Are Successful Parents
Bad for Their Children?
In being "good providers," they may fail io supply the most important possessions of all
By JOHN A. ROSE, M.D. Director. Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic
PHOTOGRAPH IV RICHARD CHECANI
Driving in the country last week, we
stopped to admire a low white
house that overlooked a river. In the
driveway stood a new station wagon
and on the lawn a resplendent English
bike and a beautiful doll's pram.
I hoped that the parents and children of this
house were not paying too dearly for their pos
sessions. For parents who extend themselves to
give their children advantages most likely, ad
vantages they themselves never knew some
times cheat their children of that which they
need most : closeness, love, and understanding.
As if in answer to my thoughts, a boy of about
12 came barging out of that house and shouted,
"I won't! And you can't make me! I hate you!"
The Family Service Association of America,
celebrating its 50th annual conference last No
vember, called family breakdown "America's
No. 1 social problem." What causes this "state
of affairs? Many things. But often far too
often it is the result of undue striving: a
father striving to get ahead faster; a mother
striving for social importance; the incessant
striving for possessions a bigger house, a bet
ter car, appliances, sports equipment.
Only a slothful family does not aspire to have
things. What is to be deplored is striving what
ever it is for which pushes parents to the
brink of their mental, physical, and spiritual
capacities. Such overextended parents lack the
patience, time, and energy to give their children
adequate companionship or understanding.
IT is important for young people to know that
someone strong and able is on their side. Boys
and girls of all ages who get the feeling their
parents are more concerned with other things
become frightened, lonely, resentful.
The most competent family I know I'll call
them the Bryans consists of a mother, father,
and three children of modest means. Occasionally,
I'm sure, they wish they could afford a new dress
or suit, a new rug or lamp. But this never seems
to upset them. They're too busy enjoying what
they have. Whether making Christmas cookies or
decorating Easter eggs, a project in the Bryan
family seems important and zestful.
I do not find it surprising that the neighbor
hood children, most of whom come from more
bountiful homes, seek the Bryans' house as one
would seek shelter from a storm.
Many of the neighbors are so preoccupied main
taining the scale of living they have set for them
selves that they emanate an atmosphere of
insecurity, worry, and fatigue. Their children
sense this family stress.
Down the road from the Bryans live a very
successful executive and his wife and son. Their
doctor suggested to the mother that she was not
giving the boy sufficient attention.
Horrified, she invited her son to sit down with
her from 4 to 5 o'clock every Thursday and talk
over any problem he had. After a few sessions
the boy, affronted at being expected to turn a
sen.se of closeness on and off like a faucet, began
expressing resentments he may not have real-,
ized he had and finally told his mother that she
was a selfish five-letter word.
She flew to the doctor. "Junior," she wept,
"talked like one of those awful boys who get
into trouble with the police!"
The doctor tried to explain that juvenile de
linquency almost always occurs when an adult
child relationship loses its thread of meaning
and a boy or girl proceeds to identify within his
age group and to reject adult standards.
That evening the boy's father visited the doc
tor. Bitterly, he told of all the things he and
his wife had given their son: "He's just more
than we can handle. We're entering him in a mil
itary academy. That should fix him'!"
What this boy needed was understanding and
companionship, not ostracism.
It is ironic that in this age, which provides
leisure time for the pursuit of happiness, so
many of us don't know how to pursue it.
Children bitsically need very little: to be a
loved and loving part of their parents' lives,
not relegated to the side lines. But in the striv
ing atmosphere that has become part of our
cultural climate, parents often cheat their chil
dren of these basic needs. And inevitably, the
more ambitious parents are, the more likely they
are to make this serious mistake.
COVER:
Easter wouldn't be complete, without a saucy
new chapeau. This one, photographed by
Walter Herstatt, is a brimmed turquoise
straw by Betmar, bound with black velvet
around the crown. More on hats, page 16.
nunily
Weekly
April IS, 1962
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