Okay, I couldn’t resist. This is actually a critique of a book that has gotten a lot of buzz lately, which is really titled: Walking on Eggshells: Navigating the Delicate Relationship Between Adult Children and Parents, by Jane Isay. (“Flying Dolphin Press.”) I hope the book is a huge bestseller for one reason: it will show that I’m not the only boomer parent who loves her children more than life, itself, but has to watch not just every word, but every thought, eye twitch, etc. I think the title says it all.
For the rest of today's blog, continue at The Boomer Blog
It’s the book itself that gets scrambled. Jane Isay (just “Isay no?”) is the author with impeccable credentials. She edited Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia, that we all read when we were raising young daughters. She doesn’t live “too far” from her grown children and grandchild. She seasons the book with wise bits and pieces, such as, never ever offer unsolicited advice. But the main course? Well, I’m confused—and I bet a whole bunch of other boomer moms and dads are too. And unfortunately, this book offers few clarifications.
Consisting largely of detailed stories of what I mostly consider messed-up relationships, the more I read, the more perplexed I got. It seems like every other boomer mom or dad is seeking forgiveness for having spent the kids’ childhood stoned, drunk or absent. Every other kid is a spoiled brat, ingrate. Yikes!
She seems to honor one mom who according to her got it right because she has so taken “non-interference” in her adult offspring’s life to heart, that she has the wisdom to sit-out a son’s alcoholism. Now, keeping your mouth shut because you don’t like your child’s spouse is one thing. But keeping quiet about alcoholism? I thought that was the very definition of enabling behavior.
Another mom is praised because all of her brood spend EVERY holiday with her. Hello! Ever hear about sharing your child with the in-laws? In her lexicon of happy relationships, the quality of love is roughly measured by proximity of miles to one another. Hello! Mobility? Boomers and their kids are all moving all over the place all the time. Just where is this mythical parents’ home that is the center of the childrens’ universe?
Basically, the attempt at a feel good message that laces in and out of every manner of parent/child disaster is that we all really love each other, and in the end, if we are very very lucky, it will all work out.
Meanwhile, I’m just glad I haven’t been disowned yet because—like one of the stories in the book—the mom balked at paying, which was it, the childrens’ tuitions, the mortgage, the remodeling, the summer camps—oh yes. I remember. It was all of them!
Carol Orsborn