Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [31]
SOCIAL SELVES—FAMILY
Adolescence in America is the psychological equivalent of toddler-hood. Just as toddlers move away from their parents physically, so adolescents move away from their parents emotionally. There are continuous negotiations between parents and children about distance. Children want to explore and parents want to keep them safe. And both toddlers and adolescents are outraged when their parents don’t agree with them about the ideal balance of freedom and security.
Of course, since the fifties, families have changed. Divorce, which was uncommon in my childhood, is a fact of life in the 1990s. One in every two marriages ends in divorce, and the most common family is now a blended family. The average adult has at least one divorce, and half of all children spend some of their childhood in single-parent homes. There are many families in which the adults cannot or do not protect their children. Adults who are struggling with their own problems such as depression, drug or alcohol addiction or crippling poverty often have no energy to parent. There are families in which parents are abusive or neglectful. Many children are homeless or in foster care or institutions. Still the majority of parents are motivated to do their best for their children.
Adolescence is currently scripted in a way that builds in conflict between teenagers and their parents. Conflict occurs when parents try to protect daughters who are trying to be independent in ways that are dangerous. Teenagers are under great social pressure to abandon their families, to be accepted by peer culture and to be autonomous individuals.
Girls this age often no longer want to be touched by their parents. They grimace and pull away with a look of alarm when their parents approach. Partly that’s a reaction to their new awareness of their bodies, partly that’s a way of asserting their grown-upness. But it’s more than that. It’s a way of stating, “I need space to be my own person.”
At the same time, girls want to stay close to their parents. They may even argue as a way to maintain a connection. Fights are a way of staying close and asserting distance at the same time. Baffled parents, especially mothers, report that their daughters go out of their way to pick fights. “We can argue over whether the sky is blue.” Another said, “We fight ten times a day, over the most ridiculous stuff. It’s like being nibbled to death by minnows.”
Much of girls’ behavior is not what parents think. The surface behavior is not all there is. The deep structure is on a quest for an autonomous self. The distancing and hostility are not personal. On the other hand, understanding why girls act the way they do doesn’t take away all parental stress. It’s hard when loving daughters refuse to be seen with their parents in public. It’s hard when a daughter storms off in response to the question “How was your day?” It’s painful for parents to be criticized for the way they yawn or peel potatoes.
Because parents often are ignorant of how much the world has changed, further misunderstandings arise. Parents wrongly assume that their daughters live in a world similar to the one they experienced as adolescents. They are dead wrong. Their daughters live in a media-drenched world flooded with junk values. As girls turn from their parents, they turn to this world for guidance about how to be an adult. They cling to the new, reject the old.
Music is important to most girls at this time. It catapults them out of the world of their family and into