm told by single parents that don't remarry
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  because once a single parent remarries, then you have that
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  template. So there's a lot of people in
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  therapy who are like, yeah, my parents marriage was garbage.
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  But eventually, my mother remarried.
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  My stepdad. He's a good guy and you know,
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  she was happy from that point on and that was a nice relationship
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  that I saw. All right, great.
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  What in the situation where the person?
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  I did a recent podcast about this people that don't want to
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  remarry. So it's kind of it's not that
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  hard to remarry, you know, so like there's there's a, there's
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  a cover for every pot so people that choose not to remarry for
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  their entire life are likely a subset of people that are
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  avoidant attachment, right? So, then, it's not about a
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  single-parent household, it's about being raised by an
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  avoidant attachment spouse, but you're still ahead of the game
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  because you can, Up on that more because they didn't remarry.
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  So let's say that your mother is avoidant attachment and she
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  doesn't remarry, then it's easier to see that she is.
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  This type of like super pathological / function or that
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  is hyper reliant on herself and doesn't want to rely on anybody,
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  then it would be to see that same avoidant mother if she was
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  married, you know, if she was married you wouldn't easily say
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  alright, this is what my mother struggles with because she's
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  married like everybody else. Who is he?
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  Order to see it, right? But yet there's just as many
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  avoidant, attachment people that are married a single, there's
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  more because there's more married people.
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  Right? So so again, the single the, the
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  single parent kid does better than the dysfunctional marriage
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  kid, of course, now there's real-world variables such as the
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  single parent may have much less income resources, more stress,
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  Etc. So that will impact the child,
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  but we're primarily in. We're only in this.
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  Discussing one variable which is the single parent aspect of it.
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  It's unrealistic but it's in the absence of the income that, you
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  know, decrement and being more stressed etcetera, Etc.
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  So I guess if you have to picture something and this is a
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  common scenario, you're picturing the single mom that is
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  supported supported emotionally and sometimes helped financially
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  by her. P extended family.
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  Now I see this one a lot so so this is the best case scenario
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  so this is almost like as though, we're running an
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  experiment, we got rid of every confounding variable except
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  having a partner, you know, except the mother being married.
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  So what we're picturing is like three scenarios where picturing
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  the single mother ensconced in a relatively functional family of
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  origin, that lives nearby and helps her out.
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  Child. So she said, she is not an
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  extreme poverty. She may work full time, but the
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  kid goes to his grandparents in that time, etc, etc.
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  And we're comparing that to two situations either.
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  This same woman remaining happily married and having all
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  the same variables around but also happily married to her
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  husband or an unhappy marriage. So this single mother in this
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  situation is going to do better than the unhappy marriage and
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  the children are going to understand.
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  I do not have a template, but I do have Of course, my my
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  grandparents maybe my aunts and uncles maybe but either way I'm
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  kind of Flying Blind and I Know It versus the one in the unhappy
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  marriage who kind of doesn't know that they're learning bad
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  ways and dysfunctional ways to interact because it just seeps
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  into the air and that's like their only way of knowing what's
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  going on and how to be in a relationship isn't dysfunctional
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  ways. And of course, the best case
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  scenario is that happily married parents and the template that
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  they give, but that's not an option.
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  Any more on the single parent scenarios, there's no option for
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  the happy marriage, that didn't happen.
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  So unless the woman remarries, if she remarries and we're doing
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  better. But again, there's some
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  real-world variables of blended family, stress, and The
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  Stepfather potentially being an asshole, right?
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  So that's going to potentially be very bad for the kit.
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  So, you know, there's a lot of real-world things.
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  My point is this don't get upset.
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  If your child is growing up in a single-parent household or if
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  you did because it's better, its long as it's a happy single
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  parent, which yet again, is, is harder with you.
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  No money problems, etc. Etc.
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  But assuming that, that's accounted for, in some way, the
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  child, at least it's more like a child of an immigrant that is
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  trying to be an American. So this is a child of a single
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  parent that is trying to be one day.
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  Happily married. It's going to take more effort,
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  but at least you know, where you're starting out and that you
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  have to give it more effort versus the child from a
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  dysfunctional, family of origin. That doesn't really even have.
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  Has a bad template instead of no template.
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  So back to the avoidant attachment.
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  So you say, but there must be some template and the effect
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  that I do see, is that children of classic avoidant attachment
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  single parents, who do not remarry because they prefer to
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  be alone and do not want to rely on anybody else and really in
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  embroil themselves in any sort of emotional, you know, drama
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  with anybody which is how they perceive it.
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  Being avoidant attachment, those people do tend to be more More
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  avoidant, in their template. So when they grow up and they
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  try to get married and they get married, they know that they can
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  be on their room, they know that.
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  So that's what I think accounts for relatedly.
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  The the fact that Children of Divorce or more likely to get
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  divorced is the not that there are more likely to be unhappy,
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  they just know. They can get divorced, they saw
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  parents, get divorced, they know it's an option, they know,
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  nobody dies, you know, they know it's a possibility, culturally
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  and their family, Etc. So they're more likely to get
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  divorced. When they're unhappy, but so
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  sink. So, the same thing, if you grew
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  up with a single parent, then, you know, you know, that you can
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  do things on your own. So you could do things on your
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  own in a very macro level. Such as if you get divorce,
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  you're not going to be a scared of that but also on a
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  micro-level day-to-day, you saw one parent doing everything.
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  So, you know that it really takes one adult to parent
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  children and to be in a household.
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  So you're not going to, you're going to have to really work on
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  being interdependent with your spouse.
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  Because in a very real visceral level, you know, you're not like
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  you do not need your spouse. So while you're young and in
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  love in the honeymoon stage you may feel like you need your
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  spouse but when that drunken and love feeling wears off a few
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  years and after children then you may really go back to saying
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  well you know like what is this person really adding to my life
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  here because basically, I know that, you know, I could do this
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  on my own so that That is something.
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  But then, again, many people do recognize that one quicker than
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  adult children of dysfunctional. Families.
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  Because a woman, like people say it when they come in, you know,
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  there's a woman, I'll be like, I had a single mom, you know?
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  And so now, when my husband is between jobs and laying around,
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  on the couch, I think I could do this shit easier without him
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  which, you know, is not a bad thing to think.
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  Like, in that scenario, it gets bad when she's like, you know,
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  I'm a child of a single mom. Mom.
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  So, you know, I know that I could do things on my own, my
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  husband is getting on my nerves. So sometimes I think, you know,
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  I don't have to listen to this irritating.
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  Fuck. You know I could just do my own
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  thing, right? So in those cases that you have
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  to say well you know like let's really look at how you grew up
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  you didn't ever see a mother listening to somebody's story
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  about work that was boring, you know like if you did then you
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  would be like oh this is just what people do in marriages so
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  yeah he's going to be irritating sometimes but you See that.
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  So it was hard for you to kind of roll with the punches of the
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  ups and downs and the monotony of daily life.
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  And you know, sacrifice things that you don't like for things
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  that you do, like, and etc, etc. So there is an impact, but
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  generally people have more awareness, and you also have to
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  think about all the other variables.
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  So now, at the end here of the episode, I say really, there is
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  no perfect experiment where the single Giants have it as easy as
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  parents and dual parent homes that just isn't real.
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  So they do have less money. They do have more stress even
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  even in a best-case scenario, you know, it's still one parent
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  doing everything instead of being able to split it across to
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  so you know there are probably a lot of things that you didn't
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  get as a kid that you a lot of struggles.
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  A lot of feeling like you didn't fit in you know so these things
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  can be worked on in individual therapy.
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  You know, it's a particularly I see four boys when the father
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  completely left, you know, and just wasn't that they never saw
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  the father. Again, this is not good for
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  girls either, right? But but in particular for boys,
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  that then saw the other kid, the other boys dad's playing catch
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  with them etcetera. It's hard, it's harder.
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  So you know it it's that's something to think about.
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  If you're a boy a man listening to this that was in that
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  situation undoubtedly therapy. Might you know?
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  Would be helpful because it leads to tremendous self-esteem
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  issues. And if you're a woman in that
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  situation, it likely, makes you think that men always leave and
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  can't be trusted. There's also a variable of the
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  fact that another one actually to be thought about, is that the
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  single parents philosophy is the only philosophy that you learn
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  where as in many other households dual parent
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  household, you learn to philosophies.
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  So, that's another thing is that, especially if there's an
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  only child or the oldest child of a single, They take on the
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  single parents, philosophy, tremendously, because they can
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  be very in meshed. And there could be like a
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  surrogate spouse thing going on. Where like the kid becomes the
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  partner. The single parents are gets past
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  now all this stuff can happen in a two-parent household to but
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  when it's one single parent and one kid or the oldest kid, then
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  this can become a very, very overly close relationship where
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  the child is really not allowed to individuate because they feel
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  so bad. Ad for the parent.
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  And also the parent is the only game in town, so they don't have
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  a competing life philosophy. So like if the single parent is
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  very, very anxious, let's say that the mother, the single
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  mother had been raped, right? So she she scared of men.
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  Well, if she's got only one daughter, she is going to teach
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  that daughter. Be scared of men, nine times out
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  of ten, right? So and there's no competing
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  narrative there. May be from extended family
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  friends, Etc but nothing is going to match the intensity of
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  Narrative given by the single parent to the single child and
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  it doesn't have to only be an only child, but that would be
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  the most, and meshed possible relationship where it would kind
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  of be almost shocking. If the girl did not pick up on
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  her, mother's narrative in that sense, right?
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  Or if it was an only son, then those the people learn those
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  boys, learn. I have to be like, the biggest
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  gentlemen, I have to be so kind, I have to be the nicest person
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  to women. I can never think about Sex
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  ever. I don't want to be like this
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  monster that destroyed mom's life, right?
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  So so either way when there is a single parent and this happens
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  also in dual parent households but it's not as frequent because
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  there was some sort of competing narrative, even if the stronger
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  personality and the couple does set the frame for how the family
• 17:52
  is supposed to. Think about certain issues,
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  there is at least another human being.
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  That is an adult. So you know, there are different
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  ways hopefully to think about things, some issues, at least
• 18:01
  for some for the kids. All right.
• 18:03
  Well hopefully this was useful. Useful and address some of the
• 18:06
  some of the questions that that you guys had about the single
• 18:10
  parent impact on the child in the area particularly of later
• 18:15
  intimate relationship functioning and please do
• 18:18
  subscribe, join my Facebook group 2 and I'll talk to you
• 18:20
  soon.