My continuing parenting role has been a bit different for my son and daughter over the years. My daughter and I are very close, and we talk and e-mail at least once a week. She has always shared her intimate life with me and asked for advice when she needed it. The understanding has been that she could take my advice or leave it on the table. I especially remember a visit that I made to my daughter’s home in Illinois. She is an ordained Episcopalian priest and was struggling with her bishop over the question of the legalization of gay marriage in Illinois. I was proud of her when she decided to go against her bishop’s decision and joined the movement to promote this cause. When gay marriage was finally approved in Illinois, my daughter was the first clergywoman to marry a gay couple. I am very proud of her, and she knows that.
What about the relationship with his son?
My parenting role with my son has been warm and meaningful for both of us, although he has never entirely forgiven me for the divorce. He and I e-mail and talk on the phone a couple of times a month, but he is more guarded in sharing his thoughts and life experiences than is my daughter…. unless I encourage him. He still turns to me for advice, however, and I have been happy to help him think through challenges—especially about his work life and now his own divorce. He lives in New York and has had a very successful professional life. Like my relationship with my daughter, I am very proud of him.
Here we see the challenging relationship between Dale and his son as they both grow older. (This is often the dynamic and profoundly interesting relationship we find featured in novels and movies; we need look no farther than the widely-acclaimed novel and movie: The River Runs Through It.) There is a second theme in this narrative about Dale and his son. It concerns the lingering resentment of Dale’s son about his parent’s divorce. It is not unusual for a son to line- up with his mother during a divorce proceeding, just as it is not uncommon for a daughter to align with her father. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and other psychoanalytically-oriented observers of the human condition often write about the special bonds that are built between mother and son and father and daughter. Generativity One gets complicated when we bring this dynamic into play while exploring the evolving relationship of care between parent and child as they both grow older.
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