The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Why teenagers become ‘allergic’ to their parents
How to guide them (and yourself ) through this detachment phase.
The arrival of spring is often prime time for hay fever, but adolescents seem to be able to develop an allergy to their parents, either intermittent or chronic, at any time of the year. This allergy usually has a sudden onset around age 13 and can last for months or, in some cases, years. While it’s no fun to become the parent who cannot order food or hum along to a song without irritating his or her own child, we’re better able to ride out this temporary adolescent affliction when we appreciate its causes.
Growing up involves becoming separate from our parents. This project often begins in early adolescence with an abrupt and powerful urge to distinguish oneself from the adults at home. It’s no small task for teenagers to detach from those who have superintended nearly every aspect of their lives so far.
As teenagers begin to disentangle from their folks, they inevitably sort a parent’s every behavior and predilection into one of two categories: those they reject, and those they intend to adopt. Unfortunately for the peace of the household, each of these categories creates its own problem for teenagers intent on establishing their individuality.
You may think nothing of wearing dated athletic shoes, but if your teenager doesn’t agree with your choice of footwear he may, at least for a while, find it unbearable. Why should it matter to him what’s on your feet? Because his identity is still interwoven with yours; until he’s had time to establish his own look, your style can cramp his.
Given this, you’d think that teenagers wouldn’t be allergic to the proclivities they share with their parents. But they are, precisely because the interests are mutual.
The son of a colleague stopped running with his dad once his membership on the cross-country team became the organizing force of his high school identity. The boy still ran, of course, but now with friends or alone. He
“secure in their routine,” which shows that they know what matters to them.
7. Location is important. Even though many older New Yorkers qualify for subsidized senior housing, the city’s lottery system for that housing can mean that they are placed in a new apartment in a borough or a neighborhood far from their original home. For Jin-Fu Lu, 83, an immigrant from China, that means traveling six miles across Brooklyn to attend a community center in Sunset Park, where he and his
wife had previously lived, because it caters to the Chinese community. “It shows how important place is,” Block says.
8. Death has no dominion. Nearly every person in the project, Block says, has no fear of death and no hesitation about talking about the end. “Younger people are scared to talk about dying,” she says. “It’s such a reality for people in their 80s.” Many of them told her that they had lived a full life and were ready to go, she says. Murdock even brought out the dress she wanted to be buried in.
One of the biggest takeaways from the Columbia
study is the evidence that aging — even with the inevitable losses and restrictions — doesn’t have to be dismal. In fact, removed from the daily hustle to work, life in the last decades can be a time to savor living.
“Science - and our own experience — tells us that ageism begins with our own perceptions of aging,” Block says. “Every time we tell ourselves that we’re too old, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
In other words, if we buy into the idea that old people are automatically diminished, we make assumptions about their — and our — limitations that might not be true.