Katy and Her Aging Father
Katy is a fifty-year-old homemaker whose youngest child has just left home for college. Her father is a seventy-two-year-old retired teacher who has been widowed for ten years and who is in moderately poor health. Katy called me at the Menninger Foundation because she had heard that I was an “anger expert.” During our initial telephone conversation, she described a pattern that has been the source of her anger for almost a decade.
“My father has a big problem,” she explained, with unveiled desperation in her voice. “He makes excessive demands on me, especially since he can’t drive anymore because he lost some vision following a stroke. I’m supposed to take him shopping when he calls and drive him to his appointments. He asks me to do things for him in his apartment and then criticizes me for not doing them right. There are many things he could do for himself, but he acts like a big baby. Sometimes he calls me two or three times in one day. When I tell him no, he withdraws and makes me feel guilty. I’m really at the end of my rope.”
When I met with Katy for the first time and requested clarification, I heard more of the same:
“What is your problem as you see it?”
KATY: “My problem is that my father doesn’t realize I have my own life. He thinks my world should revolve around him. Since my mother’s death, he uses me to fill in the empty space and take over.”
“What, specifically, have you said to your father about the problem?”
KATY: “’Father, you have to realize that I have my own life and that you are asking too much. I wish you would stop making me feel guilty when I don’t come around. I think you need to get out and meet people and not just isolate yourself and rely on me.’”
“How does your father respond to this?”
KATY: “He gets upset and won’t speak to me for a while. Or sometimes he starts talking about his poor health and he makes me feel so guilty that it’s not worth it.”
“What do you do then?”
KATY: “Nothing. Nothing works—that is why I’m here.”
What was striking, and also quite typical, about Katy’s brief synopsis was that everything she said was about her father:
“My father doesn’t realize I have my own life.”
“My father thinks my world should revolve around him.”
“My father uses me.”
“My father asks too much.”
“My father makes me feel guilty.”
“My father needs to get out and meet people.”
Katy is doing what most of us do when we are angry. She is judging, blaming, criticizing, moralizing, preaching, instructing, interpreting, and psychoanalyzing. There is not one statement from Katy that is truly about her own self.
As you read ahead, keep in mind the lessons you have learned from the previous chapters. Katy’s problem with her father has certain similarities to Maggie’s problem with her mother. Struggle a bit with your own thoughts and reactions to the questions that follow before reading mine.
Is Katy’s Father Wrong to Make Such Demands? I don’t know. Who among us can say with certainty how many demands this particular seventy-two-year-old widowed father should rightfully make on his grown daughter? If we were to ask ten different people for their opinion, we might get ten different answers, depending on the respondent’s age, religion, nationality, socioeconomic class, sibling position, and family background. If I were in Katy’s shoes, I would probably also complain that my father was “too demanding.” But that’s because I’m me. Another person in the same spot might feel happy to be so needed.
If we are searching for the ultimate “truth” of the matter (How much should a parent ask? How much should a daughter give?), we may be failing to appreciate that there are multiple ways of perceiving the same situation and that people think, feel, and react differently. If I persist in repeating this point, it is because it is an extremely difficult concept to grasp, and hold on to, when we are angry. Conflicting wants and different perceptions of the world do not mean that one party is “right” and the other is “wrong.”
Does Katy Have a Right to be Angry? Is Her Anger at Her Father Legitimate? Of course. As I stated earlier, feeling angry is neither right nor wrong, legitimate nor illegitimate. We have a right to everything we feel, and Katy’s anger deserves her attention and respect. But Katy’s right to be angry does not mean that her father is to blame. Rather, Katy’s chronic anger and resentment is a signal that she needs to re-evaluate her participation in her interactions with her father and consider how she might move differently in this important relationship.
What’s Wrong with Katy’s Communications to Her Dad? For starters, Katy is not being particularly tactful or strategic. Few people are able to listen well when they are being criticized or told what’s wrong with them. Unless Katy has a remarkably flexible father, her statements are likely to elicit further defensiveness on his part and make it less likely that she will be heard.
Second, Katy’s communications convey that she is an expert on her father’s experience. Katy diagnoses her father as a selfish, neurotic, and demanding man who is using his daughter to fill up the empty space left by his deceased wife. This psychological interpretation may or may not fit. There are countless other possible explanations for father’s behavior, as well.
Diagnosing the other person is a favorite pastime for most of us when stress is high. Although it can reflect a wish to provide a truly helpful insight, more often it is a subtle form of blaming and one-upmanship. When we diagnose, we assume that we can know what another person really thinks, feels, or wants, or how the other person should think, feel, or behave. But we can’t know these things for sure. It is difficult enough to know these things about our own selves.
Who Has the Problem? “My father has a big problem. He makes excessive demands on me.” These statements—Katy’s opening words to me on the phone—reflect her conviction that it is her father who has the problem. And yet, from Katy’s description, her father is able to identify his wishes, state them clearly, and even get what he wants.
Katy has the problem. She has yet to find a way to identify and clarify her own limits with her father so that she is not left feeling bitter and resentful. It is Katy who is struggling and in pain. This is her problem.
To say that Katy has a problem, however, is not to imply that she is wrong or to blame or at fault. “Who has the problem?” is a question that has nothing to do with guilt or culpability. The one who has the problem is simply the party who is dissatisfied with or troubled by a particular situation.
What Is Katy’s Problem? Katy’s problem is that she has not sorted out some major questions in her own mind: “What is my responsibility for my own life, and what is my responsibility toward my father?” “What is being selfish, and what is being true to my own wants and priorities?” “What amount of help can I give to my father without feeling angry or resentful?” Not until she comes up with clear-cut answers to these difficult questions can she meet her father on a different plane.
Katy’s problem is not that her father “makes” her feel guilty. Another person cannot “make” us feel guilty; they can only try. Katy’s father will predictably give her a hard time if she shifts the old pattern, but she alone is responsible for her own feelings—guilt included.
Surely, there are no simple answers. What would your reaction be if Katy were to clarify new limits with her father? Would you view her as selfish or would you cheer her new claim to selfhood? Who knows? How many of us can distinguish with confidence where our responsibilities to others begin and end? How can women—trained from birth to define ourselves through our loving care of others—know with confidence when it is time to finally say “Enough!”?
“A woman’s work is never done” was the credo that Katy had lived out with her children, and now that the youngest was leaving home, she was continuing the drama with her elderly father. Katy, I learned, had been “giving” for most of her life, as her mother and grandmother had
before her. Deep down, she felt too scared and guilty to reveal that long-buried part of herself that wanted to put forth her own needs and begin to take. Katy had devoted herself so exclusively to the needs of others that she had betrayed, if not lost, her own self. She felt the rage of her buried self but hadn’t yet been able to use it in order to make changes.
No matter how much we sympathize or identify with Katy’s situation, it is her problem, nonetheless. This is not to imply that Katy is neurotic, misguided, or wrong. Nor is it to say that she is the “cause” of her dilemma. The rules and roles of our families and society make it especially difficult for women to define ourselves apart from the wishes and expectations of others—and negative reactions from others, when we begin to pay primary attention to the quality and direction of our own lives, may certainly invite us to become anxious and guilty.
If however, we do not use our anger to define ourselves clearly in every important relationship we are in—and manage our feelings as they arise—no one else will assume this responsibility for us.
Harnessing Unclarity
Katy sought my help because she wanted to “do something” with her father and she wanted me to tell her what that something was. The fact of the matter was that Katy—like most women—had more than enough people telling her what to do. Her mother, by example, had taught her that selflessness, self-sacrifice, and service were a woman’s calling, and now Katy’s friends were telling her that self-assertion was the key to her liberation. “Don’t say yes when you really mean no” was the most oft-repeated statement that Katy heard from her advisers, until she herself began to believe that her problem might be solved if she could only find the courage to mutter this unspeakable two-letter word.
What Katy really needed to do was to calm down and do nothing, at least for a while. It is not wise to make decisions or to attempt to change a relationship at a time when we are feeling angry and intense. Also, Katy has really not thought very much about her situation, because she is too busy reacting to it.
Katy would get off to a good start if she stopped blaming and diagnosing her father. She could begin to recognize that it is her job to separate herself a bit from his wishes and expectations in order to clarify her own values, to evaluate her own choices and priorities and to make decisions regarding what she will and will not do. Katy could also recognize that she is not yet clear about these things and does not know how to solve her problem. Acknowledging our unclarity is, in itself, a significant step.
What could Katy do next? What can any of us do when we feel angry in reaction to demands being placed upon us but see no new options for changing our behavior? Our anger signals a problem, but it provides us with no answers—not even a clue—as to how to solve it. Anger is simply something we feel—or allow ourselves to feel. At the same time it tells us that we need to slow down and think more clearly about the self, our anger can make clear thinking difficult indeed!
At this point, Katy’s task is not to “do something” with her anger, although criticizing her father and inviting others to do the same may bring her short-term relief or at least a sense of moral superiority. In terms of lasting change, Katy’s job is to strive to achieve a lower degree of emotional reactivity and a higher degree of self-clarity. How? Katy will become clearer about her convictions and options if she does the following: First, she can share her problem with other family members, including her father; second, she can gather data about how other relatives—especially the women in her family—have dealt with similar problems over the generations.
“Dad, I Have a Problem”
When Katy told her father a little about her problem, it was a high-anxiety moment and no less significant than Maggie’s talk with her mother. By calmly sharing something about where she stood on an emotional issue in the family, Katy shifted the old rigid pattern in the relationship. The conversation went something like this:
“You know, Dad, I have a problem. I haven’t figured out how to balance the responsibility I feel toward you and the responsibility I feel toward myself. Last week when I took you shopping two times and also drove you to your doctor’s appointment, I found myself feeling tense and uncomfortable, because I really wanted some of that time just for me. But when I say no and go about my own personal business, I end up feeling guilty—like I’m looking over my shoulder to see how you’re doing.”
“Well, if I’m that much of a burden, I can just stay away,” father said coldly. He looked as if he had been physically struck.
Katy had prepared herself for her father’s countermoves so that she could stand her ground when they came, without getting sucked into that intense field of emotional reactivity that characterized their relationship. “No, Dad,” she replied, “I wouldn’t want that. I’m not saying that you are burdening me. In fact, I would like to get a little better myself at asking people for help. What I’m talking about is my problem getting clear about what feels comfortable for me. I need to figure out how much I can do for you and when I need to say no and put myself first.”
“Katy, you surprise me,” said her father. “Your mother took care of both her parents when they were old and she never complained about it. Your mother would certainly not be very proud of you.”
“I know what you mean, Dad.” Katy refused to bite the bait and she continued to calmly address her own issue. “I was always impressed by Mom’s willingness to take care of both her parents. It seemed to me that she had an amazing capacity to be giving, without feeling short-changed or resentful. But I’m not Mom. I’m different, and I really don’t think I could do that. I guess I am more selfish than Mother was.”
There was an awkward silence, which her father broke: “Well, Katy, is there something I’m supposed to do about this problem of yours?” The mixture of sarcasm and hurt in his voice couldn’t be missed.
For a moment, Katy felt that old pressure to give her father advice and suggest ways that he could meet people and make use of the resources available to him. She knew from experience, however, that it didn’t work. Instead, she stayed on course and continued to discuss her own problem:
“I wish someone else could solve my problem and make my decisions for me, but I know that’s really my job.” Katy became thoughtful. “Actually, Dad, it would be helpful to me, in my attempts to get clear about all this, if you could share some of your own experience with me. Have you ever struggled with anything like this? What was it like for you when your mother became ill and couldn’t take care of herself anymore? Who in the family made the decision to put her in the nursing home, and what was your perspective on that?”
By directly addressing a family issue (in this case, “Who takes care of an elderly parent?”) rather than angrily reacting to it, Katy detoxified the subject by getting it out on the table. As a result, the underground anxiety that surrounds unaddressed emotional issues will diminish and Katy will find that she is able to think more objectively about her situation. In addition, Katy is beginning to question her dad about his own experience with elderly parents. Learning how other family members have handled problems similar to our own, down through the generations, is one of the most effective routes to lowering reactivity and heightening self-clarity. In fact, before Katy could initiate this talk with her dad in so solid a fashion, she had to learn more about the legacy of caretaking in her family background.
LEARNING ABOUT OUR LEGACY
Which women in Katy’s extended family have struggled with a similar problem and how have they attempted to solve it? How have other women in Katy’s family—her sister, aunts, and grandmothers—balanced their responsibility to others with their responsibility to their selves? How successful have they been?
How did it happen that Katy’s mother took on the sole responsibility of caring for her aging parents? What is the perspective of her mother’s sister and brothers about how well this arrangement worked out?
How did decisions get made, down through the generations, about who took care of family members who
were not able to care for themselves?
We are never the first in our family to wrestle with a problem, although it may feel that way. All of us inherit the unsolved problems of our past; and whatever we are struggling with has its legacy in the struggles of prior generations. If we do not know about our own family history, we are more likely to repeat past patterns or mindlessly rebel against them, without much clarity about who we really are, how we are similar to and different from other family members, and how we might best proceed in our own life.
Using our anger effectively requires first and foremost a clear “I,” and women have been blocked from selfhood at every turn. We cannot hope to realize the self, however, in isolation from individuals on our family tree. No book—or psychotherapist, for that matter—can help us with this task if we stay cut off from our roots. Most of us react strongly to family members—especially our mothers—but we do not talk to them in depth and gather data about their experience. We may know virtually nothing about the forces that shaped our parents’ lives as they shaped ours, or how our mothers and grandmothers dealt with problems similar to ours. When we do not know these things, we do not know the self. And without a clear self, rooted in our history, we will be prone to intense angry reactions in all sorts of situations, in response to which we will blame others, distance ourselves, passively comply, or otherwise spin our wheels.
Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships Page 11
