Transcripts

Robert Kuttner:
From the point of view of the parents, you spend eighteen years raising kids and then the kids grow up and the way they certify their adulthood is to not want to have much to do with you.

Robert Kuttner, author of the book Family Re-Union.

And I think from the point of view of the kids, I think a lot of times when they leave home, parents don't know when to let go. Parents continue backseat driving kids, and parents inadvertently drive their kids away.

Robert believes that trying to improve those relationships is well worth the effort.

The whole caliber, the whole tenor of the relationship needs to change, from a relationship where the parent is the boss and the child is just a child, into a relationship of-not quite as equals-but a relationship more as friends where these old ghosts of childhood disappear and the old scripts-which are no longer relevant when you're an adult-get discarded.

Robert interviewed a lot of families who reconnected in this way, and most of them are very glad they did. But the biggest stumbling block is, who's going to initiate it?

People feel that patterns are just unchangeable. "My mother's never going to change." It's the same old script. "How boring, she's always second-guessing me or she's always putting me back into the role that I was in as a kid." And of course we give ourselves credit for growing and changing as we get older, but we sometimes find it harder to credit that capacity in our parents or our children.

For a transcript or to subscribe to our newsletter, visit our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's "Something You Should Know".