Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When You're More Comfortable In The Role Of Being Your Parents' Child Than Being An Adult/Partner

Transcript

When You're More Comfortable In The Role Of Being Your Parents' Child Than Being An Adult/Partner · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody and welcome to the Doctor Psych Mom Show.
• 0:09
  Today we are going to be talking about people who are more
• 0:12
  comfortable being their parents' child than they are being an
• 0:16
  adult or just a partner in general, and this is a common
• 0:22
  thing that I see in counseling. Before we get to that topic
• 0:27
  though, my most recent subscriber episode was Why I
• 0:30
  don't tell both partners to change in all of my posts and
• 0:33
  podcasts. So that one is interesting.
• 0:36
  I also have so many others, 130 something others, I think
• 0:43
  actually, you know, I always say that and I never know how many I
• 0:45
  have And should I look? No, I don't care.
• 0:51
  It's like 127 Nova, it's probably 130.
• 0:55
  So that's what we're going to go for anyway.
• 0:58
  So you should be joining. That's 899 a month for like
• 1:02
  untold hours. You could stay awake for like
• 1:04
  close to two days listening to my shit if you were a lunatic.
• 1:09
  Just the subscriber episodes, one after the other.
• 1:12
  So that's a lot of listening. So it's well worth the money.
• 1:15
  And if you don't want to pay for that but you want more content,
• 1:18
  you should join my Facebook group that is the blue subscribe
• 1:21
  button on the Doctor Psych Mom Facebook page.
• 1:23
  There are close to 400 people there more by the time you hear
• 1:27
  this. And it is smart, engaging people
• 1:29
  that interest me. And our discussions are
• 1:31
  interesting. And I have a pretty high bar for
• 1:33
  what's interesting because I hate small talk and nobody is an
• 1:36
  asshole because I got a question.
• 1:38
  Are the same people that are on the main Facebook page in the
• 1:40
  group the ones who are super argumentative?
• 1:43
  No. Even a tiny pay wall of 499 a
• 1:45
  month is enough to keep people out most of the time.
• 1:48
  And there's been a couple people I've thrown out because they've
• 1:50
  been assholes. So there's a lot more moderation
• 1:53
  in there than out on the main page.
• 1:55
  All right. Anyway, So what kind of
• 1:57
  parenting leads to a child who will not individuate as an
• 2:00
  adult? What does individuate mean?
• 2:02
  So let's let's just go back to basics.
• 2:04
  So when you are born, you are a baby and you're supposed to be
• 2:08
  very close to obviously independent on your parents and
• 2:13
  that as you get older, you know, you just gain more and more
• 2:16
  independence and you become your own person.
• 2:19
  That's the process of individuation.
• 2:22
  And when you're an adult, then you are really your own person.
• 2:25
  Fully, you can. It's not like you don't love
• 2:28
  your parents anymore. Of course you do.
• 2:29
  But you should be able to stand on your own 2 feet, physically,
• 2:33
  emotionally, You should be able to start relationships by the
• 2:38
  time you're a young adult, have a job, support yourself.
• 2:42
  Does that mean parents can still give their kids money?
• 2:45
  Of course not. Do what you want.
• 2:47
  But, you know, I mean it. There is certainly a difference
• 2:51
  in independence and basically confidence in somebody who can
• 2:57
  support themselves and be in relationships and have their own
• 3:01
  friends and drive a car or whatever the case may be.
• 3:04
  Whatever signifiers in that culture are the signifiers of
• 3:08
  being your own person. The more of those, the better
• 3:11
  really, in terms of developing healthy self concept as somebody
• 3:16
  who can rely on themselves and who is not still a child.
• 3:21
  Because being a child has many positives.
• 3:22
  But as you get to be an adult, it has many negatives as well,
• 3:26
  which include that you don't make your own decisions, you
• 3:28
  don't have confidence in yourself, you don't feel like
• 3:31
  you can really count on yourself.
• 3:34
  So we all know in, you know, our families or hopefully this isn't
• 3:39
  you. Maybe it is, maybe it's your
• 3:40
  spouse. That wouldn't be the two main
• 3:43
  sorts of people who would be interested in this podcast.
• 3:45
  As if this either reminds them of their spouse, what I'm about
• 3:47
  to say, or themselves. Somebody who is really still
• 3:51
  anxious about being out on their own in the world as an adult and
• 3:55
  really relies too much emotionally, sometimes
• 3:58
  physically or financially on their parents.
• 4:00
  And they often revert to somewhat of a childlike role
• 4:06
  around their parents and they defer to their parents.
• 4:09
  They ask their advice a lot. Like they they can't really make
• 4:12
  any decisions without running them by their parents and this
• 4:16
  can this isn't just in their like early 20s when they're just
• 4:19
  getting used to being out on their own.
• 4:20
  This goes on through the 30s, forties, 50s.
• 4:24
  I mean there's people who until their parents die, you know they
• 4:28
  they cannot make a decision without asking their parents and
• 4:31
  and that's that's tough. It's tough to live like that.
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  And it's really hard for their partners because their partners
• 4:38
  are often trying to start this life, You know, where we are two
• 4:42
  people who rely primarily on each other.
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  And that would be the healthier thing for a person as they get
• 4:48
  older and especially when they become a parent themselves, that
• 4:51
  they take on fully the role of adult and parent and partner,
• 4:56
  you know, to their spouse. And then the role of child to
• 4:59
  your parents becomes secondary. You know that fall calls in the
• 5:03
  priority list and you're really focusing on your own life.
• 5:08
  And of course you could see your parents and talk to your parents
• 5:10
  and whatever, But the dynamic does not generally for healthy
• 5:15
  people. The dynamic still is not that
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  you are a child when you're an adult.
• 5:20
  So what kind of parenting leads to children who find it hard to
• 5:24
  individuate and separate and become their own people?
• 5:27
  Well, parents that talk down to their kids that are always
• 5:30
  saying that they are smarter and that they know better.
• 5:35
  Like, I don't know if you've seen Succession, but you should
• 5:38
  see Succession. That's a really great show for
• 5:40
  Four Seasons. I watch it with my husband and
• 5:43
  I'm always scared to talk about shows on these until I'm fully
• 5:46
  done with them because I'm scared somebody will spoil the
• 5:48
  show for me. But this one I'm done with, so
• 5:50
  you know, anybody could talk to me about it.
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  And Logan Roy was always calling his kids idiots.
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  He was this big media giant and he had made his own business.
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  Classic self-made man. It's really interesting if
• 6:04
  you're self-made man to watch this self-made woman anything.
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  And he was just his kids could never get to where he was
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  because they were never going to be self-made.
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  You know, he was so wealthy and he set them up so fully and that
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  they could never really impress him because he had been the one
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  to build his empire. And no matter what they did,
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  they would not be starting from nothing like he did, you know
• 6:29
  and he's classic narcissist. And so parents who are very self
• 6:34
  absorbed and who are more narcissistic and they have their
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  story as this kind of either the scrappy underdog or the the
• 6:45
  self-made man. I have a podcast about when your
• 6:49
  dad acts more alpha than you and how that affects men.
• 6:53
  Just put the word alpha into the Spotify search engine for Dr.
• 6:57
  psych mom show and or when your father out alphas you I think
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  it's called and so when the parent is very self absorbed in
• 7:05
  this way their story is like they they have this main
• 7:09
  character energy, they're always the protagonist of the story and
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  they make the child feel stupid and feel inconsequential and so
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  then the child never really develops any confidence in their
• 7:21
  own decision making. They always assume that the
• 7:24
  parent is going to make a better decision.
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  The parents sometimes times outright tells them do not pick
• 7:28
  an apartment without me seeing it.
• 7:30
  Don't write an e-mail to your boss without me seeing it.
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  And how does this start with like the parent who intervenes
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  with teachers and counselors and and you know whoever and the
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  parent is always saying no, I need to look over your homework
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  before you submit it or I need to look at your project or it's
• 7:47
  better if we do the project together or don't worry about
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  that because I'll talk to the teacher about it.
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  Or you know like like whatever. The parent is always coming in
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  and not allowing the child to increasingly as they grow, take
• 8:00
  on more ownership for their own life and resolve their own
• 8:04
  problems. Instead the parent comes in.
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  Now the parent could either be happy to do this, so you know
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  they could be somebody whose whole life is really centered
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  around the child. You know it's they're too
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  involved and they're too over attached.
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  So that's called enmeshed. There's a good book about an
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  enmeshed mother daughter relationship, How to Love your
• 8:24
  daughter by HeLa Bloom. You should read that.
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  Or they could come into it like the Logan Roy character on
• 8:30
  Succession, who just thinks that they're so stupid the children
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  compared to him that he just has to deal with everything.
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  So it could be either a positive or a negative spin.
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  But either way, The upshot is the child doesn't learn to deal
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  with anything themselves. And so if you're thinking, well,
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  what am I supposed to do if my child has a problem in school?
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  Well, generally the child, especially as they get older,
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  later elementary years, middle school, definitely high school.
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  You would give your child a few passes.
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  You know of a few attempts to to resolve this themselves.
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  You know, whatever it is, whether it's a grade or that is
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  the issue or they didn't get into a class or they're having a
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  social issue or whatever. Generally we try to give the
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  child increasing responsibility to deal with their own life.
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  Because otherwise when they go off to college, they are going
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  to continue to call you for every tiny thing.
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  And while that may sound great, especially to people who do not
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  have much else going on in terms of their own, you know, marriage
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  being fulfilling or have, you know, their own, their own
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  interests really. So for parents who are primarily
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  focused on the child and who are, you know, more invested
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  than in in the child than possibly they should be.
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  What I call over focus on the child, that sounds great.
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  Oh, the kids going to call me all the time?
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  Cool. But you know that's not really
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  that great unless they're just calling you to shoot the shit.
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  If they're calling you constantly to tell them what to
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  do, then that's because they don't have the confidence to
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  just fuck around and find out what they should do, you know?
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  And then they never developed that skill of like making
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  mistakes like failing. There's a book, The Gift of
• 10:07
  Failure by Jessica Leahy that is about this, that if parents
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  don't give the child a room to fail, then the child does not
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  learn. They don't grow.
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  They need to have increasing independence as they grow up and
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  when they don't get that. So if you if you feel like this
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  resonates with you, that you have lack of confidence and
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  continually defer to your parents or your spouse.
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  If your spouse never really individuated in this way, it's
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  not just because they are too passive or they can't set
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  boundaries. It's also because from a very
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  young age, it was inculcated in them and they internalized the
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  idea that they just aren't as good at life as their parents.
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  And so their parents need to make all the decisions before
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  they irrevocably fuck something up, you know?
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  And so that's a really hard frame to break away from.
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  It's very hard to change that self concept as somebody who is
• 10:59
  kind of incompetent and thank God, has the parents around.
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  Because that's the feeling, that's that's how the parent
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  acts. Thank God you have me because
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  you're so stupid, you know? And and sometimes it's not so
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  stupid. Sometimes it's, you know, you
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  are, you know, you're brilliant, so you can't really, you know,
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  worry about little things like forms or like your Lun and
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  you're like cleaning up. I'll do all that stuff for you.
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  You just focus on your schoolwork because you're so
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  brilliant. So some people have that right?
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  Or some people are just so beautiful and the parent and so
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  charming and so social. And so the girl has this
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  wonderful social life and she's so cute and beautiful and the
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  father just takes care of everything else because that's
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  his Princess and she should only focus on having fun and going
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  out with her friends and whatever.
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  Now, does this come always from parents having bad intentions?
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  Oh, it almost never comes from parents having bad intentions,
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  not even in Logan, Roy. I mean, that got a little weird.
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  You know, there was a, you know, it was a TV show.
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  So everybody's intentions were always being examined and there
• 12:02
  was bad intentions and conspiracies, whatever.
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  But the point is nobody really, even including him, nobody gets
• 12:08
  up in the morning and says I'm going to really fuck with my kid
• 12:12
  today. You know what I'm really going
• 12:13
  to do is fuck with their self esteem and leave them 5% less
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  confident in themselves and their ability to be a human
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  being by the end of the day as they are right now.
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  Because I'm going to come in and make all these remarks and
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  whatever. Nobody's really trying.
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  People are trying to love their kids and live their life and for
• 12:29
  especially very busy, successful people, things seem like you
• 12:34
  have like not a lot of time in the day, you know, and that is
• 12:38
  another sort of parent that that leads to this.
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  So it doesn't always have to be somebody enmeshed with the kid.
• 12:44
  It doesn't always have to be this, you know, somebody
• 12:46
  self-made. I see it also just in very busy,
• 12:49
  successful people who have a very all-encompassing careers.
• 12:55
  And so for them they're like do I have the 10 minutes to tell my
• 12:59
  kid how to do the laundry or should I just do it slash have
• 13:03
  somebody else do it. So with enough those things
• 13:06
  happening, eventually you get to have a kid who doesn't know how
• 13:08
  to do anything because you didn't ever really take the time
• 13:11
  to show them how to do it. And the the time that you
• 13:15
  thought, Oh my God, what if they fuck something up and then I
• 13:18
  have to deal with it? What if they cook something?
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  They leave the kitchen a mess. I have to deal with it.
• 13:23
  So if you're very busy that dealing with it feels
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  intolerable to the point that you just do everything yourself
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  and also another sort of person that does not want to deal with
• 13:33
  things is somebody depressed or anxious.
• 13:37
  So for a so, so let's say that it's a stay at home mom and
• 13:40
  she's very depressed and overwhelmed, right.
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  So instead of allowing the five year old to help with cleaning
• 13:46
  up so that he could learn, oh, I help cleaning up, this is
• 13:49
  something I do. And then by the time he's a six
• 13:51
  year old, he's confident that he knows how to sweep up or
• 13:54
  whatever, she's like, Oh my God, he's gonna make the mess worse.
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  I can't deal with it. I don't even have one more nerve
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  left. I'm gonna scream at these kids
• 14:02
  if he fucks up. So I'm just gonna get him out of
• 14:04
  here, put him on the Xbox and then I'm gonna clean up the room
• 14:08
  because I cannot deal with it. So when people, when parents
• 14:11
  feel very tapped out and overwhelmed, they also do too
• 14:16
  much for their kids because they're scared of two things.
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  They're scared of the intensity of the engagement, having to sit
• 14:22
  there, make eye contact, teach them what to do that feels get
• 14:26
  deal with the questions about it.
• 14:28
  The whole teaching process feels overwhelming to somebody who's
• 14:31
  depressed or anxious. Also, sometimes people were
• 14:34
  raised by parents who never Most of the time, if you can't do
• 14:37
  this, you were raised by parents who couldn't do it.
• 14:38
  So you really have no idea how to teach anybody anything
• 14:40
  because you were never taught anything.
• 14:42
  And also, you know, they're scared of the noise days.
• 14:46
  Like, it's very, like, noisy, messy, like that becomes
• 14:50
  overwhelming to somebody who's highly sensitive and really
• 14:53
  anxious and depressed. It's it, you know, the idea of
• 14:56
  the child making the mess worse or all the clatter or the
• 14:59
  spilling. You know, it sounds silly to
• 15:02
  people who are not struggling with depression or anxiety, but
• 15:05
  the noise itself is something that many, many depressed and
• 15:08
  anxious women that are highly sensitive struggle with.
• 15:11
  To the point that I recommend earplugs to.
• 15:13
  Like almost every woman who comes in is like in the young
• 15:17
  mother stage, just fucking put in some earplugs or some air
• 15:20
  pods. You could still hear them
• 15:22
  anyway, but like literally it just takes it down a few
• 15:25
  decibels to the point that you can engage differently.
• 15:28
  But that's an aside. So the next point is what do you
• 15:32
  do if this resonates with you? Well, couples counseling can
• 15:35
  really help. A major thing that we do in
• 15:37
  couples counseling is we set boundaries with in laws, with
• 15:40
  parents and we help people develop their own identity as an
• 15:43
  independent couple. You know and and in individual
• 15:48
  therapy of course we would help the person develop their
• 15:50
  identity as an individual individual you know and from
• 15:53
  there they could become a good partner or parent or what have
• 15:56
  you. But understanding that it isn't,
• 15:58
  that you are a fuck up. It isn't that you're just like
• 16:01
  this incompetent loser like you may think or this person who
• 16:05
  never knows as well as your parents know what to do.
• 16:08
  It's You were trained to think that way, and that's the
• 16:11
  epiphany, is that you just were not given these growth moments.
• 16:17
  You were not given any opportunity to learn and grow
• 16:20
  and fuck up and then and then figure it out.
• 16:23
  Because you were always being coddled or protected from this,
• 16:27
  or kept away from failure by a parent for various reasons.
• 16:32
  None of which means they're a bad person, but all of which
• 16:36
  could have had the intended unintended effect of making you
• 16:40
  more dependent. And for some parents
• 16:42
  subconsciously against you, they're still not bad people,
• 16:45
  but subconsciously they do want you to be dependent because
• 16:48
  that's their whole reason for being alive is to be your
• 16:51
  parent. They don't have a lot of other
• 16:53
  stuff going on and this is something that they get off on
• 16:55
  is always knowing best and being the one that you come to and
• 17:00
  having this quote close relationship.
• 17:02
  And it's something they tell their friends about and like
• 17:05
  they get off on it, you know they.
• 17:06
  And again, does not mean they're a bad human being, but it may
• 17:10
  mean that they tend toward having an identity that is kind
• 17:14
  of at odds with your identity as a burgeoning adult and may
• 17:17
  sabotage your ability to feel self confident and to feel
• 17:20
  strong as a partner and as a parent.
• 17:23
  And it also precludes the development of a close marital
• 17:26
  bond, because you're basically married to your parent.
• 17:29
  If every time that you have a big decision to make, you ask
• 17:31
  your parent, you're supposed to be talking to your spouse.
• 17:34
  So there's a lot of people. And I have an article called
• 17:37
  When the Wife's Mother Unintentionally Boxes Her
• 17:40
  soninlaw Out of Parenting. And I see this a lot where like
• 17:44
  the wife's, the woman's mom basically becomes the husband
• 17:48
  and it's the two of them parenting the baby and the baby
• 17:51
  comes home from the hospital and they start right away, the two
• 17:53
  of them. And he never learns anything,
• 17:55
  the guy, because everybody can do it better and everybody says
• 17:58
  he's doing it wrong. That's called maternal
• 18:00
  gatekeeping. And you know, why do you never
• 18:02
  diapered a baby before in his life anyway?
• 18:04
  So he just increasingly, you know, he doesn't like the
• 18:07
  negative feedback. It's hard to do.
• 18:09
  They seem to have it covered. So it kind of pro this the the
• 18:13
  the over involvement of the woman's mother, which is with
• 18:17
  the best of intentions, can unintentionally make the man so
• 18:20
  much less confident as a dad. He misses a little bit of his
• 18:23
  window to bond with the baby. He never exactly learns how to
• 18:26
  do it. Then he gets criticized when he
• 18:27
  does it wrong. And it's kind of this bad scene
• 18:29
  that ends up with him taking a bunch of boys weekends during
• 18:32
  the baby's first year because nobody fucking needs him around
• 18:34
  anyway. And then later on, she perceives
• 18:37
  that he wasn't involved, but the situation was such that it would
• 18:41
  have been hard for him to be involved.
• 18:43
  And of course there's many men where it goes the opposite
• 18:45
  direction, where the wife's, the mother is, lives on the opposite
• 18:49
  coast, you know, or something. And she only flies in after six
• 18:52
  months because the her daughter's crying to her that
• 18:55
  the guy is still, you know, partying and drinking and
• 18:57
  whatever, gaming and acting like he doesn't have a baby and she
• 19:00
  really needs help. But she's depressed.
• 19:02
  So you know, that can also go the other direction that she's
• 19:05
  coming in to remediate a need, which would be a good thing for
• 19:08
  a mother to do, right. So if your child really needs
• 19:10
  you then you know you come but you know your child's got to try
• 19:15
  to figure it out themselves and or with their spouse in an ideal
• 19:19
  way and an ideal relationship. They would look to the spouse
• 19:23
  first, you know before before they look to the parent to be
• 19:28
  really you know in the place of a spouse.
• 19:31
  So anyway I hope that this gave you guys a lot to think about.
• 19:34
  It's certainly something that we work on in therapy both
• 19:36
  individual and couples. This is a lot of the core work
• 19:40
  of inside oriented psychotherapy is figuring out who you are in
• 19:44
  relation to your parents. How you were raised to think
• 19:47
  about yourself. The relation between yourself
• 19:49
  concept and you know your family of origin as well as are you
• 19:54
  being the parent that you want to be.
• 19:56
  Are you want intentionally replicating some of these
• 19:59
  dynamics of enmeshment? I mean.
• 20:01
  Are you unable to, you know, even have confidence with your
• 20:04
  own children so that they end up treating you kind of like your
• 20:07
  parents did, which is very common in my podcast, Stop
• 20:10
  letting your kids treat you like garbage.
• 20:12
  Frequently people are used to a parent that tells them what to
• 20:14
  do. That's the only role they know
• 20:16
  is to get told what to do. And so they basically create
• 20:19
  little monsters of their kids that tell them what to do
• 20:22
  because that's the role they're comfortable in, is being
• 20:24
  somebody's slave, you know? And that's not good for your
• 20:27
  kids either. All right, so this is a lot to
• 20:30
  think about. And if it's you, if you think
• 20:33
  that you are the person who struggles with yourself concept
• 20:36
  being too enmeshed with your parents and certainly your
• 20:39
  spouse would be interested to listen to this podcast because
• 20:41
  you're taking something on and saying this is my issue that I
• 20:44
  have to work on. But this would not be a popular
• 20:47
  one to share with your spouse and say, see, you're too
• 20:50
  enmeshed with your parents. In that case, you would try to
• 20:53
  get into couples counseling and bring up the partners over
• 20:57
  involvement with his slash her parents, you know, with as one
• 21:01
  of the main things that is being worked on in therapy.
• 21:04
  All right, I hope you guys found this interesting and I'll talk
• 21:07
  to Y'all soon.