Contents
Growing up children tend to become independent faster and break the connection with their stepfather’s house. And the claims of older parents are perceived as signs of toxicity. How to maintain respect and love for each other in the modern world? And what is the filial duty to the mother today?
Last year I had a rest in Estonia. I got to Pskov by train, then by taxi, combining the road to the sanatorium with a sightseeing tour. While driving, the driver told a story that I want to share.
After the wedding, the young wife asked him not to communicate with her mother, motivating her demand by the fact that her husband now has his own family. He readily agreed. His wife and mother-in-law replaced his mother. A son was born in the family, who also stopped communicating with his parents immediately after his marriage, ignoring his father’s words about filial duty.
My companion now sincerely does not understand what he spent a quarter of a century on. As if the best years have disappeared into nowhere. He broke up with his wife, who still believed that a husband should not take care of his mother. In dismay, he rushed to restore relations with his mother, with whom he had not communicated for years. He married another woman, and she showed him with what respect and care you can treat your parents.
filial duty
The story told is the best illustration of two proverbs: “the son to the crown, and the daughter to the end”, “the paradise of sons lies under the feet of mothers”. The first for the most part reflects the Western mentality, the second — the Eastern. And in folk wisdom, as a rule, lies the centuries-old experience of generations.
Now in the West it is customary to talk about individualization, separation from parents. But every phenomenon has a downside. By reducing communication with their parents to a minimum, grown children encourage them to bitter reflections about the fact that life has been wasted. After all, they do not receive either psychological or material returns from many years of daily, sometimes sacrificial, labor.
This is especially acute in the post-Soviet space. We, fifty-year-olds, are the last generation that «obeyed» their parents, and the first that children do not «obey». Despite the peculiarities of the socialist system, we put concern for them at the forefront. Perhaps because life did not provide us with such opportunities for self-realization that our sons and daughters had and still have.
A side effect of globalization, psychological emancipation, is the rupture of the connection between times and generations, the collapse of the family institution based on traditional values. Our words about filial duty often do not find a response in the hearts of «grown-up boys», we are called toxic with our supposedly unfounded claims and rejected.
The history of the relationship between sons and mothers is as old as the world. Children are not always guided by the Gospel and the Koran, they do not always believe that honoring parents is one of the highest virtues pleasing to God. The proverb “son to the crown, and daughter to the end” is not about all people with a Western mentality. Just like the proverb “the paradise of sons lies under the feet of mothers” — not about everyone who was brought up in the Eastern tradition, although for the most part it reflects the real state of things.
In both environments, there are sons who are devoted and respectful to their mothers after marriage and, on the contrary, who abandoned them.
Double game
From the point of view of analytical psychology, ignoring, devaluing the mother by the son after marriage reflects the dynamics of the unconscious transference. The son shifts the function of the mother to the wife. He does not want to repay his mother’s debts, ignores her requests and claims, calls her toxic. It is as if all the good that was done for him is erased with an eraser, and only maternal mistakes are remembered. Of course, this speaks of the infantile position of a man who changes one “breast” for another.
Genuine separation, the maturation of a boy, is not about making claims from the height of adult impunity, ignoring an aged, unnecessary mother. Real masculinity lies in accepting the shadow aspect of motherhood and returning to the source of unconditional love. But when the son’s ego is taken over by the mother’s unconscious devaluation, it is difficult to appeal to higher values. So it turns out that the mother, in an attempt to reach out to her son, beats like a fly against glass.
However, the mother also needs to give her son time and free up space for a qualitatively new relationship. Making claims, endlessly discussing mistakes, we only increase the distance. Often the mass of mutual mistakes becomes critical and outweighs feelings of love and affection. Mother and son miss each other, but when they meet, they again slide into reproaches. Instead of getting to know each other again, they confuse and complicate everything even more.
Paradoxically, disadvantaged children often grow up to be more grateful because they are codependent with their mothers from an early age. They get used to playing the role of saviors for their parents, do not cheat on her in adulthood … But this has nothing to do with a mature, conscious feeling of affection and love.
Our time, despite all the difficulties, has a number of advantages. Mothers now have at least a decade of active life to spend on self-realization that was previously denied them. Maybe we should separate ourselves from children, take care of ourselves, and not make it a duty for children?