Ep 67 Parent-Child Dynamics

Each of us, regardless of the relationship we currently have with our parents, is someone’s child. And throughout our lives, how we relate with our parents tends to evolve as both us and our parents enter into new seasons and experiences. Today, we talk about how Contemplative Practices have helped us – and continue to help us – engage lovingly, compassionately, and with gratitude. We hope you’ll join us. 

#Compassion
#Evolution
#Gratitude
#ContemplativePractices 

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Transcript

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

grandparents, aging parents

Dominic Kaiser  00:06
Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens. 

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser. We're glad you joined us. 

Chris Roberts  00:24

Well, hello, it's great to be with you. Today we are talking about parent child dynamics. We want to explore this topic primarily from the perspective that we are all someone's kid. Often adult parent-child dynamics come up in our contemplative practices because we see our parents differently as we learn to relate to them as adults. And this can be complicated and nuanced, as well as a beautiful process. So I kick it off to you today, parent- child dynamics, what do we think?

Christina Roberts  00:56

Well, I think from my perspective, watching our parents or grandparents, for those of us that have grandparents that are involved in our lives, watching them, age is difficult. And I'm the youngest of five kids and I was a late in life child, so I had the experience of watching my parents age, probably at a younger age than a lot of my peers. And particularly with my dad, he had complications with his diabetes in my 30s and had to have his leg amputated. And up until that point, he was very independent, he was working. And then he went from one day working to the next day, being at the hospital, amputation and to being wheelchair bound. And so we all had to kind of rally around him and help with his care for a really intense period of time. And I remember at one point, my dad told me, “I know that our family has a lot of love. I've known that all these years. But this particular experience has drawn out our love in ways that I would have never have imagined.” And I was just in awe at my dad's perspective and the way that he framed this physical disability and this life altering thing that he was going through. And I know that our experiences might not be as dramatic as the one that I'm naming. But I think realizing our parents are people, I think it's something that comes up and watching our parents maybe suffer in new ways, or appreciating the way in which they have gone through hardships. I think for me, my parents and grandparents age, the way that they endured hardships, and the lack of complaining and those sorts of things. Now that I'm older, I have more of an appreciation for that type of thing. And so I think that, for me, contemplative practices of slowing down and noticing has helped me to notice attributes of the older generations that I so appreciate and cherish to this day. So I think that's what came up to me initially, as we talked about this conversation.

Kristina Kaiser  02:38

I think that's such a moving way into it. And we've been talking a lot over the last few weeks about the evolution of faith and other various things. And I find that even in this there's been this evolution of perspective and evolution of connection over the course of time.  If I think back to early adulthood, it's all about making my own way and having my own opinion, and all this stuff. And then as time went on, I started to have this shift of, Oh, I see what was happening there. There's this compassion that rolls into my heart, like you are stressed out, and then I look at it differently. No longer do I have this sense of harshness and judgment, but almost like I want to rock and cradle that stressed out individual. That was my parent. And so I think of it even with my stepdad.  He came into my life. I'm like 14, so some rules have already been established. And I liked them that way. And then he changes the game and he imposes his own limits and rules. And one of them was you had to be off the phone by nine o'clock. And I found that so unfair, because I had had this unlimited, I could do anything I wanted. And my job called me one time and he said, No, they don't need to talk to you. Now as a grown up, I am so with him. You do not need to contact my teenage daughter at nine o'clock to talk about work. You can totally be in touch tomorrow. But at that time, I was like, I'm important. And I need to take this call. But now in my adult life that phone rings at nine o'clock and I'm like,  Who is doing this? Because I've developed this desire for peacefulness at a certain time of night as an option to wind down and he did that. He instilled that in me. Maybe accidentally, maybe because he needed it. And even just recently I told him thank you for that. It stuck and I wanted that ultimately in my life, which I hope was affirming to him. I hope that that felt good. 

Christina Roberts  04:57

I think that's interesting. You bring up this idea about compassion. And a lot of the contemplative prayers are one that helps us to see others with eyes of compassion. And I think you're right. Sometimes there's these hidden things that, growing up, maybe our parents had financial stresses that we were unaware of, because they tried to keep that to themselves and didn't want to put that stress on us. But now thinking back, it's like, well, how did you? I come from a family of five. How did you like to feed and clothe and do all the things for all five of us, given your circumstances or things like that? So I think, you know, the gratitude that you're bringing up the compassion, I think as we're growing in our contemplative practices, certainly those things tend to widen and broaden in our lives.

Chris Roberts  05:36

Yes, I agree with both of you guys. Compassion, I think it's something that is coming to me in my later years as an adult, when I view my relationship with my parents. I look at my own circumstances and look at my own relationship with my children. I view my parents differently now, I think, because I've taken a step back, and I'm like, Oh, what was what was probably part of their story, that's the same part of my story?  Or what was even tougher, what was harder in their story, raising three children than my story of raising three children? So I think compassion is huge for me, something that I've come into. And I really feel like it's opened up more generosity, generosity of spirit, generosity of heart towards my parents and just a gratitude for them that I probably didn't have until I had my own children. I look at my own circumstances. So yeah, I definitely agree with you guys.

Kristina Kaiser  06:36

I know where you can even expand this out to like the grandparents.   Christina, you were talking about grandparents a little bit earlier.  I find how roles adjust over time and how grandparents tend to have this more nurturing. And I love that about what grandparents bring to the table. If I am laying out those boundaries, like my stepdad was doing for me in that, now this grandparent is coming in, and just being an encouragement, and here are the treats. I do treats for the kids, for sure. But it's like special occasions but with grandparents they like all the treats. And I think we need that. There's that kind of time for everything, like sometimes this is the role that I'm filling. And sometimes this is the role and we get to observe people in those seasons, doing that different thing and getting to embrace that role, that maybe you can't do it every season of your lives. Even that aspect of it is so beautiful.

Christina Roberts  07:34

Yeah. And I like that, Kristina. And I think that to me, grandparents in general, there's an embodiment of being present that I think is so important. And you know, again, the contemplative teaches us to be aware and in the moment. Recently, our neighbor, a widow, lives across the street, and we had an early release day. And so she picked up our six-year-old from school, because we needed some help that day. And she was so present to him. And they did puzzles together. And we saw her the next day, and she was saying how she needed that as much as he needed that. And so I think that awareness of how we grow in presence. I think just learning from the attributes of the older generation seems really important to me in this conversation.

Chris Roberts  08:14

I think something that I’m learning from my parents… Right now, my parents are taking care of an aging grandparent, and they're very family oriented. So of course, they’ve taken him into their home. And they help him with his medication, they help him with his diabetes, doctor's visits, but yet letting him have some independence. And as you get older, you get cranky, or your body isn't working right. You have all these restrictions. And my parents just deal with this with love and honor and respect for my aging grandparent.  That is very honorable and noble. I think I'm viewing this and saying, Okay, well, when the time comes, if I have to care for an aging parent, I feel like I have a model of how to do it well. And I think that's one thing that I really appreciate about looking at it taking a contemplative view at your relationship dynamics between parent and child.  You can look at it differently than that rebellious teenager or that young adult. People in their 40s who have this idea that I'm going to do it differently and I'm going to do it better. And hopefully that's true, but hopefully it's not a judgment, right. We're judging them and saying how poorly they did something. And because we're better, we're going to do it better. I think, for me my parents have been putting down some stones for me to step upon to rise higher than they have. And I have gratitude for that. And I think they probably have gratitude for that as well, laying the foundation for me to see how to do life in a way that is really life giving. And so I think that's super beneficial as we think about parent child dynamics. 

Christina Roberts  10:25

It's important to mention that not all parent-child dynamics are healthy. And for some folks, it's a very challenging relationship. And as we have talked about on this podcast, to be aware of our own emotions, and what rises up and giving permission for that. So maybe as we are experiencing some of the gratitude, or we're seeing slices of our caregivers that are from a different perspective as an adult.  I think sometimes on the flip side, we can recognize, oh, wow, those words were hurtful, or I grew up in a situation and now I have language for some of what I was feeling as a kid that didn't quite sit right with me. And so I think that also in these practices of learning to acknowledge and to recognize and to process through some of those things feel really important as well. And so I want to make sure that we're naming that it's not all necessarily peaches and cream, but there are also some aspects of it that really invite us to go a little bit deeper in our healing journey as well.

Kristina Kaiser  11:20

That's a fair point, right. And I mean, I'm sure everybody has a story, myself included. So there's plenty of struggle in there. And sometimes I've watched people even as we're talking about aging parents, kind of struggling with how to engage my aging parents with all of this angst that I still feel. But there does seem to be, even as I watch others engage, almost a melting away of a few things over time.  What really matters seems to change as we age and that seems to be a big part of our story. I wonder, as we're talking, I feel like the phrase “just this” can come up. In a way, it's just this moment, right now, this thing.  My mother has been working through some hair loss questions. And she needs compassion in the middle of that, right. That's all she needs from me. She doesn't need anything else that I could give.   I could give advice or whatever. But she just needs somebody to hear that this is disturbing to her. And that's kind of our story. And at other times, I think that parent brings in something that I couldn't access.   Right now I take one of our kids to dance like 10 times a week. And it's a lot of going back out again.  My husband's mother was over one day, and she went with me on four of these trips. And she was delighted, strangely delighted, like, this is so much fun. Usually, I only make it out to the mailbox. And I thought, oh my gosh, that you could be here every day. But it helps to change the perspective a little bit. For me, in this season, where it feels like it never ends, it feels like we're gonna keep going. And obviously, that's not true, but just this right to enjoy just this feels like a big part of it. 

Christina Roberts  13:27

I wonder too, as one ages, there seems to be then the appreciation for the smaller things.  There's a richness there that I think when we're in the thick of careers, and all the things that we're doing, it's hard to have that perspective. And I wonder too, as one gets closer to the second half of life, the last part of life, the perspective changes.  I think the appreciation and richness and if we can be a part of that, and be aware of that and enjoy that with others. That seems very rich to me as well.

Chris Roberts  13:58

Yes. And I think I've said before on the podcast, a teacher that I read in a book said that the spiritual language that we use as we mature are really only three words that we need to use.  As we reach maturation in our spiritual lives is Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I find that to be so rich. I'm not there yet. That isn't all there is to my spiritual vocabulary. I still say Help, Help, Help sometimes. But I do aspire to this notion of having gratitude in all situations and being able to take a contemplative view that allows me to see there are blessings even in the midst of these challenging circumstances. So thank you for this discussion today. What a generative conversation.

Chris Roberts  15:01

Now we're going to transition to the part of our podcast where we talk about what we are into this week. What are we into? 

Kristina Kaiser  15:10

Well, we have recently started talking to a person who owns a landscaping business down the street from us. And there's the possibility that we could get an apple tree, yet this year that would even produce apples. And so it's all a hope and a dream right now, but the hope and the dream and the prayer exists to possibly have an apple tree in our yard.

Christina Roberts  15:32

Oh, that's lovely. Well, we are looking into hosting. So over the course of the last few years, we've been hosting different international students and we may be receiving someone from Japan in a few weeks. And so I'm like, oh my goodness, my Asian cooking is like that's like the lowest bar of what I know how to cook. I know lots of different cuisines, but not that. So I ordered a wok.  It should be here tomorrow. And so I am into learning all about stir frying wok cooking. I am looking up different ways to do yakisoba and different Japanese cuisine. I know that they are coming to experience American cuisine, but when you're here for a while, sometimes you just want a taste of home. So I am into learning about Japanese and Asian cooking.

Chris Roberts  16:11

Nice. And I will benefit from Japanese and Asian cooking. I am not into that, although I probably will find myself alongside the cooking at some point. I am into spring here in Wisconsin. The grass is starting to green.  It’s mid-April, it's probably about the time that that grass turns green, or it could be later, depending on how cold it is. But I'm into my yard. And right now I'm into varmint control. We have moles that are digging these paths that make the surface look like a little round animal has gone through it. And you know, creating all these ugly lines in my yard. And so I have this little spike that I stick into the ground and it sends off vibrations and apparently the moles don't like that. And it is not working for me. And so I am into varmint critter control and brainstorming ways to get rid of creatures that make your yard look not as attractive as you would like. So that is what I'm into. 

Well, thanks for joining us today. If you enjoyed listening to the podcast, we invite you to sign up for our bi weekly newsletter. And you can find a link in the show notes or subscribe at  thecontemplativelife.net.  It was good to be with you and see you next time.