Front Porch: Changing roles can be hard on parents and kids

My husband and I have been talking with our sons in recent years about how our parent-child relationships are shifting, something about which we are all aware. They are middle-age men, which means we’re getting old(ish). Things change.

When there are medical things afoot, we now sometimes rely on their help – something that requires finesse and advance planning, as one of them lives in Seattle and the other one in Europe.

Even the tenor of some of our conversations has shifted, from such small things as them patiently guiding us through our snafus with the increasing amounts of technology that pester our lives, to discussions about future strategies for when/if our increasing decrepitude might require greater attention or intervention – though they are gentle and respectful when wading into those potentially fraught waters.

And we generally chat and text more often.

Our Seattle son told me not long ago about a conversation he had with an acquaintance from work, a stoic man who he doesn’t know all that well. It was intriguing, so I asked him to send me an email with details because I thought it might provide some background and perspective for a Front Porch column about the gradual role reversal as parents age.

He did, and rather than take information from it and add my own two cents, I’m going to jump to a couple of paragraphs into his email and let it run, with a few edits, just as he wrote it. I don’t think I could say it better, so why try?

So, from my son in Seattle:

… I was surprised when (a co-worker) stopped by my desk to talk to me today. He sat down, took a moment and asked, “Do your parents live close by?”

Not the question I was expecting. “They’re in Spokane, so relatively,” I said.

He followed up, looking concerned, “Do you have a good relationship with them?”

“I’d like to think so. Why do you ask?”

In a rare moment of vulnerability, he started talking about his parents, who live nearby. He said his mother was upset with him over a scheduling thing. It sounded like a super petty and frivolous thing to get upset over, so I dug a little deeper.

He opened up about not being a particularly warm and fuzzy person in general (which I can attest to), though he loves them very much. He also said that these conflicts were getting more frequent. He also stated that his mother tends to talk about subjects which hold little interest for him. He’s very much a sports guy.

I asked him if he thought it was actually about scheduling. He considered it for a moment, then admitted that it probably wasn’t.

What I said to him was, in essence, that it sounded like his parents just want more time with him. He seemed confused, so I elaborated that when we’re little, we clamor for our parents’ attention, but as we get older, we build our own lives separate from them. Which is exactly how things should be in the natural fullness of time. I’ve never been a parent, so I can only imagine that at times that can feel like being intentionally excluded, and that likely stings a bit.

But there comes a time when the lovely people who raised us need a little extra love and attention, too. It may not come out (or be asked for) in the ways we expect, but in essence that’s what it is. I have seen this among several of my friends in the past few years, and even with us and our family.

“If we are lucky enough to be raised by loving people who are devoted to us, it’s only right (and good) to cycle some of that love and attention back to them. It’s the least our parents deserve for the years of devotion they give us. It might feel inconvenient at times, but when we were young, our parents constantly uprooted their worlds to support us.

“I think parents can stubbornly put themselves in the position of being the giver of love and support, which I think makes them feel awkward about needing and accepting that love and support in return from their children. So, asking for what they need emotionally gets … complicated. Often it comes out in petty arguments about ‘scheduling.’

I’m not sure where this is going, but it was interesting to watch him consider that his parents might need him in ways that he doesn’t realize and might have a hard time vocalizing that, or that just his presence is a comfort to them. So, when his mother talks on and on about ‘not sports,’ he should pay attention, ask some questions, smile and give his mother a hug. Just because.

Postscript: A check-in with his co-worker a few weeks later revealed that the scheduling issue, which had been more of a miscommunication matter than anything else, has been resolved. He told my son he’s actively working on the rest of it.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net