Parents: Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

Last night, Mrs. Wit and I invited ourselves to dinner at her parents' house. Now is the perfect time to tell them that we are getting divorced. Mrs. Wit's sister is out of the country, so we can have time alone with the folks without a three-ring circus of kids, toys and five different conversations swirling around us. Besides, the sister-in-law specifically asked us to tell them while she was gone so that she would not have to answer all the questions that they will never ask us.

Mrs. Wit has been worried about this moment for some time now. She's worried about her parents' reaction, or possible lack of reaction. They will surely pucker up like like they have been force-fed a bottle of Real Lemon. They will most likely be speechless, but the disapproval will be obvious on their faces. Worst case, they will quickly change the subject to something inconsequential. They have a difficult time with feelings.

Mrs. Wit has always had a strained relationship with her parents. As a little girl, they were exasperated with her shyness and figured the way to cure it was to put her on the spot with relatives and guests to the house. Later, they thought they could just order her to be more social. They tried to make her hang out with the popular girls and try out for the cheerleader squad, and were aggravated and confounded that she did not. They were popular in high school, they figured, so why couldn't she be?

Soon, life became a battle of wills between Mrs. Wit and her parents. She wanted to take ice skating lessons. Instead, they made her take tennis. She wanted to play the piano. They made her play flute. They hated the boyfriends she liked - the ones that were shy and thoughtful - and liked the ones she hated - the ones that were polite and well-spoken to the parents and attacked her as soon as they pulled out of the driveway.

All through high school, they treated her like she was possessed by a demon. They called her slut for dating two guys in the space of three weeks. They thought she was a degenerate drunk and drug abuser that fucked every guy she met. The truth was that she drank some and smoked a little pot and slept with two guys all through high school. Still, she graduated with a 3.6 GPA. She was no bad girl.

They never once in her life hugged her, touched her or told her that they loved her. In 22 years, I've heard her mother say it once. Never heard the father say it. Growing up, she wasn't allowed to speak at the dinner table. If she frowned during dinner, she was sent to her room. When dad watched tv, Mrs. Wit and her sister were not allowed in the room. She was expected to wait in the hall until a commercial, then go to the kitchen and wash dishes until the show came back on. He didn't want to hear the sound of the kitchen while he watched. It could take an hour and a half to complete the task. She also was not allowed to run water while her father slept. No showers or brushing teeth in the morning, no flushing the toilet at night.

When she went to college, they told her that they were glad to see her go. After a month at school, she caught a ride home for the weekend. Her parents refused to let her in the house. They said that she had not been away long enough and needed to get used to living alone. She had to find a friend to stay with for the weekend.

By the time I met Mrs. Wit a year later, she was barely speaking to her parents. I tried to help them reconcile, which they did, slowly. Things were much better toward the end of our sophomore year, when I asked her to marry me. She accepted, but her freaked-out parents made her promise not to get married until after graduation. She agreed.

But then came summer school. My plan was to go up to Flagstaff and spend the summer in the cool pines, attend Northern Arizona University and live with my parents. Camille decided to also go to NAU and stay in the dorm. Her parents said she could stay at the University of Arizona or come home and go to Arizona State. We decided that we would both go to Uof A and stay in the dorm. Nope, they changed their minds and now they wanted her to just come home. Now it was clear. It had nothing to do with educational choices, it was about keeping us apart. We did some calculations and figured that if we were careful with our money, we could get an apartment and and pay our own tuition.

Sure enough, when we told them that we were moving in together, they threatened to cut her off financially. She told them to go ahead, we could handle it. Then they offered to take her to Europe for three weeks and buy her a new car if she would just come home. We moved into the apartment and paid our own way through school. We also went ahead and got married after our junior year.

With all this behind us by twenty years, it is still amazing how much Mrs. Wit still hates to tell them anything. As we approached the house, she became very nervous about breaking the news Soon after out arrival, the in-laws launched into a rant about how stupid a person in this city would have to be to buy a condominium. They didn't know that Mrs. Wit and I had spent the day condo shopping while prospective buyers looked at our house.

Right then, I could see that Mrs. Wit was aborting the mission. We would just have dinner and make pleasant conversation for the rest of the night. In fact, it was one of the best nights we've ever had with them.

Why do parents keep such a psychological hold on us, long after they've ceased to actually run our lives?