The family that fights together… - family disagreements

Commonweal, June 3, 1994 by William Houghton

I always liked doing things together as a family--gathering for dinner, summer vacations at the lake, going out to buy the Christmas tree--but I knew that the true and necessary balance to togetherness was the time you had to strike off on your own, even if it meant an argument.

My dad was a crusty general practitioner with strong opinions about politics and personal morality. He easily flared into anger, and as a small boy I dreaded his criticisms. Watching from behind a curtain, I once saw him become so enraged at an uncle that he lunged across a room and took a swing at him. He sometimes cut people off for years. Although he toiled with care to treat his patients, did delicate surgery gently, and magically shaped a charcoal sketch into a three-dimensional portrait, when roused to anger he was wild and, in my eyes, an unpredictable animal. I lived in dread of his turning his ministrations on me.

My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps. In high school and the first few years of college, I told him and others that I might become an English teacher, or even that "I will be a bum, and hitchhike around the country." I knew how to get his goat. Then he would lean more heavily on me, and urge me to at least try medicine (as if it were a one-semester course). When the end of college drew near and I realized that being a bum would not really satisfy me, I decided to apply to several medical schools. But then the conflict between my father and me shifted to a more complex terrain.

He insisted on reading the applications I had filled out, to be sure I had not said the wrong thing. I was determined not to let him. Partly I wanted to hide one particular application to a prestigious Eastern school in which I had mentioned "bearhunting" as one of my favorite leisure-time activities, so desperate was I to be colorful, even though I have never done any sort of hunting. But mostly I wanted to stand for a principle, against my father, that the application would be entirely mine.

We sat across the kitchen table from each other and he glared at me. "Bill, you must let me see those forms." I shook with fear that he would leap across the table and grab my throat, even though I knew he probably wouldn't. I drew in some of his own intensity and said as strongly as I could, "No. The envelopes are sealed and I will not open them." He relented, and I mailed the applications uncensored.

That was the day I cut free and began to stand tall as my own person. To my surprise, I saw I had the power to make him back off, and once that happened, we began to respect each other as equals. It was only then that I became free to appreciate his good qualities. It would not have happened if we didn't argue, approach violence, and break the bond of togetherness.

My applications went well enough; there were acceptances (including the Eastern school); and I have stuck with medicine since then. Only long after did I realize that my father had given in gracefully enough, and I began to wonder whether he was half as ferocious as I had thought him to be. I saw that the bit of freedom I had snatched with those envelopes was relatively small compared to my larger loyalty to him.

After I married, I thought I was through with fights and growing up. Then my wife and I repeated the same process with our children. Sure, we were close and cuddly when they were little, but even then, sometimes when I wanted to hold one of their hands crossing a busy street, they would shake me off. When they became adolescents, they turned into willful beasts, who called out the beast in me. My oldest daughter specialized in slamming doors. The walls shook, the windows rattled, and the silence that followed left our hearts pounding. At fourteen, she insisted on traveling a great distance to a concert in a high-risk neighborhood. I yelled that I would lock her up. She screamed that she would take an overdose. I was appalled at her behavior, and at mine. I was afraid of the father in me: Was I turning into him?! That went on for years, she and I each won a few rounds, and both of us came to feel freer and tougher.

My son drew the line on any room-cleaning, and then on any mutual agreement for a curfew. He was defiant in his efforts to break free and take his own stand. My wife and I were furious at his betrayal and pigheadedness, and the familiar fear of violence and rupture pounded in my ears. We battled that way for several years, nearly coming to blows, till he moved apart and set up his own digs. The ultimatum, "comply, or exile," seems the logical endpoint young adults are seeking. It is an "out" for them from too much closeness. Once the stakes are set and the rage at external control is expressed, the air is cleared and everyone breathes more easily, whether they move on or not.

My wife and I got plenty of experience in the art of giving in, but tried to hold on to a few tattered, eternal principles. After four or five years of battle--it only seems like the Thirty Years War--the offspring and parents can feel separate and equal. Once again there are times when we now feel warm and together. I see that they now want to stand next to me, not holding my hand, but free to reach out if they want to.