One day I held the lift door open for a young lady who was running to catch it. I hardly recognised her even though I had employed her. I said, “You look different. You look like the cover girl from Vogue.” She blushed, pleased with the compliment.
But she was different. Her long soft blonde curls had given way to brown permed tight ringlets, close to her head. “I wanted a different look. This is closer to my real colour anyway. I never was a blonde.” I asked: “What does your mother think of it?” With that question I released a torrent that followed us out of the lift and into the reception area.
“Dr Moyes, that’s the whole point. I had this done because the other way was my mother’s hairstyle. She always wanted me to have long blonde curls. I hated them. But Mum always insisted. She nearly had a pink fit last night when she saw these. But she had better get used to them, because I am going to stay this way.”
I said, “Excuse me for asking, weren’t you risking a big blow-up with your mother?” “Listen Dr Moyes, I’m not a little girl. I’m twenty-six and I can make up my own mind about hairstyles. Anyway, this was only to soften Mum up for the other changes.
I’m moving out of home into a flat and Mum will kill me when I tell her. You won’t believe the explosion when I tell her that three of us are going to flat together, and when she finds out that one of them is Michael, World War Three will begin.
But I have to do something. I have the money from my grandmother which was supposed to come to me when I was twenty-five, but Mum has power of attorney and she has it invested and says she’ll only given it to me when I’m married and wanting to buy a home.
It’s my money, and I want it for the flat, and she’s got no right to hold onto it. You will hear the explosion from your place.” She turned and walked to her desk.
Wow! I still thought of her as about nineteen, like the day she came to work for me. I recognised her mother as a strong woman whose husband had walked out on her and who was now facing her daughter’s rebellion.
Her daughter was not walking out, but confronting her and the issue of who was running her life. Not accepting the ‘smother love’, that kind of love that consumes a spirit and makes someone the completion of another person’s expectations.
I do not know what has happened since she married Michael, but I would guess that her mother is still trying to manipulate their lives. A powerful parent can be a disaster, wounding in heart the person needed and loved the most.
When John the Baptist publicly declared that Herod Antipas had illegally married Herodias, who was his niece and also his sister-in-law, this thrice-married, scheming woman demanded John the Baptist be arrested. But prison was not enough for Herodias. No court would convict John the Baptist, so she planned to get him another way. She arranged, at a party when her husband was drunk, to have her beautiful young daughter Salome dance before him.
Herodias told her daughter to infatuate the old man and that when he was ready to promise the world to the young girl she should say: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” Here was a powerful parent manipulating her daughter. But the old man was then caught powerless: (Mark 6:26 “The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother.”
Here were two adults: one powerful woman manipulating her child and the other a powerless old man like putty in the hands of a young woman.
ABC TV produced a series on well-known Australian Families, entitled “Dynasties”. It included families like Macarthur, Wentworth, Fairfax, Grace, Packer, Murdock, Kidman, Boyd, Street, Ashton, Bing Lee, Moran, and so on. They all had at least one thing in common, an extremely powerful parent or parents. The succeeding generations were rarely of the calibre of the first generation of powerful parents. That power could be used for good and for bad. In many dynasties it was used badly.
Powerful parents may manipulate their children, place unreal expectations upon them, crush their own individuality, override their ambition and stifle their confidence. A powerless parent often allows the child free reign, allows themselves to be walked over by demanding children, and by weakly giving in, never allows the child to recognise the boundary of authority or discipline. In both cases the child suffers and the parent/child relationship is ruined. The right use of power is fundamental to family living.
1. Many parents feel powerless
Parental powerlessness is seen in every age group but is most obvious in parents of young children. Chronic fatigue has become endemic with many parents. Another sign is the way some parents lose their tempers when a child will not stop crying, or wets the floor.
We have seen men before the courts in recent days for uncontrollably beating and bashing infants for such reasons. Some of these children have died. These men have become powerless over the child and in frustration have resorted to the most mindless and savage abuses. Abuse is a sign of powerlessness.
Older parents suffering from powerlessness may just walk away from their responsibilities, or cease to care, or leave it to someone else. Yesterday I learnt that one third of fathers whose children are diagnosed with cancer desert their families at the very time both the child and the mother need them most. The men feel powerless over cancer and just walk away.
A good book on this is “Parent Burnout”, by Drs Joseph Procaccini and Mark Kiefaver (Doubleday, 1983). They describe how parents lose their energy resources and ultimately fail in the task they care about most: raising healthy and responsible children.
They explain how burnout occurs. Their concept is based on five key points, (1) human energy is a precious resource that makes possible everything we wish to do; (2) energy is a finite quantity – there is a limited supply available to each of us; (3) whenever the expenditure of energy exceeds the supply, burnout begins; (4) parents who hope to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves and their children must not squander their vital resources; and (5) wasteful drains on that supply should be identified and eliminated, and priority given to re-building the reserve of energy within. Theirs is a simple remedy for parental powerlessness.
Dr. James C. Dobson says, “It is understandable why burn-out is an occupational hazard for parents who reserve nothing for themselves. It should also be clear why concentrated parenting is a natural trap for Christians. For deeply ingrained within us is a philosophy that lends itself to concentrating on giving to each child in self-sacrifice and commitment.” (“Parenting Isn’t For Cowards” Word Books, 1987).
Many parents, of young people in particular, go through a torturous time blaming themselves for their son or daughter’s gender confusion. This is because of two theories.
The first concerns the part the home environment plays in some people’s homosexuality. Consequently the parents often blame themselves for the early environment in which the child developed. Maybe the father was inadequate or missing through death or removal, but the long-term emotional consequences in the surviving adult can be horrendous.
The second theory, promoted strongly by Freud, was the belief that a powerful, dominating mother was to blame for their son’s homosexuality. Several generations of psychiatrists and psychologists have produced wide-spread self-blame among strong women for their son’s gender confusion.
But neither of these theories by themselves seem to be adequate to explain why one percent of the population become homosexual in orientation, or why another group seem to desire to identify with them. There is some evidence that biological factors, such as the lack of the male hormone androgen during the early weeks of pregnancy means some boy babies are born with homosexual tendencies. Usually a homosexual experience is required to develop the life-style.
In any case, the Mardi Gras, with all of its exhibitionism and shallowness leaves many parents feeling powerless and miserable. They blame themselves, usually quite unnecessarily. All they know is that, in the life-style of their homosexual son or daughter, there has been an assumption that sexual acts are the most important activity of life, that identification with a minority is somehow fulfilling, that lust is renamed love, that how they feel has become the determinant factor of what is right and wrong, that their inadequacy in heterosexual relations is overcome if they only relate in homosexual relations, and that ethical standards based upon the teaching of the Bible and the traditions of the community, are not to be compared with the feeling of the moment.
2. Powerlessness robs both parents and children
An Australian book, “Becoming a Powerful Parent” (Hodder & Stoughton, 1988) by Yvonne and Michael Edwards looks at what parents and children are missing. The authors are both clinical psychologists working in a professional partnership and at the same time they are successful parents and marriage partners.
Their book provides a down-to-earth description of how two parents fully familiar with the difficulties and failures of others, as well as their own, have distilled a simple philosophy of child rearing which will be of benefit to others.
“Becoming a Powerful Parent” states: “Whatever the age of your child – eighteen weeks or eighteen years -you are bound to feel powerless at times. This sense of powerlessness results from physical and emotional overload. In our society today, the parent has a sense of standing alone against a flood of advice and blame, without any real, solid backup. Since the 1950s parents have ceased to be a pressure group. They are fast losing potency, and more and more they begin to look at what they are – used and abused.”
“Parents in the fifties became the great public scapegoats. They were told they had been too harsh or too soft, too demanding or too permissive, too potty-conscious or too lenient, too prying or too neglectful, too possessive or too indifferent. The measure of success became how well could the children do without them. The result of this movement was a generation of parents who became powerless, frightened, bewildered and finally docile and obedient to the dictates of their children. Their children mouthed the demands of the week, the fads of the current fashion and the morals of the bike-shed graffiti.”
If parents lose their power then frustration and aggression often take over. Hence wife bashings and child bashings occur, where insecurity writes the script and frustration pulls the strings.
When the parent loses a sense of authority and significance then parents and child both suffer. Powerful parents are not violent or oppressive. They are people who have accepted the great privilege of parenting in bringing up a child with love, good direction and mutual respect. That takes strength, of knowing yourself and your role.
3. The Scriptures give us the right balance
The Apostle Paul writes with incredible insight of the rights and responsibilities of both children and parents: (Col.3:20-21) “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Note the two-fold obligation:
A. Children are to obey their parents
Obedience is given ultimately, not out of fear or punishment, but of respect and love. Obedience is only given by a child to one who possesses authority. Obedience comes not as a result of force, nor by bribery or gifts, nor by emotional blackmail where the parent will not give love if obedience is not given in return. Obedience is earned from respect for strength.
Melbourne psychologist, Dr Ronald Conway reported in his 1976 book “The Great Australian Stupor” a conversation with a rather disturbed girl from a wealthy upper class home. In explaining her situation she said, “Every time I ask Mum and Dad what they think I should do about some problem, they tell me that I’m old enough to make my own decisions, but I don’t feel old enough – not for everything, anyway. I wish they’d stop being so damned broadminded about everything and help me for a change.”
Children obey where there is a respect for strength and authority in parents.
B. Parents are to treat children fairly
Paul is as modern as any contemporary psychiatrist. He declares, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Some children crumble while others fight against wrong attitudes of their parents. During the 2000 Paralympics, one man, as he came down from the dais with his medal, was heard to say “Do you think now that my mother will feel there is some good in me?” He had experienced deep hurt, was deeply wounded, but lived in the hope of recognition from his mother.
Years ago, while I was doing a course under his supervision, Dr J. Oldmeadow of the Larundel Psychiatric Hospital, told me “One of the major problems in the parent’s task is to make sure their children feel they are real people. We need to make our children feel they are real, then set them free.”
The teaching of this scripture emphasises two principles that builds powerful parents: The principle of reciprocity where obedience is given by the child out of response to the fair authority of the parent; and the practise of fair treatment which avoids bitterness and encourages a sense of self-worth and self-esteem in the child.
Nothing else works! Alternate care given by other people has to work hard to encourage respect and obedience, and to rebuild the self-worth, which plummets when a child is left by one or both parents, is an extremely difficult task.
It is more essential now than ever for us to develop powerful parents, and foster parents and adoptive parents have to work doubly hard to establish this relationship.
But any parent can grow in powerful parenting by simply trying the principles mentioned in Scripture.
Try it! Powerful parenting, according to Yvonne and Michael Edwards, means that:
1. Parents will feel confident about themselves and the role they play in society.
2. Their children will accept authority. They will grow up to respect teachers, tribal elders, civil authority and the rights of others.
3. Children will know what is reasonable.
4. There will be less need for law enforcement agents, as the law will not be viewed as fearful.
5. Children as they grow older will learn to drive with care and consideration for others.
6. They will view their parents with honour and their upbringing with gratitude.
7. They will view education as a privilege.
8. Crime will decrease.
9. Parents will enthusiastically praise their children’s reliability.
10.Irresponsibility will decrease.
The answer to the dominating and manipulative parent lies in counselling for them. Those others of us who are overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and impotency at our task of bringing up young lives, need to be encouraged to find inner power from our spiritual commitment and closeness to the source of all energy.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC