Sometimes family reunions can make us feel like someone we are no longer or have never been. In the eyes of our parents, perhaps we will continue to be this undecided child or this rebellious teenager?Sometimes, for our parents, we’re still the same kids. of the past, even when we are already independent adults.
It is common to say that there is no storm bigger than the one that erupts from traditional family gatherings on vacation or at Christmas, for example, however, as we already know, there are families of all colors and flavors, there are those where harmony, respect and good humor reign, and there are also those in which spite gets stuck like thorns in those rigid and ineffective bonds that steal your breath and torment you.
“All families are happy and unhappy in their own way. -Leon Tolst-i-
However, beyond considering these realities as one-off, behind it is a phenomenon that is not talked about much, today, because of the economic crisis, it is common for many young people who have gained independence to find the independence with no choice but to live with their parents again.
Often, the feeling of failure in the professional sphere is sometimes added to the fact that we have to assume a role that has already been left behind, a role that sometimes builds one’s own family dynamic and has little to do with the person. we are today.
For our parents, uncles or grandparents, part of our childhood is always present, we are still, in a way, the middle brother, who spent all day imitating the older brother and envying the benefits of the younger brother. That the memory of what they called “bad mood” is still alive in your memory. because we were very difficult, uncontrollable and angry.
When in reality it is perhaps this temperament that has led us to be who we are today: proactive, creative and dynamic people, qualities that give us great satisfaction. Features that in the past we have considered negative by the constant comments of our parents, asking us to “change”, to “improve”, until we gradually realized that we had no reason to do so. Because they weren’t flaws, they were true virtues.
However, and this happens often, when you go home or go to family reunions, you just have to say or do something to hear things like, “How are you not flexible, what personality do you have?”
Almost without knowing how, we return to the role of the past, to the role of a rebellious or conformist son, the achievements of the present do not matter, nor does it matter what pride we have of ourselves, because in many families there is an unconscious tendency to attribute to its members its past roles, this position self-built by our parents.
This type of event, which is also common, has a very interesting explanation: in a study at the University of Illinois it was explained that within a family system, almost nothing works independently.
In any family, there is a set of unconscious rules and constructs in which each member must behave as expected, at the same time, standards are created from which everyone must act, as was the case in the past.
One thing is certainly very complex when sometimes you find you in the situation of having to go home because of financial or personal problems.
Sometimes you just have to go through the door of the family home to feel that you are back in the past, in some situations this situation is pleasant, even comforting, however, for many people, family gatherings involve resuming unresolved conflicts, reliving differences that have become real oceans, or even taking up a role that they had already left behind.
What we were or what others thought we were in the past has little to do with who we are today, and that must be understood by the people who are part of our social environment, it is in our hands to make them see and understand this. , avoiding taking up the role that our family expects and thus managing to change the patterns of the past that only generate dissatisfaction.
Because few things can be healthier in a family than enjoying the freedom with which we show who we really are.