{"id":76,"date":"2009-12-31T11:14:31","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T19:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisabravermoss.wordpress.com\/?p=76"},"modified":"2022-06-10T17:03:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T17:03:15","slug":"a-different-silver-spoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/a-different-silver-spoon\/","title":{"rendered":"A Different Silver Spoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

An October 19th<\/sup> New York Times<\/em> essay entitled \u201cWhen Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate\u201d addresses the issue of adults dealing with parents who aren\u2019t merely demanding or neurotic, but truly emotionally abusive.\u00a0 Sometimes, contends author Dr. Richard A. Friedman, the solution is to cease contact.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m always grateful for articles that question our society\u2019s kneejerk respect-your-parents ethic; this is very grounding for those of us who didn\u2019t happen to score in the Mom and Dad department.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think cutting off contact with destructive parents will necessarily free you.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve had a rough childhood, it can take a long time just to figure out what happened, let alone heal from it.\u00a0 In the meantime, you\u2019re susceptible in a zillion different ways to whatever version of your parents\u2019 insanity you\u2019ve internalized\u2014regardless of whether you interact with them.<\/p>\n

Last week, when I was hanging out in the park with my dog, a middle-aged gentleman whom I didn\u2019t know remarked that the dog was \u201cfunny -looking.\u201d\u00a0 When I indicated that the dog was mine, I thought he would stop, but he just kept going with his critique of body proportions and hair style.\u00a0 Having grown up with fault-finding parents who didn\u2019t respect personal boundaries, the interaction was all too familiar.<\/p>\n

Where most people might want to tell the man that he, his dog, and mother were all<\/em> funny-looking, I had a different set of unspoken responses.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t I want to know it if I\u2019m committing a hair crime against my beloved pooch?\u00a0 Sure, I find my dog singularly adorable, but what if that\u2019s a sign of my inability to be objective?\u00a0 Has my own defensiveness or ego made me mushy in other areas of my life, too?<\/p>\n

I tried to joke around with the guy\u2014and probably made it worse with self-deprecation.\u00a0 Meanwhile, my inner questions were wacky and exhausting.\u00a0 Though I have much better tools than I once did to recognize and overcome my slips into nutty thinking, it can still be a challenge for me to distinguish between other people\u2019s bad behavior and some important truth I\u2019m supposed to be paying attention to.<\/p>\n

When we talk of the silver spoon, we\u2019re recognizing the good fortune of people born into money and privilege. \u00a0We also acknowledge other God-given advantages in life\u2014looks, brains, talent and physical health.\u00a0 In all these areas, we\u2019re tactful about our endowments; we don\u2019t want to gloat in front of others.<\/p>\n

I often wonder what our society would look like if the idea of the silver spoon were expanded to include people born of two good-enough parents.\u00a0 Would people hesitate to say things like \u201cI feel so close to my mom!\u201d or \u201cMy dad was amazingly inspiring!\u00a0 I learned so much from him!\u201d for fear that they might appear insensitive to the feelings of have-nots?\u00a0 I can tell you, that kind of statement is sometimes tough for me to hear.<\/p>\n

For some, cutting off contact with toxic parents may be the best option.\u00a0 For me, the goal is more to notice my wrong-headed agreement with the craziness, and to try to make a different choice.<\/p>\n

Published in the Piedmont Post<\/em> October 28, 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An October 19th New York Times essay entitled \u201cWhen Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate\u201d addresses the issue of adults dealing with parents who aren\u2019t merely demanding or neurotic, but truly emotionally abusive.\u00a0 Sometimes, contends author Dr. Richard A. Friedman, the solution is to cease contact. I\u2019m always grateful for articles that question our society\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72,73,74],"yoast_head":"\nA Different Silver Spoon - Lisa Braver Moss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/a-different-silver-spoon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Different Silver Spoon - Lisa Braver Moss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An October 19th New York Times essay entitled \u201cWhen Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate\u201d addresses the issue of adults dealing with parents who aren\u2019t merely demanding or neurotic, but truly emotionally abusive.\u00a0 Sometimes, contends author Dr. Richard A. 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