But what's going on with the parents? Often you can show these parents reams of expert opinion from all kinds of opposing camps that all almost unanimously say something to the effect that, "If you don't let kids do for themselves, they never learn how." If you quote these experts, said parents will, more often than not, get extremely defensive. All the while, they will completely ignore the "evidence." The fact that the expert opinion is in a sense proved to them every day that their children act helplessly seems to go in one head and out the other.
The parents may rush their kid to some horrid psychiatrist who will assert that the kids' failures are really due to some sort of brain pathology, and immediately put the offspring on medication that obviously does not change the kids' overall behavior one bit. Nonetheless,the parents will then hurry off to join the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation instead of looking at their own seemingly counter-productive behavior, in order to have their bizarre views reinforced by like-minded parents.
Actually, in a way I disagree with the experts who believe that offspring growing up in this environment "never learn" to take care of themselves. What dysfunctional individuals are and are not able to do, and what knowledge they do or do not possess, is not something they are necessarily going to admit to for fear of not being able to continue in their role of "losers who are totally dependent on their parents." Quite often they are secretly very capable individuals indeed. How do I know this if they will not demonstrate competence nor admit to any if they have it? Simple. If they learn to trust a therapist, and if the therapist knows how to ask the right questions, they will then admit to said competence and then demonstrate it in order to remove all doubt.
So again, what's going on with the parents? I find that there are several possibilities, but the most common are three in number.
The first is sort of a pathological empty nest syndrome. These parents are so wrapped up in taking care of children that they would literally have an existential crisis if the kids left, and not know what to do with themselves any more. They might become extremely depressed. If they are covertly conflicted over the very role of being a parent and feel guilty about those feelings, they may also have a compulsive need to parent and yet constantly be angry with their children for continuing to be around. This is the situation that is most frequently seen in offspring who develop borderline personality disorder (BPD). "Don't leave me - I hate you."
Sometimes the offspring who develops BPD has a child out of wedlock and then acts too incompetent to take care of the child. The child then must be raised by its grandparents. The child becomes a sort of gift to the parents. This is one of the major reasons for the huge spike in the number of grandparents raising grandchildren in the US seen over the last couple of decades. But that's a matter for another post.
The second family dynamic in which a Freddie or a Minnie results is when the child is triangulated into the parents' relationship. They parents do not get along with each other but remain so focussed on the alledged inadequancies of their hapless offspring that there is almost no time left for them to get on each others' nerves. If the child "grows up" and moves away, they then start fighting with each other more and more.
In a milder version of this dynamic, an adult child moves nearby and is "on call" for the parents to mediate disputes. Usually it's a daughter but not always. Mom will come over and say things like, "Your father won't do [such and such] for me. But he'll do it if you ask!"
Said daughter will often not marry because when she asks Mom why she does not ask for help from the daughter's brother or sister, Mom says, "Well, she has a family and I don't want to bother her." In other words, "She has a family and you don't." Since Mom seems to need someone to do this, daughter takes Mom's statement as an instruction for her to remain single. Otherwise Mom is in trouble. The daughter will accomplish this feat in a number of ways. She might choose to stay celibate, but if this is unsatisfactory, she may instead date - but nothing but a series of commitment-phobic or married men. At least then she gets to have sex and companionship. Silver lining.
The third common family dynamic is the most interesting. To the outside world as well as to the family, the parents appear to be taking care of their incompetent child, but underneath the surface, the child is actually taking care of the parents’ emotional or physical needs. I refer to this shell game as Who is Taking Care of Whom? because the answer depends on the answer to another question: exactly which needs are we talking about here?
In my new book, How Dysfunctional Families Spur Mental Disorders, I describe an interesting example of this. It is the story of a man in his late thirties who still lived with his parents. He would rarely keep a job for long, often stole money from them, and ran up significant bills on their credit card without permission.
Oddly, the parents always left money lying around the house in plain view, and never once called the credit card company to make sure he could not use the card any longer. They never once suggested that he move out. In fact, whenever he offered to, they would tell him that he was too incompetent to make it on his own. Of course, they certainly had reason to believe that such was the case, but from the patient’s point of view, they did this because they secretly wanted him to stay there and continue his seemingly outrageous behavior.
During his therapy, the other side of the Who is Taking Care of Whom shell game gradually emerged. As they used to say on the great TV show Pushing Daisies, the facts were these: the parents were elderly and lived in an extremely crime-ridden and dangerous neighborhood. Several other elderly residents had been burglarized and in some cases assaulted and almost killed. Almost all of the original inhabitants of the block on which they lived had moved out because of the escalating crime rate, but the patient’s parents refused to budge. Furthermore, they were developing physical infirmities which made them easy targets, and would act in careless ways that almost invited victimization.
The patient originally presented to me as a very angry and potentially explosive individual. Many of my office staff was fearful of him. In his neighborhood, he acted like a dangerous and possibly crazy fellow in many different and very public ways that communicated a strong message that he might go postal at a moment’s notice. His behavior said, “Do not mess with me.” In all probability, because of this behavior, his parents and their house were never touched by crime. Despite his angry appearance, he was in fact a highly fearful and non-violent person. His false self had the effect of protecting his parents from crime while at the same time making it appear to everyone else that he was abusing them and seemed to most others to be completely dependent on them. His apparent “abuse” of his parents took place with their full cooperation.
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