Idea Post #3: Child/Parent relationship

picture from: http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/men/assets/marilyns_childhood_picture.jpg

Parent/child relationship

Pelusi, Nando. "Parents and Children in Conflict | Psychology Today." Psychology Today. Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist. 01 Jan. 2007. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. .

This article talks about the fact that “unconditional love” isn't necessarily present in all child/parent relationships. That a parent may find that they don't unconditionally love their child everyday. Many parents feel that they are compromising their life in some way after they have children. The article goes on to describe different ways that child and parent relationships don't always work out to be the best. It says in one paragraph that children and parents views of what they want in this family, this team are much different. Our parents hopefully want what is right for the child and the child just wants the love; all of the love. So when you have more than one child, there becomes a pull from each sibling to receive the most love. The article goes on to say that the middle child is usually cared for less by the parents even without the parents realizing it. So the suicide-death rates in middle children is higher. Scientist see teen suicide attempts as a way for deep attention from their parent that they need. (I believe there are other factors and the article notes at that but doesn't go into them). And middle children are more likely to succeed in committing suicide rather than the youngest/oldest counterparts because their need for attention is much higher. They will go to more extreme risks for love from their parents.

This is interesting to me but not really relevant to my project. There were two things that did resonant for me though. “Mark Twain noted, 'When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned.'” - Pelusi

This quote from Mark Twain about how as a child he thought his father didn't understand him, as most teenagers do. Then as an adult at twenty-one could see that his father had always loved him and Twain realizes that his father really does know him. The author of the article also feels that after becoming an adult he had the courage to ask his father why all those years he felt neglected from him. His father tells him that he felt that his new opportunities were over after having him. This sentiment from his father is not unconditional love. It is something that as children we might have some understanding of but do not fully comprehend until adulthood. This misinformation, or confusion as children is interesting to me. And then the complete thought that you then understand the ways of your world as an adult is interesting. Its the constant learning and reinterpreting that your brain does everyday that changes how you felt about everything. Childhood is perceived in many different ways because of the reevaluation we do as adults. Like I've posted before, memories are constantly changing and they are never real. Our childhoods are now much different from when they originated. I want to make work on this change. This “awakened” understanding of our own past. The way we might be able to see our old child self as something more scary or sad than we might have experienced it.

The queen of daddy issues:

“And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I'm finally through. “

-Sylvia Plath

Plath realizes the harshness of her father and learns to throw him out. I want to incorporate issues with parents in the work. I also don't want to the parents to have a solidified role in the work, just outside players to the children in the work.

Pelusi, Nando. "Parents and Children in Conflict | Psychology Today." Psychology Today. Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist. 01 Jan. 2007. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200612/parents-and-children-in-conflict?page=2.

Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy - Sylvia Plath." Internal.org Poets. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. http://www.internal.org/Sylvia_Plath/Daddy