A parent child relationship can be tricky thing–for some it brings up feelings of security and unconditional love, but for others it’s filled with resentment and discontent. Maybe it’s aggravating and brimming with tension. For many of us, it’s somewhere in between.

No matter the current state of your relationship, there are steps you can take to improve a parent child relationship.

Examine Your Negative Feelings

If a parent child relationship brings up negative feelings, take a few minutes to meditate on why. What’s the cause of the deep seated aggravation? Have you looked at your parent’s perspective? When it comes to your relationship with your parents, are you taking their needs into account or are you putting your needs ahead of them? When we were younger, we expected our parents to take care of us and now as those roles begin to switch, it can be difficult to absorb.

Respect Your Parents Like You Would a Good Friend

Treat your parents with the same respect that you would a good friend. This attitude helps to stave off any tendency to correct and jump on your parents when they say something you consider offensive. Respect and understand the generation gap.

Improve a parent child relationship by respecting personality differences as you would in a good friend. You wouldn’t constantly criticize a friend for welcoming clutter, for example. So don’t attack your parents for the same issue.

Establish Ground Rules

By establishing ground rules, you avoid the need for awkward arguments later on. If your parents know they have to call before dropping by, then you’re a lot less likely to have to deal with resentment when they pop in unexpectedly. If they know you don’t want them disciplining your children when you’re present, it can stave off unnecessary conflict. Whatever your particular rules, knowing ahead of time relieves tension in the moment.

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Image: Lars Ploughmann

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ColumnReading my 2nd grade diary, I was confronted with myself navigating girl world—and I have some words for Libby, Age 7.

I write a lot about the world today’s American girls are growing up in and how they are navigating girl world. The Disney princess-ification of girls’ toys, what advertising like Dove’s Real Beauty campaign tells them about femininity, what the dangers are of being a woman, slut-shaming and rape, to name a few. I usually don’t think about my own feminist views in terms of who I was as a girl.

However, on a recent trip to my parents’ house, I unearthed my 2nd grade diary, The Ramona Quimby diary. Based on the popular series of books by Beverly Cleary,  the diary was designed for young kids. It featured bits of the Ramonastories and fill-in-the-blank Q+As along with blank pages. 

Thankfully, my spelling has improved since I was a kid (or maybe it’s that spell check was invented), but, reading my own words, I can see that the core of who I am is kind of the same even though girl world is now, more or less, a woman’s world. I liked my friends, reading, writing, tumbling and drawing. I hated math and mentioned that a food I never even wanted to try was mayonnaise. All still true.

In the All About Me section, I reported that I had brown hair, green eyes, was 4’1” and weighed 48 lbs. Half of those things are still true. I said that if I could have a pet it would be a dog—and that I would name it Today. I can’t be sure if I meant that I would hustle to give the pooch a name quickly, or if I thought Today would be a good name for a dog. Given that I named our current dog Bucket, I feel it may be the latter.

When asked what I like about myself, I wrote that I am nice to people (piple) and that in the coming year I would like to be even nicer—and meet Cyndi Lauper (spelled correctly and the first of MANY Cyndi references).

A month later, I report that I get mad when my friends don’t do what I say, and that I spit in someone’s face after she spit in mine. I answered the question: Sometimes I feel sad because: Jess starts a fight. And responded to the prompt: When that happens, I cheer myself up by: Killing her. Yes. I really wrote that about Jess, a girl in my class who, in modern day times, I’d describe as a frenemy.

I see the mean girl version of myself emerging in these pages, replacing the nice kid I was at seven. I see myself being bossy and starting to rank friendships. I can also see how others were mean to me—and, thankfully, that on many days I was actually nice to people. My friendships were essential and ruled my emotions every single day. And 29 years later, my friendships with women are still central to my world.

I also found my favorite shirt. Thanks to the fact that we all wore giant clothes in the ’80s, it still fits—and goes well with the Dancin’ hat I often paired it with.

If I could talk to the second grade girl that I used to be, I’d tell her to take the bitchiness down a notch because if she doesn’t, others will do it for her in junior high and she’ll find herself friendless and lonely. I’d tell her that putting people down doesn’t bring her up. I would tell her to be more confident and do things even when she sucks at them—and to start yoga sooner rather than later. I would tell her that supporting other women is an important part of being the feminist she will become.

I would also mention that in 1993 she touches Cyndi Lauper’s hand, and though she just misses the chance to interview Cyndi in 2006, she hasn’t given up hope for a true meeting someday.

It’s an odd feeling to a glimpse into my own tiny head and realize that what I wanted then was pretty simple and matches up with what I still want: time with the people I care about, cookies and for people to be nice.

At the end of one month, the diary asks: What do you want next month? I wrote: A good month. At the close of another, the question is: What do you want to do next month? I wrote: I hope I do good. Still sounds about right.

Images: Libby Lowe

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ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

From the day you are born, your family, to some degree, defines who you are.

How you interpret that connection may change in stages as you get older, but you will always be linked to the over-achieving mother, the annoying sister who gets better grades than you, the father who never shows up for his kid’s awards, the comedian brother who doesn’t know when to quit.

And while this might not be something you want to accept, it’s the truth. Many a friend has emptied the contents of their lives to me and ended sentences with, “I wish I had a normal upbringing. That people could’ve seen me different. I was never anything like my family.”

Really?

I was thinking about this yesterday after my son came home upset about an incident at school where he got into some trouble. My immediate reaction was that the kid needed a hug, so I held him and waited to hear about the source of the sadness. After the story was told, I had to be quiet and let my thoughts simmer. It was hard not to go back to being the same age and identifying, yet the back story was different…

Dad, who was going through a heavy drinking stage, was either at work for the electric company or home yelling at everyone (even in his sleep). Mom, always maxed, was either scooping ice cream at Friendly’s, cleaning Cape Cod mansions, managing a supermarket, or trying to make sure she wasn’t losing her mind having four kids who demanded to be taken to track, hockey and Boy Scouts. And because my parents were not always available emotionally during my teenage years, and my hormones were raging, and I was dealing with teenage girl social issues, I got lost. From the ages of 12 to 16, I began cutting myself, was nearly successful at committing suicide, and eventually became an alcoholic. An addict. I lied to teachers and my parents, skipped school, got into trouble, got stoned, listened to Janis Joplin – I dropped out of “normal” society.

Looking into my son’s big blue eyes pouring over with tears, I didn’t want to yell. I wanted to be there for him, but there was a piece of me I couldn’t shake and was horrified by: What are people going to say about us as a family? We need to look better. Aren’t we cooler than this? Better than this? We’re not that family with the messed up kid, right? Why can’t he – we – just be normal?

The baggage we all carry is so heavy.

As my son disappeared into his room I sat still to think parent thoughts about punishment and how to make things right. Later, standing in the doorway to his room telling him I’d be back, the defeated 14 year-old sat on his bed with a guitar and tear-stained face to look up and nod “okay.”

The ache.

Would he now try to go kill himself? Would he try to find drugs? Will this be the tipping point?

“It’s never the end of the world, you know,”  I blurted out, talking to my 14 year-old self.

He nodded.

“This is just one of those times you mess up and you move on and you grow.”

“Right.”

“Come on,” I said.

“No thanks.”

“Come on,” I said, “Now,” and watched him put down the over-sized guitar.

Punishment consisted of hot chocolates at the coffee shop. My mother would’ve done the same, but added donuts.

If we are to identify ourselves with family as the foundation of who we are, we need to forgive them and ourselves for the wrong turns and bad choices. We need to own the fact that we are imperfect.

My son is not me but he is everything to me. Thanks to my genes, he will say stupid things and put his foot in his mouth. He will get in trouble and possibly not be the school valedictorian. He will be stubborn. But he will not be exactly like me. He will be better than me as my mother was better than the mother before her. I say this as the woman who learned and grew from her mistakes.

Does our family define who we are? You bet.

Celebrate it.

Between the Lines, is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country.

Image: Pink Sherbert Photography

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