The later years in the lives of these “wounded” men and women can be “redemptive.” As older adults, we can do a better job in relating to our children because we may now have more time to devote to them, and because we may have also transformed ourselves in terms of interpersonal sensitivity and orientation to the issues of control and authority. To exemplify this point, we turn to one of our four Featured Players from the Sage Leadership Project. We call him Dan and note that in his life before retirement, he was a high-powered physicist and successful university president. When Dan retired, he moved with his wife to Nevada City, California, and was one of the senior community leaders who participated in our Sage Leadership Project. Dan has this to say about the shifts that have occurred in his own parenting style:
I see my parenting role in this stage of my life as being very different than when my children were six, 15, or in their 20s. I have come to play more of a caring, loving adviser/counselor role and have thought a lot about this. The difference, in one respect, is when I get calls now from my children—and even going back 20 years or more—my parenting is at their initiation, not mine. There is an implicit understanding that they can take any advice or discard it. My advice is given in love, and it honors their own decision making. I have found that this way of parenting has been more valuable to my adult children than how I parented when they were younger.
Perhaps most important, I am no longer dictatorial. As I look back, my early role in parenting as a father certainly could have been improved. I have often reflected on why I wasn’t able to parent then as I do now. My current parenting role and style is much more fulfilling to me and valuable to them, and I feel a whole lot better about it. I wish I could have had these capabilities when my children were young. I was direct and intense as a parent; my wife called mine an AA personality. Now I actually learn my role in parenting from watching my children parent their children. It has been an interesting learning experience. I get insights because they really parent well. There has been a role reversal.
To further illustrate this shift, we return to the interview with Dale, another of our four Featured Players. Dale led a difficult, challenging, but often gratifying life as a divorced parent who was not able to “grow up” with his children. However, he continues to be a parent and finds new challenges and new moments of gratification with his children. As in the case of most parental relationships, Dale has a differing adult relationship with each of his two children. Let’s begin with Dale’s description of the relationship with his grown daughter:
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