Having children changes your relationship with your parents, not always for the best

A recent survey found 48 per cent of parents claim that, on most days, their stress level is “overwhelming”. No wonder the US Surgeon General recently declared parental wellbeing a “critical health priority”, due to the numerous stressors involved.

Even to a new parent, this should come as no revelation. You were forewarned to expect the sleep disruption, loss of “me time”, financial and numerous other challenges.

Grandparents can sometimes be judgmental.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

You may, however, be surprised at the impact of having a child on you and your sometime lover, now known less amorously as your “co-parent”. Sure, you knew sex would be off the table for a while, but research shows most couples report a decrease in relationship satisfaction for up to three years after childbirth. Yikes!

For many new parents, however, the big eye-opener involves twists to how they perceive their own parents.

Many of these new realisations are positive. For instance, in a blinding flash you appreciate how much your folks sacrificed for you. You’ve had aha moments when you understood that many of their parenting decisions (which you thought were boo-boos) were actually spot on.

You may also feel more empathy for them and their backstories. Gaining perspective, you’ll likely recognise the “cascade of parenting”, which chronicles the way they were raised that, in turn, influenced how they brought you up. And, fight it as you may, this will probably influence your own parenting style. You might even find yourself musing expressions like “the cycle of life”.

Peering over the trenches of parenthood, you view how easy it is to misfire, and are more forgiving of the baby blunders they committed.

But having your first child can also trigger negative insights and emotions about your parents.

Meagan and her partner Sam recently had their first child, Amelia. They’d prepared for her arrival with the usual rounds of pre-natal activities and felt confident to surf the turbulent waves of physical and psychological challenges about to crash over them.

As the sleep and other deprivations started to aggregate, the couple noticed that they were niggling at each other more. The usually minor squabbles escalated until one night, during which Amelia was having particular trouble feeding and sleeping, it all came to a head. They had a hysterical fight, dredging up all sorts of grudges – real and imagined.

They decided counselling was urgently required. As part of that process, Meagan recognised the pattern in the way she spoke to Sam. “It’s the way I nitpick him constantly, even though he’s amazing and loving and doing the best he can.” Where did this come from? “It’s my mother all over again. It’s as if she’s inside me. Except I really don’t want to be like my mother.”

In another case, Dave’s dad, an engineer, was cold, emotionally withdrawn and had difficulty expressing his feelings. As he matured into adulthood, Dave came to accept his father’s behaviour. “That’s just the way he is.”

When Dave had his first child, he observed, with astonishment, his father’s metamorphosis into an attentive, caring and demonstrative granddad. “I’m quite embarrassed to admit it,” Dave confessed, “but I was actually jealous of my two-month-old son. When I watched Dad interact with him, I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head: why weren’t you like this with me?”

Meagan and Dave’s experiences illustrate how long-forgotten and apparently unresolved issues with your parents can bubble back up when you have your own children. One recurring dynamic, however, can irk the most: parental criticism and its psychological sibling, control.

As your parents monitor how you manage your child, these twin terrors can manifest in a variety of behaviours.

If your parents were controlling when you were a child, they may revert by offering unsolicited (and unwanted) advice about all sorts of issues – childcare arrangements being a contemporary hot button.

Or it might be as simple as that look – a rolling of Mum’s eyes, or a shrug of her shoulders. Or perhaps it’s Dad’s old line: “Whatever you think is best.” It’s often accompanied by that same look, directed not so subtly at Mum.

All this may spin you into a feeling of having regressed to being a child. You may become reactive to your parents’ criticisms; sense the need to seek their approval, or feel that you have to justify or explain every decision.

The good news is that these conflicts are not that widespread. Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of young adults do seek their parents’ advice on child-rearing, while only 40 per cent say they disagree with their parents about how they’re bringing up their kids.

But if you do clash with your parents, it can become just another stressor to add to the already burdensome load.

Peter Quarry is a retired psychologist and writer.

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