The Pheonix

"Torched in the light of my awareness, my false self crumbles.   Pheonix like I create myself anew."

-modern affirmation



          Sometimes it is hard to be a parent of grown children.   The degree to which you have to sit back and let them have the life experiences and learn on their own is greater then when they are little.   When they were little you can jump in and give guidance and hugs as needed.   When they are grown they get to pick when they want your hugs and guidance.  Just like adults.   Then it hits you, hmmm mabey they are adults.  There is a feeling of pride and accomplishment that is unlike any other.  You have raised and sent out into the world an accomplished, well adjusted, successful member of society!      
          Then inevitable the grief sets in.   Yeah I know, just be happy, you did a good job.   But when you have been a parent for 26 years of two great kids and the last one is leaving the nest there is a bit of nostalgia.   You find yourself suddenly identifying with your parents again.   Remember when you were in your twenties and you called your parents saying,"you were right."  and they ask,"about what?" and your reply is,"everything."  Well now the shoe is on the other foot.  So I have found that technically we have to do this twice.   Now, in our 50's, we have to go to our parents and say,"Now I understand."
          No one really explains grief to us.   I think most of us experience grief through the loss of a loved one.  A beloved pet when we are little or a grandparent.   Very few of us experience the loss of a parent or friend until we are at least in our teens; usually older.  
          We protect each other and our loved ones from grief.   It is one of those pains in life that not only is hard to deal with, but hard to recover from.   So if we can we shield loved ones from that pain we do.   But I am here to tell you that shielding someone from grief is not alway the wise thing to do.
          SO first lets look at what grief means.   Grief is the keen mental suffering, or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.   A cause, or occasion, of keen distress, or sorrow.   Keen- charecterized by strength and distinction of perception; extremely sensitive or responsive; having or showing great mental penetration or acumen.   Suffer- to undergo or experience any action, process or condition.    Finally distress; great pain, anxiety, or sorrow; acute physical or mental suffering, affliction; trouble.
          Few things in life really teach us exactly what we are suppose to learn by what we are feeling.   Our feelings are sometimes misleading.   For instance, we drink alcohol, and as adults this is perfectly leagal; unless you are under 21.   But, drinking, more often then not, gives many people a feeling that masks difficulties in our lives.   And if you are an alcholic then all you feel is the need to drink.   When someone drinks because they need to, or they are using it to help them cope, then I think we can all agree that the feelings for drinking are misleading.   But the feeling of grief doesnt work this way.
          Grief is different from just feeling sad.   Grief is much more pronounced and can usually be pin pointed to something pretty life altering; i.e. death.   But grief is usually also brought on by loss and loss is something we experience almost regularly.   In the deffinitions I listed (there are more but they are not relevant to what I am trying to teach) death is not the only reason for grief.
          So lets go back to not protecting our loved ones from the grieving process.   I will give you an example to help give you a visual.   Recently our youngest son has been grieving.  I don't think he is quite aware of this yet.   But after reading this Im sure he will understand what he is experiencing.   Our youngest son is, by far, the most focused of the three sons.  (Always inculding our eldest's friend who we are proud to call son)   Once our youngest son decides to do something he is almost methodical about going about getting it.   He makes a plan, follows the steps, gives himself time for obsticles and then low and behold he is where he wants to be.   When he tells his father and I about his plans for the future no one, including his brothers and other family members, disputes that it won't happen; unless he himself changes his mind.
          A few months ago he decided to pursue what has been his life long interest and passion in cars.   To make a long story short, he is now enrolled at Universal Technological Institue in Orlando.  Which is honestly a pretty tough course to go through for automotives.   They crash course people with all kinds of education on all kinds of different makes of cars in a year.   His GPA is 3.64.   For those of us who are not adept mechanically its sometimes easy to think that a "tech" school is not the same as going to a University.   But I can tell you this thinking is wrong.   The year long education is broken down into 3-5 week sections; each of which you must pass.   If you don't pass a section you take it over until you do then move on this can become expensive.   When you are a 19 year old kid in class with men sometimes twice your age, and when you are on a combination of financial aid and a loan your parents took out for you, you cannot afford to fail.  So not only is he not failing he is standing out from his peers.   His whole family is very proud of him.   Bear with me now, this is where it gets intersting.
          Despite his very indepent temperment he is still 19 and has exhibited, from time to time, developmentally appropriate behavior.   He is not perfect, and we are happy for this.   He rolls his eyes from time to time, takes those great big adolescent inhales meant to let everyone around him know how stupid he thinks we all are, and his rebellsiousness, as of late, is associated with cars.   So he has had a couple of tickets, which he has gone to court for on his own and had dismissed, and has recently been in an accident.
          I am not going to go in to detail about the accident other to say it was necessary for his father and I to leave work and school, drive to Orland and pick him up.   The only thing that was hurt on our son was his pride.  The Volkswagon was not so lucky.   An air bag was deployed and it is still recuperating at an Orlando VW hospital to the tune of $5200.00; thank goodness for deductables.   The real issue is thank goodness our son was not hurt.
          My husband and I parent different then many people.   When our sons have made huge mistakes we never come down on them immediately; for a few reasons.   Our sons are good kids, usually it is not necessary to make them feel more of what they are already feeling.   Second of all, and usually this is the case, Joe and I are not in the right frame of mind to discuss anyting with them immeditely.   In a crises with your kids you want to make sure that what you communicate with them will be completely heard and understood.   You want them to take you seriously, so why waste time and energy negating this?  We don't.
          Once again condensing the story we finally had a "family meeting" the friday after the accident.   Family meetings are held when there will need to be others involved in the negotiation/mediation process.   Everyone gets a voice and everyone must be polite and respectful.   It was not really necessary for us to share too much with our son about what happened other than our disspapointment.   He was contrite and repsectful; he shared what he learned and how to avoid something like this from happeneing again in the future.   Then we gave him the consequence for his actions, because really isn't that the point of being parents?   We are teachers of a sort and we would not be good teachers if we didn't teach that everything in life has a consequence.  Sometimes they are good, sometimes bad, soemtimes immediate, sometmes not; but they are there.   His consequence was to become more independant.
        Being in child development and social work I see alot in life differently from other people.  This is what I know about adolescence and the mistake that many people make in dealing with their blooming young adults.   When a teen or young adult is making bad choices you don't bring in the reigns, you loosen them up.   Scarey huh.   But here's the thing.   Making someone responsible for there own choices is a fact of life that we all must deal with.   So say for instance you have a 16 year old who takes out the family car and misuses it.   The logicl consequence is no more family car right?   But who really pays for their mistake?  Usually the parents, we pay the ticket, and the insurance costs and the repair bill.   We hesitate making them get a job because we don't want their school work to suffer.   But I guarentee that if they are taking the family car out and misusing it their school work is probably already suffering.   So instead of having them play, cost you money, and have them still struggle in school doesnt it make more sense to have them work, learn responsiblity, pay you back, earn the right to drive the family car, and have their grades improve?  Cause I guarentee that when they learn that all of this is their choice and that they can be successful at it their grades will improve.  
          A common mistake many parents will make in this process is the delivery.   You can't scream and yell at your kid about how they screwed things up and so now they are forced to get a job to pay you back.   WRONG.   You look at your teen/ young adult and say with your whisper voice, a smile, and love, that," it is time for you to move to the next step of life.   You are ready for more responsibility.  This is what you are required to do now.   You are going to need to find a part time job to help pay for your own gas and insurance.   You will be able to have your own spending money and we want you to give us what you think is fair to help pay for the damages.   We will help you learn how to multitask school while still maintaining your contributions to the household.   But what happened is a sign that you are ready for more responsibility."  Emphasise that this is a GOOD thing!  This is what all of you ahve been working towards!  "After all you don't want to live at home with your mom and dad forever do you?"
          There will instantly be fear in their eyes, for one.  Youve just upped the anti.   When the fear passes their will be the look of "YES!" freedom in their eyes.   They will agree and go back to their caves of isolation.  Then something interesting happens.
          If you are doing your job right the access to the vehicle and other things in the house, like the national bank of mom and dad, will be limited until he/or she finds a job.   Not a punishment, just a condition for you sharing your life and valuables with them.   After all in real life how often do we share our cars with friends of ours?  Or loan out money?   Their may be some eye rolling and sighing and tamtrums, but hang tough the end is near.   I remember our eldest saying to me once when I asked why he was in such a bad mood,"Living here sucks."  My reply was,"Well of course it does!  Your living mine and dads life not your own!  But here's the thing; as long as you choose to share our life you are not allowed to disrespect it.  Your father and I have worked hard for this and while its not right for you it is exactly what we want."   Should have seen the lights going off on that one!  :) 
          When your kid realizes that you are serious they become serious, responsible and accountable.   They mature and learn.  They feel better about themselves and you have done a good job!  All is good in the world.  Or is it?   Here comes the thing that you didnt plan for, because you know there will always be something you missed.   As parents we are still learning too.   Grief.   The feeling that helps us all learn and The Pith of the Matter.
          Suddenly your kid is depressed.   Yes they feel bad they screwed up.   Yes they feel bad that they have to change.   And there it is...change.   Something no one explains to us about grief.  
         When there is a change there usually is a loss associated with it and therefore we grieve.   Our son suddenly realized that, at 19, the sole and complete responsibility for his actions rested on him; no one else.   If he had gone to the hospital the bill would have been his and come ot our house in his name.   He knew the other person in the accident.   This time he just wasnt dealing with his parents disappointment, he was dealing with a classmates.  
         Suddenly all that information we had been teaching him about how sometimes what we say and do has consequences beyond ourselves came rushing back to him and he got it in a big way.   His childhood suddenly was gone and standing in its place was a young man.   The happiness we felt as parents, when we saw the realization of all this on his face, was equal to our feelings of loss for our little boy.   We had done it.   We had finally succeeded in sending our last son out into the world as a responsible successful member of society.   Do they need to be perfect? No.  All we can hope for is that they do the right thing and are empathetic, compassionate, loving people.   Feeling grief for something we loose, or the loss of another, is one of the sure signs that you have raised a great human being.   What more could we possibly ask for.
        I am attaching the stages of grief, that is found on, surpirse surprise, a website asoociated with death and dying.   This is what people are most accustomed to, and comfortable with, in dealing with grief.   But if you understand the signs then you will start noticing how they show up in many other aspects of our lives.   One other thing, they don't always follow this pattern, shock and denial will sometimes be last, while anger is first, etc. etc.  Soemtimes the stages will repeat themselves and everyones period of grieving is different.   I am always ranting on how we have become a society that prefers to medicate feelings instead of dealing with them.   Learn to deal with this, it is important.
http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html

"Everyday I ride the river of my life.   Some days I race across rapids, expanding my abilities and sense of myself; some days I swim in quieter waters by the banks, observing and learning from the river as it flows past; some days I float in deep pools of stillness where I renew myself."  -modern affirmation