A friend and I were talking recently about family conflict. She and her daughter had been very close throughout life until, as an adult, her daughter chose to become critical of the foundation of her upbringing...choosing an alternative parenting path for herself and her own daughter, which led to my friend and her daughter losing their strong connection.
I could empathise with this as my elder son and I also suffered conflict at one point long ago, which adversely affected our close relationship. The same can be said of many close relationships, both within the family and outside. Something happens that is often the fault of neither, to cause temporary division or long term separation. Why is this?
As I see it...within nature animals that, like ourselves, live in colonies, grow to a certain 'size' or before conflict erupts to effect division. This causes part of a herd to break away to experience independence before a new colony becomes formed. Family conflicts, it seems, follow a similar pattern. Perhaps a family becomes overly enmeshed, with every development and crisis becoming shared between them in a supportive manner...which effectively prevents any singular body being enabled to experience a crisis for themselves and to independently develop from growth through the challenges personally faced?
Parents often, and usually, strive to protect their youthful offspring and support their older ones. They want to 'be there for them' in a crisis and may offer advice and share their own hard-learned skills in an attempt to shield their young from the hard knocks that they experienced when younger. They do this with the best intentions...but sometimes kids need to receive hard knocks for themselves before lessons can be effectively learned.
When he was a child I used to enjoy making things with my elder son particularly. Craft materials were on always on hand and we had a box filled with empty cartons and card ready for new projects. He still, now age 53, remembers as a young child waking one Christmas morning to find a train filled with goodies. It was only a very big cardboard box, painted to resemble a train...but his eyes lit up and the memory has not been forgotten.
So when my younger son was born I naturally looked forward to sharing similar joys with him. But he was a different kettle of fish. Boxes were jumped upon or bashed into oblivion. Glue was felt and used to stick hands to feet...and paint was daubed onto walls rather than upon the paper provided for the purpose. My lidded box of craft materials was repeatedly emptied so that he could shut the terrified cat inside. He loved playing with mud in the garden...but that was the full extent of his interest in hands-on crafting!
Now both are adult...and I find myself with one out-going and rather loud son...a larger than life character who is up for anything and will rise to any challenge presented. My other son is socially reserved and much more sensible, although he too is generally willing to rise to a challenge if supported at first.
And before the reader guesses which son is the product of which upbringing...I can assure you that you will be wrong!
