CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: Emotionally Distant Parents and a Good Grandma But a Not-So-Good Mom

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Description:  In this episode of the Calling Home podcast, Whitney is answering more of your questions. The first caller is looking for advice on how to navigate a relationship with emotionally and physically distant parents. Then, our second caller wants to discuss a difficult relationship with her mother, who views her as an extension of herself.  Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Head over to cozyearth.com and use promo code "callinghome" for an exclusive 35% off. Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram or TikTok.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider, and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home’s Terms of Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. Welcome back to another caller question episode of the calling home podcast. This is the episode where you call in, ask me your questions, and I answer. If you ever want to be featured on an episode or want to get my take on a situation that you're in with a family member, you can leave me a voicemail at 866-2-25-4-66. All right, let's hear from our first caller.

Hey, Whitney, I wanted to thank you for launching a podcast as another resource. I really enjoy your Instagram account. I wanted to ask you for some resources and insight for adult child relationships with their emotionally distant and physically distant parents. When I look for things online, I see so many resources geared towards those parents that are struggling with letting go of their adult children. But I'm finding very little information as an adult child with parents that had me when they were in their very, very early 20s. They were on survival mode for so many years, never really quite figured out how to be those parents that, were present and provide nurturing and support. And then as I have become an adult, they still are retiring and they still haven't figured

it out. And there's no real interest in them figuring out how to be the kind of parents that I want them to be, and I'm sure that they would want to be if they knew how. And I need to figure out what is it going to look like for us moving forward. I guess in a sense, I need to let go. So I'd love to hear more about this on your podcast. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for calling in.

I can hear in this caller's voice that, like, you have a lot of deep empathy for your parents and you've worked really hard to try to understand them and the reasons why they are the way they are, maybe why they're lacking in certain areas. And I think this is something that I see a lot among adult children who are trying to figure this out is like there is a considerable amount of time spent trying to consider how the parent got to this place, what they were experiencing, and why they

had so much trouble. And I think that that's really admirable when you can do that, when your relationship allows for it. There are certain, of course, situations where there is no explanation. It was just wrong and it shouldn't have happened. But there are situations that other people go through where you're right. It's like the parent was in survival mode. They were young. They didn't have the skills or the resources or the understanding. They were totally flying blind. And it's it's like crazy as an adult, you know, when you get to that age to realize like, oh my gosh, my parents had kids at this time. And like, how are they doing this? And it all sort of starts to make sense of like why there was so much struggle. But what I'm also hearing,

in what you're saying is that like okay they're not doing anything now about it though things really aren't changing and I don't know where to go from here if I have all this understanding of them and all this empathy and all this awareness but like our relationship isn't really changing and this is I think where that piece of acceptance comes in and I have an entire module on the calling home website calling home.co called accepting your parents where I have tons of worksheets, articles, videos, all about this. But I'll give you a little bit of background that like this acceptance piece is really just coming to this place of like, these are my parents.

This is what they can offer me. This is who they are. This is what they're capable of in this moment. If nothing changes. If they don't become radically different people, this is what I've got. And if this is what I've got, what is my relationship with them going to look like? Is it going to be very close? Is it going to be distant? Do I need to take a break? Do I need to have a limited relationship with them? Do I need to limit what I talk to them about or how often I talk to them?

Do I need to stop going to them for advice on certain topics? Do I need to stop having the same fight with them? or looking for an apology or recognition in this area, like what is it going to take for me to release myself from this desire to have different parents? And accepting them doesn't mean that you say, okay, everything's great and I'm going to do whatever they say and I'm going to have a perfect relationship with them. For some people, yeah, they can get to that place.

But for others listening, it might be this reality that like my parent cannot meet me where I'm out on anything emotionally. They cannot be there for me when I'm hurting. They cannot show empathy to me. They cannot seek understanding. They can't ask me questions. But my parent can help me with things physically. They show interest in things that I'm doing in my life. They show up to events or holidays. And if I say, that's what my parents capable of. That's what they can do. then maybe I can adjust and I can stop calling them when I'm upset and I can stop asking them to support me emotionally and I can finally accept that they do not have that capability and I'm not saying that's an easy process or that there isn't a ton of grief involved in having to

accept that your parent will not do any work to like improve in those things but there are also some of you that have parents that can't necessarily become different people in certain areas. You know, if you have a parent that has a disability, that has a mental illness, that has a physical illness, like you have to accept certain things about them. And those are things that maybe aren't necessarily their fault. And that doesn't mean that you don't set boundaries around their behavior or what you can accept. But I think every adult on the planet in some way is grieving sort of this idealized image of who they thought their parent would be in adulthood and what they would be capable of and what that relationship would look like

and having to adjust to reality. And some people are grieving this way more than others because their parent is still being abusive and harmful and cruel. And some people are grieving that like their parent has Alzheimer's or dementia or cancer and they can't. And they can't babysit or play with their kids or show up to events and you know it's all hard like it's all this this acceptance of like this isn't what i thought it would be it's different i don't like it i wouldn't have designed it this way and it's what i've got and so i have to figure out a way to make this work and this exists along the spectrum of having a very close interconnected relationship with your parent where you were in constant contact with them and you're spending all this time

with them and being estranged from that parent. And there is a huge gap of options in the middle of those two extremes. And I think when you fully reach a place of acceptance, and there's a lot of different tools to work through this on the website, you will be able to see a roadmap of where this is possible. When you look at your parent and say, this is how they are, this is what they always do if i know my parent i know that they're going to do x and when you accept that you you you get to decide you get power back you get understanding of like this is what i can and cannot do and it makes things so much easier because you're you're not surprised anymore you're not setting yourself up for failure or like continuing to jump into this like

what word am I looking for this loop of like, oh, I want them to be different. I want them to show up differently. I want them to behave in this way. So I'm going to try one more time. And then they disappoint you. And you're like, okay, maybe I'll try a little bit different this way. And it doesn't work. And it's exhausting. And so I think this all comes back to acceptance. And acceptance isn't about liking it, co-signing it, wanting it, wishing for it. It's just about saying this is what is. It is not going to be different today. And if it's different tomorrow, I will adjust. I know that's a hard one. And that is really why I wanted to dive into this at Calling Home. So if you're listening to this and feeling like I really could use some help with this,

please go to the website, www.callinghome.com. And you click on content at the top and then you'll see the accepting your parents module. That could be a really, really helpful resource. I'll have that page linked in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for calling in, and I hope that helps. I'm so excited to share cozy earth with you today because I think as moms, sleep is something that is so, so difficult, especially when you have those young children who really aren't sleeping a lot and maybe you've been prioritizing their comfort. They have all the best blankets, the right mattress, and you are just not really feeling special at bedtime. If that's the case for you, cozy earth bedding is the best. It's temperature regulating. It's super soft. The fabric is

amazing and they use special materials and weave. All their products also come with a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty, which is so amazing because you can actually like make a commitment to this when you feel comfortable and you love the product. So if you want to incorporate something into your sleep and self-care routine, I definitely recommend cozy earth, treat your mother, a mother you love, or yourself to the ultimate comfort and indulgence with cozy earth bedding and sleepwear because you deserve it and she deserves it. The promo code is calling home. C-A-L-L-I-N-G-H-O-M-E. That's calling home all one word for 35% off at cozy earth.com. I'm calling about my mom today. She and I have a really difficult relationship,

at least to me. She probably wouldn't say that, but she grew up very religiously, and she and my dad married when I was about six, and she's always been really strict. Like, she's really concerned with pleasing her parents because she grew up as a missionary kid and was sent to boarding school. And so she's always wanting to make them happy. And so, for instance, like when I got tattoos, because I'm not crazy religious, and she really had a problem with that, and I was an adult and I was married. And she was really concerned with me making sure that they didn't know about it.

And I've tried to have honest conversations with her, but she still treats me like, I'm a child and has always sided with other people and basically gaslights me and makes excuses if I ever have an issue and she and my dad would have fights about me because he's not as strict and she would tell me as an adult that it was my fault that I was creating problems in their relationship when I would go to my dad. It would upset her. And I'm a very open and honest communicator and I've tried having conversations with her, but they just don't seem to resolve anything and usually go really.

wrong. I think she senses that something's wrong, but I've just created walls in an attempt to like protect myself and create boundaries. But my kids really adore her and she really is a good grandma. She's just not a great mom. Any help for advice would be appreciated. Thank you. I think that line at the end is so hard, right? She's a really good grandma. She's just not a good mom. And I think it's admirable and impressive that you're able to like recognize that for your children and hold that reality that like she has being good to them even if she's not being good to me that's it's a hard thing to do not everybody can do that and i imagine that took some work on your part from what i can hear about this interaction or this relationship between this mother and this

daughter, it sounds like a situation maybe if I had to guess where the daughter is seen as an extension of the mother or a reflection. And this happens a lot where like anything that the daughter does, you know, you mentioned tattoos, anything the daughter does to her body that the daughter does publicly is a reflection of the mother, even in adulthood. And it's this feeling that like you are me and I am you. So when you do things, that are not in line with who I am or that are different than the choices I would make, it reflects poorly on me. And in adulthood, we certainly want to feel like we are our own individuals and you have your own beliefs and convictions and ideas about what you want to do

with your body and what religion you want to practice and all of this. And when that is in conflict with a mother who feels like, no, you are an extension of me, there's always is going to be conflict. And so I don't know that you can change a mother like that. She has to want to do it herself and she has to become aware of that reality. But I think part of the work that someone could do in this position is becoming really strong in your belief that you are your own person and you are separate from your mother and you are an adult with power and agency over your body, your mind, your belief system, your choices, and that if that is threatening to how your mother sees herself, that's her stuff. And I know that's easier said than done.

And you want your mother, of course. You're always going to have this desire for your mother to approve of you and to be there for you and to be understanding and supportive and be a cheerleader of your decisions. Like that that's what everybody wants to some degree. And when you can't get that, it's painful. But your mother has to separate her identity from yours and not see it as a threat when it's different because you are your own person. And you're not ever going to be exactly like her and you shouldn't be. And so I think when you start living in alignment with just like this is who I am, whether I got her approval or not, and I feel very strong in that conviction, it becomes easier to disappoint her. And it becomes easier to let her, like, kind of

sit with her own pain. You also brought up this idea of, like, being blamed for discord between the parents. And I think that's, that's unfortunate. And that doesn't help. Adults need to be responsible for their interactions between one another and not blame it on the child and that's not your fault. That's their problem for not being able to handle that. And that that's another example I think of maybe where there's this connection between mother and daughter where the mother is like also putting things on the daughter that are not her fault and seeing her as part of the marriage or interference in the marriage. And that's tricky. So I hope that you can, you know, anybody who feels like this can release that feeling of like,

and things that belonged to my mother were my fault because that's not that's not reality and that's misplaced blame for sure. This is a challenging one though and I hope that this gives you some confidence to move forward in a different way. Thank you so much for calling. much for calling in with those amazing questions this week. I love getting to speak with each of you and learn more about the difficult things that your families are going through and hopefully help you navigate some of those situations. If you have your own situation that you're working through with an adult family member, please don't hesitate to call 866-225-5-4-66 and leave me a voicemail. I may choose your question for an upcoming

Thursday Q&A episode of the Calling Home podcast. If you would like to join the calling home community and interact with other family cycle breakers in groups, work on worksheets, read articles, and take everything you're learning from this podcast to the next level, you can join me at calling home.com inside the family cycle breakers club. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman.

For more information on this, please see Calling Home's terms of service linked in the show notes below.